Mr_Sunshine
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It's no wonder I can't find any more of these jars at Wal-Mart, everyone on here night them all up!
Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different
- Thread starter sonofgrok
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Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
It's no wonder I can't find any more of these jars at Wal-Mart, everyone on here night them all up!
dgr
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I would guess you can't find them because it's harvest season for hop's cousin. :fro:
Mr_Sunshine said:It's no wonder I can't find any more of these jars at Wal-Mart, everyone on here night them all up!
I would say that production is up.
Here's the two week update on the ARL and alcohol solution experiments. Batch contents from left to right:
1. 1.5 cups jasmine rice, 1 gram ARL.
2. 1.5 cups basmati rice, 1 gram ARL.
3. 1.5 cups long grain white rice, 1 gram ARL.
4. 1.5 cups sweet rice, 1 gram ARL.
5. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
6. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball, 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
Technically, I should have done this yesterday. My schedule was a little busy though, and I didn't end up having time.
No real new observations. The short grain rice appears to have turned into rice soup. That mirrors the original grains experiment. Neither of the alcohol solution experiments seem to have changed at all. That makes it more likely, in my opinion, that the starch hasn't saccharified. It is more likely that the change in texture is due to liquid absorption.
Happy Brewing all!
1. 1.5 cups jasmine rice, 1 gram ARL.
2. 1.5 cups basmati rice, 1 gram ARL.
3. 1.5 cups long grain white rice, 1 gram ARL.
4. 1.5 cups sweet rice, 1 gram ARL.
5. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
6. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball, 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
Technically, I should have done this yesterday. My schedule was a little busy though, and I didn't end up having time.
No real new observations. The short grain rice appears to have turned into rice soup. That mirrors the original grains experiment. Neither of the alcohol solution experiments seem to have changed at all. That makes it more likely, in my opinion, that the starch hasn't saccharified. It is more likely that the change in texture is due to liquid absorption.
Happy Brewing all!
I'm making my first batch!
First a funny story about getting the yeast balls. The first Chinese supermarket I went to, I looked all over and couldn't find them. I asked a man who worked there but he had a hard time understanding what I was looking for, so he took me to a cashier who spoke better English. I didn't want to tell them I was making homemade wine, so I tried explaining it in other terms "dried yeast...rice balls" and my wife was interjecting with things like "yeast, like when you bake." The cashier asks me if it's a powder and, thinking how I'm going to crush the balls into powder, I say yes. She says something in Chinese to the man who then leads us over to the baking powder. I tell him it's still not it, but thank him for his time anyway - he'd been trying to help us for about 10 minutes by that point. As he's turning to walk away, my wife asks me if there's any other way to make the wine. Suddenly, the man stops, turns around, and says to me, "You're making the wine?"
I say yes. Unfortunately, that store was sold out then (are there a lot of Bostonians in this thread?) but he showed me where they normally stock them and told me how to make it - which was the same steps Sonofgrok detailed in his OP. I also asked him to tell me what they're called in Chinese, but my attempt to use the Chinese name in subsequent stores did not help me at all. But two stores later, I bought a package.
On to the wine... I started this last Friday night using 2.5 cups of Jasmine rice and 2 yeast balls. It was my first time steam cooking rice, so I'm worried I didn't cook the rice properly. I'm also worried I didn't let the rice cool off as much as I should've let it before putting it in the jar with the yeast. Anyway, I'm 6 days in at this point and I'm just starting to notice some liquification at the bottom and some white fuzz on top. I'm not sure how much this will yield, but it's exciting so far.
First a funny story about getting the yeast balls. The first Chinese supermarket I went to, I looked all over and couldn't find them. I asked a man who worked there but he had a hard time understanding what I was looking for, so he took me to a cashier who spoke better English. I didn't want to tell them I was making homemade wine, so I tried explaining it in other terms "dried yeast...rice balls" and my wife was interjecting with things like "yeast, like when you bake." The cashier asks me if it's a powder and, thinking how I'm going to crush the balls into powder, I say yes. She says something in Chinese to the man who then leads us over to the baking powder. I tell him it's still not it, but thank him for his time anyway - he'd been trying to help us for about 10 minutes by that point. As he's turning to walk away, my wife asks me if there's any other way to make the wine. Suddenly, the man stops, turns around, and says to me, "You're making the wine?"
I say yes. Unfortunately, that store was sold out then (are there a lot of Bostonians in this thread?) but he showed me where they normally stock them and told me how to make it - which was the same steps Sonofgrok detailed in his OP. I also asked him to tell me what they're called in Chinese, but my attempt to use the Chinese name in subsequent stores did not help me at all. But two stores later, I bought a package.
On to the wine... I started this last Friday night using 2.5 cups of Jasmine rice and 2 yeast balls. It was my first time steam cooking rice, so I'm worried I didn't cook the rice properly. I'm also worried I didn't let the rice cool off as much as I should've let it before putting it in the jar with the yeast. Anyway, I'm 6 days in at this point and I'm just starting to notice some liquification at the bottom and some white fuzz on top. I'm not sure how much this will yield, but it's exciting so far.
Congrats on your first batch... If you have a bag of balls, go for it and make a full batch. Make yourself 6 cups of Thai Jasmine rice and fill that thing up. You won't regret it.
Drinkable wine from start to finish in 3 weeks is almost unheard of but this stuff is the real deal. It's great as is and the flavoring and spice potential are almost unlimited. All of the fruit juice options have worked great. All of the spices and peppers have also worked great.
For those keeping score at home, the "rice wine/milk mead" experiment was a crash and burn disaster. It turned out exactly as you would imagine rotten milk to look and smell but with rice added in. Do not try this at home!
I think I'm going to take the advice of several folks on this forum and make the 2 as separate batches and then mix the final products.
As for other experiments, I'm either going to have to build an extension on the house or rent a one bedroom apartment for my experiments (or my spouse) just to keep the peace. There are gallon batches with airlocks and mason jars everywhere. Friends look around and say "I hope you don't get raided!"
I love this hobby!!!
Drinkable wine from start to finish in 3 weeks is almost unheard of but this stuff is the real deal. It's great as is and the flavoring and spice potential are almost unlimited. All of the fruit juice options have worked great. All of the spices and peppers have also worked great.
For those keeping score at home, the "rice wine/milk mead" experiment was a crash and burn disaster. It turned out exactly as you would imagine rotten milk to look and smell but with rice added in. Do not try this at home!
I think I'm going to take the advice of several folks on this forum and make the 2 as separate batches and then mix the final products.
As for other experiments, I'm either going to have to build an extension on the house or rent a one bedroom apartment for my experiments (or my spouse) just to keep the peace. There are gallon batches with airlocks and mason jars everywhere. Friends look around and say "I hope you don't get raided!"
I love this hobby!!!
Congratulations. Please tell me that's not regular long grain white rice.I'm making my first batch!...
m3n00b
Well-Known Member
What isle is the yeast usually in at the Asian market?
If this batch turns out okay, I definitely plan on going bigger next time.
This is my first time making something other than cider, and now there's so many other types of beverages I want to try making. I don't have much space for it, but it is lots of fun.
It's not. I'm using Thai Jasmine rice.
Aisle 3.
Just kidding. I forget the other products that were adjacent to the yeast balls, but since they're also used for making rice balls, that might be helpful in tracking them down. The easiest way, however, is to just ask someone at the store. If you tell them you want to make the wine, there should be someone there who will know exactly what you're looking for.
Looking good after 6 days. Gave it a quick stir after the pic and grabbed a taste. It was GREAT! This has been such a fun project while waiting for beer to ferment.
Gravity has remained stable at 1.024. I diluted the batch with 1 quart of water. The new gravity reading was 1.018.
trbig
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Well, I broke down and am trying it the way my Chinese friend advised. I steamed up 10 lbs of rice, (Used fancy sweet sushi rice instead of Jasmine, because that's what they use) then tossed it into a ferment bucket to cool. After it cooled off to under 100 degrees, I crushed up 10 yeast balls and a package (14oz) of RYR in a coffee grinder, then added that and 13 POUNDS of filtered water, which comes to the 1.3 conversion. At 8lbs a gallon for water, that's one and a half gallons, plus a pint. I mixed in some of the water to make a soup out of the RYR/Yeast ball powder, dumped it into the bucket, then added the rest of the water on top and stirred with a sterile spoon.
Their rice wine comes out like a dry watery whiskey. No sweetness at all. I'll let you know how it goes in @ a month, which is the time he said they let it go.
Their rice wine comes out like a dry watery whiskey. No sweetness at all. I'll let you know how it goes in @ a month, which is the time he said they let it go.
Here's the harvest checkup for my latest rice wine experiment. I'm not going to keep posting them in this thread. They are getting lost in the 294 pages of it. I'll start a new thread for my experiments.
As you can see I had the last two batches positions reversed in the first photo. From left to right in photo two.
1. 1.5 cups jasmine rice, 1 gram ARL.
2. 1.5 cups basmati rice, 1 gram ARL.
3. 1.5 cups long grain white rice, 1 gram ARL.
4. 1.5 cups sweet rice, 1 gram ARL.
5. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
6. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball, 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
1. Average yield. Fairly neutral rice and alcohol aromas. Medium sweetness, low alcohol feel. Very slight tang to it. It doesn't register as any fruit, just a bit of acid content. Very nice. Slight yellow color.
2. Average yield. Fairly neutral aroma as well, stronger on the rice then on the alcohol. Medium sweetness, low alcohol feel. The acid in the flavor is lower then the jasmine rice batch. Moderate yellow color.
3. No yield. Some sludge was produced, but it wasn't drinkable.
4. Superior yield. Still fairly neutral aroma. Very little rice, much more alcohol aroma. Medium-high sweetness, low alcohol feel. Very little acid in the flavor. Moderate yellow color.
5. Strong rice and alcohol aroma, vaguely fruity too. Mild rice flavor, moderate raisin flavor. Medium-high sweetness, low alcohol feel. No apparent acid. Red in color, obviously.
6. Strong rice and alcohol aroma. Very mild rice flavor. Medium-high sweetness, low alcohol feel. No apparent acid. This is the only sample where it was possible to determine that no yellow tint existed.
The first four batches went pretty much as expected. The alcohol solution experiments did not.
I had expected some starch conversion due to residual amylase in the rice yeast ball. From prior batches, partial conversion of starch has resulted in hard "nuggets" of starch that are left over. This was not the case. The remaining starch was very smooth. If anything, I would say the degree of starch conversion in these experimental batches was higher then expected in a typical rice wine. It was also very apparent from the flavor that significant amounts of sugar are present in the solution. In addition, the acid content of the alcohol solution experiments was nill to my taste buds.
In my opinion there are two things that can be reasonably extrapolated from this experiment. First, that the alcohol content of the wine does not significantly interfere with the saccharification of the starch. Or, the growth of the organism that produces the enzyme responsible for the conversion. Second, the alcohol does interfere with the organism responsible for producing the acid in the wine.
I would not consider either supposition proven, but the data does seem to be strongly leaning in that direction.
Happy Brewing!
As you can see I had the last two batches positions reversed in the first photo. From left to right in photo two.
1. 1.5 cups jasmine rice, 1 gram ARL.
2. 1.5 cups basmati rice, 1 gram ARL.
3. 1.5 cups long grain white rice, 1 gram ARL.
4. 1.5 cups sweet rice, 1 gram ARL.
5. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
6. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball, 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
1. Average yield. Fairly neutral rice and alcohol aromas. Medium sweetness, low alcohol feel. Very slight tang to it. It doesn't register as any fruit, just a bit of acid content. Very nice. Slight yellow color.
2. Average yield. Fairly neutral aroma as well, stronger on the rice then on the alcohol. Medium sweetness, low alcohol feel. The acid in the flavor is lower then the jasmine rice batch. Moderate yellow color.
3. No yield. Some sludge was produced, but it wasn't drinkable.
4. Superior yield. Still fairly neutral aroma. Very little rice, much more alcohol aroma. Medium-high sweetness, low alcohol feel. Very little acid in the flavor. Moderate yellow color.
5. Strong rice and alcohol aroma, vaguely fruity too. Mild rice flavor, moderate raisin flavor. Medium-high sweetness, low alcohol feel. No apparent acid. Red in color, obviously.
6. Strong rice and alcohol aroma. Very mild rice flavor. Medium-high sweetness, low alcohol feel. No apparent acid. This is the only sample where it was possible to determine that no yellow tint existed.
The first four batches went pretty much as expected. The alcohol solution experiments did not.
I had expected some starch conversion due to residual amylase in the rice yeast ball. From prior batches, partial conversion of starch has resulted in hard "nuggets" of starch that are left over. This was not the case. The remaining starch was very smooth. If anything, I would say the degree of starch conversion in these experimental batches was higher then expected in a typical rice wine. It was also very apparent from the flavor that significant amounts of sugar are present in the solution. In addition, the acid content of the alcohol solution experiments was nill to my taste buds.
In my opinion there are two things that can be reasonably extrapolated from this experiment. First, that the alcohol content of the wine does not significantly interfere with the saccharification of the starch. Or, the growth of the organism that produces the enzyme responsible for the conversion. Second, the alcohol does interfere with the organism responsible for producing the acid in the wine.
I would not consider either supposition proven, but the data does seem to be strongly leaning in that direction.
Happy Brewing!
troy2000
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I'm only on page 16 of this thread; gonna take me a while to work through it. But on a related subject, I use the rinse water from rice when I make sourdough starter for baking.
I did it by accident first time; I used a glass canister that had held rice, and didn't bother to rinse the rice powder out of it. It gave the sourdough a nice green-apple tartness that I liked....
I did it by accident first time; I used a glass canister that had held rice, and didn't bother to rinse the rice powder out of it. It gave the sourdough a nice green-apple tartness that I liked....
OP
OP
Lol, I'll link back.Boo
Nobody has anything to post about rice wine today?
Harvested mine yesterday - three cups of short-grained Northwestern (Chinese) rice split between three jars, made with three local yeast balls. One jar attenuated clean and clear, the other two were a bit murkier and darker (from some slightly burnt rice grains) and had a slightly lower yield. That first jar was also easy to squeeze with a piece of cheesecloth for maximum liquid, though that murked it up a bit. The second and third jars gave me no end of trouble with the cheesecloth and I certainly ended up throwing away one or two hundred mL of wine with their dregs. I collected the wine from all three jars together (approx. 1.2 L), and filtered one more time through a clean piece of cheesecloth into some sanitized jars.
Had a taste after they had chilled - quite sweet without the slightest hint of an alcoholic bite (though the liquid certainly burned when it touched a tiny lesion on my finger during the squeezing, so it's definitely alcoholic). My girlfriend said it tastes just like the mijiu her mother makes (surprised me - I had no idea her mother made mijiu).
I'll try some fruit juice mixes with these batches - probably grape and pomegranate since they're still somewhat in season here - and probably start another batch soon, maybe trying ARL in one jar and local yeast balls in the other for a side-by-side comparison of my own, since I already have both on hand.
Extended taste after work today - about four ounces - there's a strong pineapple taste. I'm thinking there's no real need to add fruit juice this time around since it's already so fruity. I can feel a little bit of alcohol on the swallow, but it's very light. Definitely need to start another batch soon - this isn't gonna last.
I made some Rice Wine a couple months ago and had more than I could get into all my bottles, so I put some in a flip-top bottle. I've been letting it sit in the refrigerator and finally last night poured the liquid into a cup and dumped the solids. I have to say it was very good... very alcoholic, but SMOOTH! I have a beer bottle full that I've been letting sit as well. I'm thinking I might let that go until around new years just to see what it's like.
ok guys here is a experiment i put together 2 days ago. 8 cups of thai jasmine rice 4 cups water 4 cups apple cider. used the rest of the gallon of cider in a 2 gallon glass cookie jar put the rice in one large scoop at a time and stirred it in. this left about 3 fingers from the top then saw 3 bananas on the counter and pilled mashed them to a paste put them in mixed it up and let cool. i then put some yeast on top red star pasteur champagne and let it ride for about 1.5-2 hours then crushed up 2 large yeast balls and about 4 tbl spoons of ryr mixed it in. this took off very quick less then a day i saw liquid. in 1.5 days there 4 fingers of liquid with some rice on top and some on the bottom noticed the stuff on top looked a little more solid so i mixed it in. tried what was on the spoon it was sweet but the bananas overpowered everything. a few questions
1 do you think by putting the yeast in early there is a chance i can get away from the high liquid to rice ratio?
2 i understand alot of the liquid on the bottom my be apple cider but the rice soaked this all up at first. could this have caused the fermintation to happen everywhere else faster?
1 do you think by putting the yeast in early there is a chance i can get away from the high liquid to rice ratio?
2 i understand alot of the liquid on the bottom my be apple cider but the rice soaked this all up at first. could this have caused the fermintation to happen everywhere else faster?
Well, the scientific method of experimentation exemplified by Leadgolem is to compare multiple batches with one or two variations to a control batch. Your experiment is more of a point-and-shoot with a bunch of variations and no control, so many things could change the outcome.
Steaming your rice with diluted apple cider is a very interesting idea as it will flavor the rice before fermenting, and add some extra sugar to boot.
Adding apple cider to the steamed rice should increase your yield and lower your sweetness as it allows the yeast to ferment more alcohol out of the rice sugars before reaching its terminal percentage, and it should change the flavor profile by adding apple. Whether the sweetness it adds with its own sugars balances out the sweetness that is lost by fermenting more of the rice sugars will be interesting to see.
I'm not so excited about the bananas - that sounds like a good way to infect your whole batch. That won't necessarily make it unhealthy, but could make it gross enough to dump.
As for the way you pitched your yeast, I don't really know enough about that to have an intelligent comment. Maybe since it's a different strain it will ferment some of the apple sugars that the rice yeasts might not be able to deal with.
All told, I'd say you've got a decent chance of ending up with a large yield of tasty wine, and a smaller chance of ending up with something infected or just kind've off-putting.
As for the four fingers of liquid already, I'd be surprised if you've got that much alcohol fermented out of the rice so soon, but it could happen. My guess would be that a lot of that is the cider.
mmmm not to much of a scientific guy more of a lets slap this together and see what happens. mostly i pitched the yeast packet early to see if that might get rid of the off flavors people are getting from the higher then 1.5 water ratio.
I believe that's due to the growth of something in the rice wine that produces an acid. A previous experiment I ran indicated that high alcohol levels in the solution would inhibit that growth, even with the rice fully submerged in liquid. With the high liquid, sugar, and additional yeast, it is possible you will get enough alcohol fast enough that the bug producing the acid will be inhibited before it gets going. It's also possible that it will love the sugar and just go nuts with acid production. I don't think we know exactly what it is that produces the acid at this point.
It should be interesting to see what happens.
trbig
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The rice wine we have been making is sweet because there's so much left-over sugar after the yeast gets the alc % up to where it becomes dormant and the starches continue to get broken down.
So by adding something sweet, you'll just end up with even more sugar left over. After sitting a bit and clearing out, the batch I made with dried mango is really .. really... REALLY sweet. Almost too sweet for me to drink. It's like a cheap Moscoto wine sweet. That prompted me to try a batch with added water at 1.3 times the weight of the rice. I steamed the rice with 1.5 cups water per cup of rice and cooked up 10 pounds, then added 13 pounds of water (Along with a package of RYR and 10 yeast balls) It's been bubbling tremendously out of the air lock. I took a peek this morning, and there's no traces of mold, just a cake on top full of little CO2 escape holes. All the rice was covered by a LOT of water when I first put the lid on this.
What I'm trying to do, is find the point where the rice starch is fully broken down and the sugar is fully consumed by the yeast. Too much water, and you don't get the alcohol potential you could have had. Too little water, and you leave residual sugar behind that could have been made into alcohol. When/if that happens, as per the Cinese recipe I'm following, you should have a wine with no sweetness at all and a high alcohol volume. Imagine a shot of 80 proof whiskey that you've diluted exactly in half with water. That's the taste I get from my Chinese friend's rice wine. If that point is found, and if NO sugar left is not what you desire, then maybe you can play with the amount of added water between none and 1.3 to come up with something flavored to your liking?
If you like it how it is, then "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I like it how it is, but I also liked his rice wine.
So by adding something sweet, you'll just end up with even more sugar left over. After sitting a bit and clearing out, the batch I made with dried mango is really .. really... REALLY sweet. Almost too sweet for me to drink. It's like a cheap Moscoto wine sweet. That prompted me to try a batch with added water at 1.3 times the weight of the rice. I steamed the rice with 1.5 cups water per cup of rice and cooked up 10 pounds, then added 13 pounds of water (Along with a package of RYR and 10 yeast balls) It's been bubbling tremendously out of the air lock. I took a peek this morning, and there's no traces of mold, just a cake on top full of little CO2 escape holes. All the rice was covered by a LOT of water when I first put the lid on this.
What I'm trying to do, is find the point where the rice starch is fully broken down and the sugar is fully consumed by the yeast. Too much water, and you don't get the alcohol potential you could have had. Too little water, and you leave residual sugar behind that could have been made into alcohol. When/if that happens, as per the Cinese recipe I'm following, you should have a wine with no sweetness at all and a high alcohol volume. Imagine a shot of 80 proof whiskey that you've diluted exactly in half with water. That's the taste I get from my Chinese friend's rice wine. If that point is found, and if NO sugar left is not what you desire, then maybe you can play with the amount of added water between none and 1.3 to come up with something flavored to your liking?
If you like it how it is, then "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I like it how it is, but I also liked his rice wine.
trbig
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Talking with that Chinese friend, he said they don't make rice wine in the summer months because it makes it sour. So apparently there's something going on with temps..
True. I've run across two different methods for controlling the acid level. The first is by limiting the water, which is where the amount of water used to cook the rice becomes very important. The second was by taking the rice wine through a series of temperature swings.
You also need a little warmth to get good starch conversion. First warm, then a long sit at lower temps, then warm again for a little while, then back to cool, lather rinse repeat. That's pretty much the sake method. Along with phased introduction of additional starch and water.
The benefit of controlling the temp is you can use more water and yield more wine from the same amount of input starch. The benefit of controlling the water is that you don't have to worry nearly as much about temperature.
RYR also seems to inhibit whatever bug it is that produces the acid.
Not a problem. It's not like we are in competing businesses. Sharing data helps everybody.
Does anyone care to make a suggestion for a new series of experiments?
i would think the addition of apple cider will dilute the sugars from the rice wine even though there is sugars in the cider i do not think there is anything close to the fermented rice.The rice wine we have been making is sweet because there's so much left-over sugar after the yeast gets the alc % up to where it becomes dormant and the starches continue to get broken down.
So by adding something sweet, you'll just end up with even more sugar left over. After sitting a bit and clearing out, the batch I made with dried mango is really .. really... REALLY sweet. Almost too sweet for me to drink. It's like a cheap Moscoto wine sweet. That prompted me to try a batch with added water at 1.3 times the weight of the rice. I steamed the rice with 1.5 cups water per cup of rice and cooked up 10 pounds, then added 13 pounds of water (Along with a package of RYR and 10 yeast balls) It's been bubbling tremendously out of the air lock. I took a peek this morning, and there's no traces of mold, just a cake on top full of little CO2 escape holes. All the rice was covered by a LOT of water when I first put the lid on this.
What I'm trying to do, is find the point where the rice starch is fully broken down and the sugar is fully consumed by the yeast. Too much water, and you don't get the alcohol potential you could have had. Too little water, and you leave residual sugar behind that could have been made into alcohol. When/if that happens, as per the Cinese recipe I'm following, you should have a wine with no sweetness at all and a high alcohol volume. Imagine a shot of 80 proof whiskey that you've diluted exactly in half with water. That's the taste I get from my Chinese friend's rice wine. If that point is found, and if NO sugar left is not what you desire, then maybe you can play with the amount of added water between none and 1.3 to come up with something flavored to your liking?
If you like it how it is, then "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I like it how it is, but I also liked his rice wine.
a little update the liquid level is now 7 fingers high smells very fruity mostly banana most of the rice is now on the bottom about 1 finger thick still on top.
very good im interested in making it a lot less sweet the added bonus of making more alcohol would kick azz. ill pull some to the side if this works and add some water to see what happens
Actually I was thinking of doing the experiment somewhat like what you are doing. Only with more levels of water additions.
Cook the rice like normal. Pitch like normal. Then add, 50%, 100%, 130%, and 150% of the weight of the cooked rice in water. Then observer the results. If the results are poor, then I could see running a second series at 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%.
I believe my last experiment showed that the organism that saccharifies the rice doesn't have any trouble with the extra liquid. The real question would be in acid level. Once we have a series with good flavor with the additional water, the same series would need to be rerun with the RYR.
It would be nice to run both RYR and white rice wine sets at the same time, but that's a fairly cumbersome experiment to run. Not setting it up, but harvesting that many small batches all at once.
True, but rice cookers that big are really expensive.
So I cooked 1.5 cups of sweet rice with the typical 1:1.5 ratio of rice to water. It weighted 716 grams. I'm worried that a full 1.5 cups of dry rice plus the extra water isn't going to fit in my jars. So I'll be running half the usual experimental batch size. .75 cups of dry rice or 358 grams of cooked rice. Here are the intended batch contents. Of course, I'll likely be off by a few grams. I'll record the actual numbers when I do the batches. I'll cook all of the rice tonight, and then weigh it out into the jars tomorrow.
1. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. (Control)
2. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 179 grams water. (50%)
3. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 358 grams water. (100%)
4. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 465 grams water. (130%)
5. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 537 grams water. (150%)
6. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. (RYR Control)
7. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 179 grams water. 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. (50%)
8. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 358 grams water. 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. (100%)
9. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 465 grams water. 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. (130%)
10. 358 grams cooked sweet rice. 0.5 grams ARL. 537 grams water. 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. (150%)
This time I'm numbering the jars, or I'll never be able to keep them straight.
I know I said I wasn't going to post them here anymore, but I also remembering somebody booing that idea.
That's very odd. I just checked on the rice and the cooker shut off before it was done. Stirred it up and I'm running it through another cycle. Hopefully it will gelatinize all of the starch this time.
Well, the second time around all of the starch gelatinized. The cooker even managed not to burn any of the rice. I'm not sure what the problem was the first time, but I don't think it's going to throw the experiment off. I've got a total of 9 cups of cooked sweet rice cooling now.
So, I cooked a total of 9 cups of dry sweet rice. Inoculated the entire thing with 6 grams of ARL. Weighed out the rice into the first five jars. Added the powdered RYR to the remaining rice. Weighed those 5 jars out. Labeled all the jars, and added the water. I hit all of my intended weights within 3 grams, so I didn't find it nessary to record those slight differences. I ended up with a jar full of sweet rice and RYR as leftovers. That was expected as I made more rice then the batches called for. I didn't want any of the experimental jars to be under weight.
We then took a family photo and I tucked them all back into the case of mason jars. You will probably notice a difference between some of the batches with the same weights. Not all the jars are the same brand, so the rice+water comes up to different points on a few of the jars. I'm somewhat concerned that the 150% jars are going to make a mess once they start fermenting. I'm thinking of moving the 130% and 150% batches into a 5 gallon bucket. That would mean keeping then in another location, and at a slightly different temperature though. So, I'm reluctant to do so.
Something that struck me when I was doing this, is that even a 50% addition of water by weight is a lot of water to add to this process.
We then took a family photo and I tucked them all back into the case of mason jars. You will probably notice a difference between some of the batches with the same weights. Not all the jars are the same brand, so the rice+water comes up to different points on a few of the jars. I'm somewhat concerned that the 150% jars are going to make a mess once they start fermenting. I'm thinking of moving the 130% and 150% batches into a 5 gallon bucket. That would mean keeping then in another location, and at a slightly different temperature though. So, I'm reluctant to do so.
Something that struck me when I was doing this, is that even a 50% addition of water by weight is a lot of water to add to this process.
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