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Well having a dedicated rice cooker around here is kind of a must. Wife is thai and has rice with just about everything. I try to refrain as much as possible in the interest of maintaining some semblance of a firm tummy but warm, sticky, sweet thai jasmine rice is hard to turn down... especially when she makes awesome fried rice.
 
I couldn't find the yeast balls locally here in Pittsburgh (tried two stores in the East side), so I ordered from here - http://importfood.com/nrhf0401.html

I got mine from here. They're out on McKnight. It's a pretty nice store. They have a whole isle of rice, but the yeast balls are with the baking stuff. The red yeast rice is right by the yeast balls if you're interested.

When I checked out with a bag of yeast balls and sweet rice the cashier said "Oh, you going to make rice alcohol?" She knew what was up.
 
I got mine from here. They're out on McKnight. It's a pretty nice store. They have a whole isle of rice, but the yeast balls are with the baking stuff. The red yeast rice is right by the yeast balls if you're interested.

When I checked out with a bag of yeast balls and sweet rice the cashier said "Oh, you going to make rice alcohol?" She knew what was up.

Sweet! Thanks. That's actually right around my neck o' the woods.

Do you recall what the price on those was? One can never have too many balls.
 
If you are in the Phoenix area, the Ranch Market 99 at the COFCO (Chinese Cultural Center) has the yeast balls that I know work. A packet of 2 is $.70 and a large bag of doubles is $7.60.

GTG

What's up in the PHX GTG?!

I go to Lee Lee's market in Chandler. I can get a dozen yeast balls for $2.99. They also have like 50 different kinds of rice...

ND
 
No need, I'm with you. The wife wants a steamer cooker as they are a bit more versatile. I like the dedicated rice cooker as they usually have a larger capacity, when in the same price range. We'll see who wins..........OK, I'll just have to do more batches.

I bought a 14 cup cooker/steamer at target last month for $19.99. It was Oster brand and red. Works perfect...
 
Sweet! Thanks. That's actually right around my neck o' the woods.

Do you recall what the price on those was? One can never have too many balls.

It was $5.19 for 12.3oz of yeast balls.

The bag contains multiple smaller packages, each with 2 yeast balls (this seems to be the norm). The whole bag has a net weight of 12.3 oz.
 
Roughly 40 cooked cups of rice later, I have a 2.5 gallon bucket 3"-4" from full with rice and crushed yeast balls. Looking forward to opening it up in 3wks or so!!
Lakedawgs
 
21 days and despite a wee bit of off color mold tastes good and has a nice alcohol warmth to it
Starting another batch thanks all!

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Im proud to say I harvested today! Nearly half a gallon yield from 5 dry cups of Thai Jasmine rice.

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Having a plain sidecar next to my MO/Falconers Flight SMaSH before I flavor it. Its got a little sweet still left but I gotta believe it is over 40 proof. Looks like watching Daytona tomorrow just got a lot more interesting! Thanks Sonofgrok for starting the thread I raise the first drink to you my friend, this is something that will be a constant bottle on my bar!

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Almost forgot, pic before harvest. Healthy white fuzz carpet on top of rice.

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Do you think using this type of jug would work. I was going to drill the lid and put an airlock on it. I don't have any glass jars large enough and since my girl is a chef I have plenty of these laying around.

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I wouldnt, just spend the couple bucks at the grocery store for a glass jar. Id be to concerned about plastickey flavors and at the end of the day those are chemical reactions going on inside (not that its gonna melt or nothin)
Id be pretty ticked after harvest a month later to find my wine tasted like plastic
 
The batch I made in an old cookie dough container was fine, but that has red pepper flakes in it. If any of that flavor is retained by the plastic, you could end up with some spicy rice wine.
 
I looked up the type of plastic from the recycling symbol on the bottom. It's type 3 which is for non food use, worries me a little now that there's spices in there but I definitely won't be using it for the rice wine.

Thanks.
 
Do you think using this type of jug would work. I was going to drill the lid and put an airlock on it. I don't have any glass jars large enough and since my girl is a chef I have plenty of these laying around.

Can you scrounge some quart glass canning jars from somewhere? Or a glass cookie jar? A stainless steel stock pot? I do not use an airlock when I make mine, just container lid.
 
So I just went to my local Asian grocery store and picked up rice but couldn't find the yeast balls anywhere. I tried asking a couple people but unfortunately no one I asked spoke English. What isle did you guys find them in?
 
So I just went to my local Asian grocery store and picked up rice but couldn't find the yeast balls anywhere. I tried asking a couple people but unfortunately no one I asked spoke English. What isle did you guys find them in?

The store here keeps them up at the register in a big jar. I believe theres a few that said the same on here as well
 
HopHeaven said:
So I just went to my local Asian grocery store and picked up rice but couldn't find the yeast balls anywhere. I tried asking a couple people but unfortunately no one I asked spoke English. What isle did you guys find them in?

I had trouble explaining what I wanted and having them understand until I showed the picture from the link at the beginning of this thread, and they took me right to them.
 
Our local asian market store has them in an isle with some rice noodles and rice crackers and stuff. I have been messaged by other people from here who have gone to the exact same store and had no luck and have asked the staff there and not gotten anywhere but have been able to find them after I explained the relative location of the aisle to them. I would definitely say not to let a store staff member discourage you from your search... they are probably actually there.
 
It was $5.19 for 12.3oz of yeast balls.

The bag contains multiple smaller packages, each with 2 yeast balls (this seems to be the norm). The whole bag has a net weight of 12.3 oz.

I am happy to report that after 20 minutes of wandering through the store with a 5 year old and an infant (when it also happened to be super crowded - Sat morning) I found the yeast balls and talked myself into buying a 25lb bag of Jasmine rice - since they had a $10 minimum on cards :p

Picked up some jars at Target as well. Gonna get this going tomorrow night hopefully!
 
I'm shopping for a rice cooker. Are the ratings (10 cup, 20 cup, 28 cup) for cooked rice or uncooked?
 
Also, has anyone made a batch, drained the liquid off, then tried throwing another batch of rice in, mix well, and seen if this works?
 
Also, has anyone made a batch, drained the liquid off, then tried throwing another batch of rice in, mix well, and seen if this works?

I think Leadgolem tried with limited success. I didnt really worry about it because I can readily find the yeast balls 12 for .99 cents
 
I am having interesting results so far with my batch. After almost a week, I still have my 3 mason jars. One all Sweet rice, one all Jasmine rice, and the other a combo of the two. In the jar that is all sweet, there is a LOT more liquid. The combo jar has a decent amount of liquid, and the Jasmine rice jar has the least amount of liquid.

Not sure what any of this means, but maybe the "sweet" ruce has more readily available starches/sugars to convert for the yeast. I will measure the liquid in the end, but the jasmine rice is either slower to produce the liquid, or is just prodces less in general.

FYI: All jars started with pretty much the same amount, cooked the same way, and same size jars. Im excited to see the taste differences in the 3 types. I used about 1 ball per cup of uncooked rice.
 
I'm shopping for a rice cooker. Are the ratings (10 cup, 20 cup, 28 cup) for cooked rice or uncooked?

Rice cooker "cups" are 180 ml of dry rice. They are approximately equal to 3/4 of a US cup.

So a "10 cup" rice cooker can cook up to 10*.75 = 7.5 US cups of dry rice.

If the cooker is just for brewing purposes a steamer works better and is typically cheaper.
 
SFGiantsFan925 said:
I am having interesting results so far with my batch. After almost a week, I still have my 3 mason jars. One all Sweet rice, one all Jasmine rice, and the other a combo of the two. In the jar that is all sweet, there is a LOT more liquid. The combo jar has a decent amount of liquid, and the Jasmine rice jar has the least amount of liquid.

Not sure what any of this means, but maybe the "sweet" ruce has more readily available starches/sugars to convert for the yeast. I will measure the liquid in the end, but the jasmine rice is either slower to produce the liquid, or is just prodces less in general.

FYI: All jars started with pretty much the same amount, cooked the same way, and same size jars. Im excited to see the taste differences in the 3 types. I used about 1 ball per cup of uncooked rice.

I'll probably experiment a little with sweet rice and a mixture next time. With my current batch I did all Jasmine. This Thursday will be 3 weeks and I have a lot of liquid in my jars. I'm interested to see how much wine I get from them.
 
Also, has anyone made a batch, drained the liquid off, then tried throwing another batch of rice in, mix well, and seen if this works?

I think Leadgolem tried with limited success. I didnt really worry about it because I can readily find the yeast balls 12 for .99 cents
Yup, I did. I used the leftover starch mass to do a second batch. It was successful in that it produced a second batch of rice wine. It did get mold in it, which was not present in the first batch. I considered the experiment inherently prone to infection, so I wasn't exactly shocked.

The rice wine that batch yielded was just fine, but I wouldn't use the starch mass from that batch to start another. The level of infection from a reused starch mass from an already infected batch is very likely to be incredibly high.

The leftover starch mass I had was actually pretty cohesive once the liquid was squeezed out. I ended up breaking it up into lumps about the size of my thumb, and then mixed those into the new rice. I believe a major factor in the infection of the resulting batch was the distance between sections of starch mass. The infecting mold appeared to have originated in the gap between starch mass pieces, not from the starch mass it's self. Though I can't be sure as I didn't discover the infection until I harvested the wine, and the container was opaque.

I hope that helps.
 
For those who need a picture to explain what you need - or for those who are curious and want to know what dried yeast balls look like....here ya go:

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I'm about a week into the process.

It seems like there's a few discrete phases as far as what I've observed:

Day 1 - Dry phase: no moisture detected other than condensation from putting the rice in.

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Day 2 to 3- Sweating phase: Sort of a thick clear (later, straw yellow) liquid is draining to the bottom of the jar and may rise in level along the side of the jar to the top of the rice. Smells a bit strange. I stir up the jar a bit to spread around any yeast in the liquid so it hits more surface area rather than sitting at the bottom.

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Day 4 to 5 - Initial breakdown phase: It seems like the individual grains are starting to loose definition especially at the bottom. The somewhat clear or straw-colored liquid is beginning to cloud up.

Day 6 to 7 - Re-absorption of water: The initial liquid separated from the solids in the sweating phase has blended back into the rice as it's breaking down further. The liquid is going into the bulk of the rice rather than being excluded to along the jar. I think one of the jars is 'breathing' CO2 or was just settling from touching it. Starting to smell like rice wine. It has a kind of ice cream texture to it but there are still some grains (they look like they're expanding).

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Have my batch going about a week now. Made one batch with 5 dry cups thai jasmine but had to put it in two jars. Interesting in that one jar has mold one top and the other does not. It looks like that photo of the koji on the grain of rice except my mold is about an inch and a half high. Is that how high the mold is for everyone getting it or is it normally just a fuzz level?
 
I was trying to sift through the whole thread but it's become huge and I can see why. When I was in Taiwan I had an Oolong tea rice wine, I'm trying to figure out if the way to introduce the tea would be during fermentation or as an add on after. Does anyone have some insight into this? Thanks.
 
I was trying to sift through the whole thread but it's become huge and I can see why. When I was in Taiwan I had an Oolong tea rice wine, I'm trying to figure out if the way to introduce the tea would be during fermentation or as an add on after. Does anyone have some insight into this? Thanks.

I don't have any direct experience trying this but my hunch would be to add the tea to finished wine when serving.
 
I was trying to sift through the whole thread but it's become huge and I can see why. When I was in Taiwan I had an Oolong tea rice wine, I'm trying to figure out if the way to introduce the tea would be during fermentation or as an add on after. Does anyone have some insight into this? Thanks.

Many of us add fruit/juice after harvesting. I see no reason you could not add tea.
The other thing, and I may try this, soak your rinsed rice in oolong tea until you achieve the 1/3 volume increase, and/or if you cook instead of steam use oolong tea as your liquid base. I make herb i.fused or flavored rice all the time, and I see no reason that would not work with rice wine.
 
I mixed some of mine with horchata which is a sweet mexican rice drink and its awesome! Just another flavoring option to put out there.
 
I was trying to sift through the whole thread but it's become huge and I can see why. When I was in Taiwan I had an Oolong tea rice wine, I'm trying to figure out if the way to introduce the tea would be during fermentation or as an add on after. Does anyone have some insight into this? Thanks.

you can make the rice with tea as the liquid....google green tea rice and you'll find plenty of recipes...matter of fact I think I saw that on a No Reservations episode about Taiwan so that may be what you are looking for
 
Just put together my first attempt. The people at the asian market aren't very helpful but after the 3rd lap around the store I found what I needed. Can't wait for this to be done!

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I imagine a Mr. Beer setup would work kind of well for this. You could pour off the liquid as it is generated. I'm curious if the initial liquid produced in the first few days (clear stuff) is any different than when it starts to become cloudy without filtering.
 
Hi all,

Looking for some advise, I'm one week into my first attempt, for the first 6 days when I took a whif it smelled quite good really, then yesterday when I sniffed it had a nailpolish remover smell... not at all pleasant.

I haven't read this whole thread (that's a daunting task!) but have seen a few posts when people reported the same smell. Was it concluded that I should trash this and try again instead of waiting another two weeks? My initial error was making the rice like I would do to eat it, mixing 4 cups rice with 8 cups water, boiling, then simmering for 30 minutes, I think it was decided that a 1/1 or 1/1.25 ratio worked better right?

I'll let it sit if others have had success with it, but if not I want to start over and not waste two weeks waiting for my nail polish remover to be finished :)

Thanks for any input
 
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