If you live near Durham, NC then you're in luck.
Li Ming's Global Mart asian supermarket has all of the ingredients needed. The store occupies what was previously a Circuit City- it's huge. Like an Asian Super Wal-Mart. They have pallets and pallets of rice in 15-50 pound bags of all varieties up front near the registers. There is an aisle near the back though that has what we're looking for. Maybe a dozen or more brands of sweet rice. I bought Hakubai brand as it says specifically: Ingredients - Glutinous milled rice. It has a high polish to it, almost spherical and is opaque white, not like the clearish sushi rice. Five pound bag was about 7 dollars.
The yeast balls are in a plain cardboard box on the shelf, labeled only 2/ $1.00. They are 2-ball packs in clear cellophane with red writing. Also found on the shelf is a large quantity of red yeast rice in 400g bags, cost $1.99.
My first batch is now two weeks in. I started with 4.5 cups(2 pounds), dry rice. Rinsed once under tap water, drained, then soaked with enough bottled water (from 5 gal jug, Primo brand) to cover for one hour. It expanded to 1.5x volume.
Drained the soaked rice, reserved the liquid. Cooked in 6qt stainless dutch oven pan, total of 7 cups (including the reserved liquid) water, brought to a boil, then low heat until cooked. I put the pan, lid on, onto a cooling rack for most of the day until the temp was down to close to ambient, maybe still just a little warm. By my rough mental math, the overall rice to water ratio is 1:1.5, including the volume absorbed during the soak. I imagine some of it must have steamed away during cooking, so I feel that it is in the ballpark of acceptable ratios discussed in this thread.
Crushed up two 2-ball packs of yeast with a rolling pin, being mindful of not rupturing the package. The plastic is actually quite tough. Added to the cooled rice gradually while stirring with a sanitized stainless steel spoon. It was a thick, sticky mess. Didn't seem wet at all.
Rice+yeast was split into two half gallon sized wide mouth mason jars, washed well and swished with some no-rinse sanitizer. Filled each one up to the 6 cup line: three quarters full.
By 24 hrs, liquefaction of the rice was evident. Ambient temps in the house were only about 65f. Placed on the heat register, by 48hrs an inch of liquid was in the bottom. After a week, half of the mass was liquid. Pressure was evident at this point, lide were left just slightly loose. Aggressive co2 bubbles observable for the past week, still going strong today.
Can hardly wait to try it, smells pleasant. Another batch going today, may add some red yeast rice for comparison. I'll try to get some pics.
I know I've still got two full weeks to go, and I know some folks have had this happen and had it turn out fine - I. Just *really* hope I'm one of 'em.
but Im with ya on the max ethanol!
