steam infusion of flavor into rice

I'm interested in trying rice wine using Chinese yeast balls (I never knew yeast had balls).

What interests me is infusing the rice with subtle hop flavors using the steam to carry the volatiles into the rice. Rice is very subject to flavor absorption, and hops are only one of many possible flavors that might be infused this way. Another might be citrus peel.

Has anybody tried this?

The other system might be to simply "dry hop" by placing some dried hop cones at the bottom of your jar during the process. I wonder if this would interfere with the process. Nelson Sauvin.......... one of my favorite hops might work well with this method, though I can only find it in pellet form.

Additionally, percentages of various other brewing ingredients from two row to various crystals &c. might lend very nice color and flavor without being excessively beery.


H.W.

This sounds awesome - you shouldn't end up with any hops bitterness at all, just the aromatics. The volatiles might be driven off during fermentation somewhat.. If so, you could dry hop it after the fact. We all know how that works.

If you try it, you'd better report back.

PintOfBitter said:

This sounds awesome - you shouldn't end up with any hops bitterness at all, just the aromatics. The volatiles might be driven off during fermentation somewhat.. If so, you could dry hop it after the fact. We all know how that works.

If you try it, you'd better report back.

Click to expand...

I had to order Chinese yeast balls on line as Bozeman Montana didn't have anything of the kind. Billings may, but it's 20 miles further, and in the opposite direction (100 miles away).

In the mean time, I'm thinking that it might be a technique for preparing some really interesting rice for eating..... Hops, or almost anything could be used.... for example lemon peel, or some fresh spice like rosemary........ juniper berries, perhaps even mint or one of the wild sage family... ginger root, etc. Rice being a very bland food with little or no flavor to the western palate is at the same time just made for picking up subtle flavors. Large bags of rice are quite cheap at Costco. I didn't buy one.....I'll try it first. I don't need 25 pounds of rice laying around unless it turns out to be a good technique.


H.W.

I tried infusing flavor into cooked rice the other day using hops in the water in the steamer. The flavor / aroma didn't come through at all ;-( .................

I used this rice as 20% of today's brew, the remainder being 2 row. I did the rice a couple of days back, and, and mashed it using amylase powder. It converted very nicely. Pound for pound, the yield wasn't as good as two row though, but I didn't expect it. When I brewed today, I simply poured the rice mash in with the regular mash, heated the works to conversion temp, and did my standard 20 minute mash. Net mash efficiency was about 78%, which really isn't bad.


H.W.