Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[milsman2]

Update: 4 weeks in and most of the rice has turned to rice pudding. No seperation of liquid and rice but there is a TON of liquid in the fermenter. I am going to pour out into the wine bottle this weekend and hope for the best. Recently took a taste and it's wonderfully sweet, but not too much although it tasted a bit alcohol hot. Is this common?

 

[Baileisdad]

What ever happens to the guy trying to use potatoes instead of rice

 

[edds5p0]

I think the first sentence in the abstract is missing a comma and should read, "... studied under the effect of heating, urea and some other denaturing agents." Then they list some tests and the denaturing agents, urea, heat and alcohol. As they were studying a percent change, I would surmise that the 18% number is a borderline amount.

I suspect the use of A oryzae amylase is that it is produced and purified in commercially available quantities. From what I could find, it's also cheap. Porcine amylase - $55 a mg 10 units/mg. A oryzae - $40 a gram 30 units/mg. So 3000 times cheaper?!?

I am unable to find any information on alcohol tolerance for amylase. There is some great stuff out there and this is a rabbit hole one could spend hours in. I found there appears to be more types of amylase than malts and some very technical studies of them. Who would have thought that spit would employ so many people?

Let us know how your experiments go. I may put together a couple of my own.

The problem is that adding solvents like ethanol can interfere with the protein's conformation and potentially render it ineffective. How much it takes depends on many factors such as pH and what salts are present. Also, the osmotic stress put on the organism can also hinder or inhibit its function. I still hope 18% isn't too much. I can't wait to see if it works though.

 

[Leadgolem]

I'm in China and very interested in trying this. Mijiu (米&#37202 is a common semi-fermented breakfast porridge very similar to what you're doing here, but eaten rice and all after a couple days of fermentation so its alcohol content is minimal. While I haven't found yeast balls like this in stores here (nor have I looked much), Angel brand packaged mijiu yeast ("rice leaven" per the package) is readily available just about anywhere. Has anybody tried this for rice wine yet? Will it attenuate or is it likely to die before producing much alcohol? My other option is to get yeast balls online, but the shops all advertise them as mijiu yeast rather than wine yeast, so there's no real guarantee that they'll attenuate either.

I imagine that anything that will make Mijiu, will make rice wine. The only difference being time left to do it's work. And yes, the Angel Rice Leaven (ARL) apparently works just fine as well. Read back a few pages, and an experiment was just done on trying to figure out the best application rate for the ARL.

Angel Rice Leaven, ARL for short on here, should work just fine. If anything, it seems to produce something with more alcohol then the rice yeast balls. Here are the links for the experiment posts.

Abstract
Week 0, pitching
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3, harvest

Update: 4 weeks in and most of the rice has turned to rice pudding. No seperation of liquid and rice but there is a TON of liquid in the fermenter. I am going to pour out into the wine bottle this weekend and hope for the best. Recently took a taste and it's wonderfully sweet, but not too much although it tasted a bit alcohol hot. Is this common?

With rice yeast balls, not really. Usually you get a clear separation. With the ARL, it seems to be. For some reason the ARL seems to break down the rice kernels from the inside out. See experiment links above.

The hot alcohol flavor is pretty common too. Stirring the particulates into suspension before drinking smooths it out a lot. I don't know about other kinds of rice wine, but sake is usually aged at least 6 months before being sold. I imagine that's to let the alcohol mellow out. From brewing other things, that seems to be something of a minimum for the apparent alcohol to mellow.

 

[Leadgolem]

I'm trying to figure out how I want to do the vanilla bean additions. I'm thinking that I'll fill the bottles, start them on the stove in a water bath to pasteurize, then prep the vanilla beans. Split the beans, cut them into 1/2" pieces, submerge them it in a high alcohol solution. Once the wine has cooled enough to cork the bottles, I'd add the vanilla bean and alcohol solution. Finally, bottle and age. The point being to use the alcohol solution to get rid of any yeast on the surface of the beans.

Thoughts? Anybody have a better idea?

 

[dgr]

Put them in the rice wine, pasteurize and cork or you can use cap bottles and cap before pasteurizing. I imagine I'm missing something key here. It seems like a more sanitary way of getting there. I would also worry about all the seeds ending up in the alcohol instead of the rice wine. Anyone know how much of the flavor comes from the seeds vs. the pods?

Cooks "cook" vanilla beans for a short time to extract the vanilla flavor so would the pasteurizing temperature cause a problem? I'm sure you're aware that vanilla flavor is extracted in ethanol but who knows how much flavor you will lose to the ethanol in a short time?

ETA: Nevermind on the seeds. I misread your post.

 

[Leadgolem]

Put them in the rice wine, pasteurize and cork or you can use cap bottles and cap before pasteurizing. I imagine I'm missing something key here. It seems like a more sanitary way of getting there. I would also worry about all the seeds ending up in the alcohol instead of the rice wine. Anyone know how much of the flavor comes from the seeds vs. the pods?

Cooks "cook" vanilla beans for a short time to extract the vanilla flavor so would the pasteurizing temperature cause a problem? I'm sure you're aware that vanilla flavor is extracted in ethanol but who knows how much flavor you will lose to the ethanol in a short time?

ETA: Nevermind on the seeds. I misread your post.

http://www.arizonavanilla.com/howtousevanillabeans.html

When baking and cooking, where the vanilla will be exposed to heat for long periods of time. The heat weakens vanilla bean's fruitlike flavor so there isn't much point in using the more expensive bean.

Brief cooking isn't a problem, but when you pasteurize it's several hours before the wine is cool enough to bottle. If the vanilla was in the bottle you'd be looking at a substantial flavor loss.

The liquid in the bottle expands as it heats up, and you lose your head space in the bottles while the wine is hot. If you try to cork the bottles hot, you either won't be able to at all or you won't be able to get the corks in properly and the bottles might not seal.

At the same time, I'd rather not have a bottle with a vanilla bean in it re-ferment from wild stuff on the vanilla bean. Blowing a cork of a bottle of this stuff, if it's half as good as I'm hoping it will be, would be a shame.

 

[sivispacemparabe11um]

Maybe it seems like eternity since its my first time but its been 14 days and these next seven days are going to be so hard....

 

[TBBrewer]

I'm trying to figure out how I want to do the vanilla bean additions. I'm thinking that I'll fill the bottles, start them on the stove in a water bath to pasteurize, then prep the vanilla beans. Split the beans, cut them into 1/2" pieces, submerge them it in a high alcohol solution. Once the wine has cooled enough to cork the bottles, I'd add the vanilla bean and alcohol solution. Finally, bottle and age. The point being to use the alcohol solution to get rid of any yeast on the surface of the beans.

Thoughts? Anybody have a better idea?

What about doing an extraction with grain alcohol? Add the extract to the rice wine. They have some high quality extracts out these days that I would think would do the trick too.

 

[TBBrewer]

Check this link out. Looks like we may be able to get a selection of yeast from Angel.

http://en.angelyeast.com/products/FoodIngredients/Chinesealcohol.html

 

[Tinhorn]

Check this link out. Looks like we may be able to get a selection of yeast from Angel.

http://en.angelyeast.com/products/FoodIngredients/Chinesealcohol.html

Broken link but sounds interesting

 

[Tinhorn]

Broken link but sounds interesting

Looks like their server is down link is probably fine

 

[TBBrewer]

Really? Hmm, hope it works. It just shows they offer 3 yeasts for wine making and one for yellow wine.

 

[sivispacemparabe11um]

I'm curious what this stuff is actually classified as since I read that it's not technically wine. Is it an uncarbonated ale or beer?

 

[Leadgolem]

What about doing an extraction with grain alcohol? Add the extract to the rice wine. They have some high quality extracts out these days that I would think would do the trick too.

I actually bought 30 vanilla beans, and I'm making two different kinds of extract right now. That's why I want to use the beans though. The extract won't be ready for at least eight weeks, and I've got 10 vanilla beans left. Vanilla beans don't have a very good shelf life. They tend to dry out really badly.

Check this link out. Looks like we may be able to get a selection of yeast from Angel.

http://en.angelyeast.com/products/FoodIngredients/Chinesealcohol.html

It might be interesting to try some of there other products. I think this is the one that's packaged as rice leaven.

 

[Leadgolem]

All the rice for the grains experiment with the ARL is cooked. I'll pitch those tomorrow. The intended batches are:

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.

I have also decided to delay the vanilla bottle flavoring experiment. TBBrewer is right, it would be better to use a high quality extract. In addition, I would like to do the cinnamon flavoring experiment in parallel with the vanilla. That would require more finished rice wine then I have on hand right now. I also just put together a bottle of real cinnamon extract for the experiment. Neither that, nor the vanilla, is going to be ready until the beginning of November.

 

[Descender]

anyone use the yeast balls for fermenting other wines, meads, or ciders? Just thinking this is a very alcohol tolerant strain and it might push my rocket fuel to new heights...

 

[Leadgolem]

anyone use the yeast balls for fermenting other wines, meads, or ciders? Just thinking this is a very alcohol tolerant strain and it might push my rocket fuel to new heights...

I seem to remember one person trying them for a beer. I believe they had a blowout. Then ended with a slightly oddly flavored beer. The second attempt had a blowoff tube, RYR, and some cooked rice in it. Still beer mind you. They said it tasted very much like a Chinese red beer. It also had that nice red color they were looking for.

If you really want to push alcohol content, get some distillers yeast. The stuff I've got from baker and sons is tolerant up to 23%.

 

[Leadgolem]

I just took a new gravity reading on the red rice wine I added the distillers yeast to. It's been 10 days or so, and the gravity dropped from 1.031 to 1.024. So a 0.9% increase in alcohol content. I'll give it another couple of weeks and take another reading.

 

[Leadgolem]

All the rice for the grains experiment with the ARL is cooked. I'll pitch those tomorrow. The intended batches are:

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...

Here is the picture for the experiments. All the batches are as described and in order from left to right.

It was interesting to me to observe the differences in the rice when I was loading it in the jars. The sweet rice was incredibly sticky, almost a rice booger. The long grain white and basmati rice were not sticky at all. The long grain white rice fit exactly in the quart jar. The basmati had to be packed into the jar with a spoon. This is odd, because I used the same volume of dry rice for all of the batches. The jasmine rice was sticky, but not like the sweet rice.

In order to avoid needing a great deal of alcohol solution, I packed the rice in the last two experiments into the jars a little. I made a solution with 1/2 cup of everclear, and 1 1/2 cups water, and covered the last two experiments.

I hope the last two experiments will tell us whether the alcohol content it's self interferes with the saccharification process. It should be interesting to see how things stand in a few weeks.

 

[dgr]

That sweet rice is crazy sticky. It's all I use. I don't want the girl at the Asian store giving me dirty looks because she knows what I'm doing and questions why I'm only using a 10 lb bag at a time.

Don't get a big glob of hot sticky rice on your fingers. Dunking them in water does not stop the burning as it's a damn good insulator too and you can't just wipe it off. My dad showed me how to make wheat paste glue when I was a kid. I think I'll have to show him how to make sticky rice glue some time.

I'm very interested in #3 and #4. I'm curious how much flavor comes from the rice vs. the yeast/fungus.

 

[trbig]

I think sticky rice is best also, and with the way I inocculated the batch last time, it seemed to work just fine. After cooking the rice, dump it in the container. Seal the container until it cools, (I let it go overnight) Pulverize up the yeast balls, mix with a little water, then pour it over the rice and seal back up. No hand mixing of sticky rice.

 

[Leadgolem]

I recently found a source of apple brand sweet rice that isn't to expensive. Depending on how things come out, I may switch to it exclusively for rice wine. My experiment with the various grains and yeast balls came out the best with sweet rice. It's also great for any cold rice based desert. The starches are mostly short chain, so they don't crystallize and get grainy when they cool down.

 

[trbig]

Well, I think I just messed up big time. lol. I was going to go for it with my 12 cup batch of ryr that FINALLY finished up. I figured I had roughly 4 lbs of rice (A little more, but rounded up) I started with and was going to add the 1/3 water weight to it and see if it kicked back off. So in figuring 4 lbs of rice, for some reason I thought I needed 4 pounds of water (Mind went back to 12 cups.. 1/3 of 12 is 4, right? :smack So, I just dumped a half gallon of water into the batch. lol. OOPS. I guess I'll see what happens. Watery hooch anyone?


Yeah, I've been drinkin' a bit. Hush.

OK, apparently I was second guessing myself wrong. I put in a half gallon (4 lbs) of water to this batch of rice wine that was completely done and settled out. I could have used 1/3 more than that according to calculations. Just went and checked and the wine is actively fermenting again and the wine still tastes on the watery side, less sweet.

So apparently it is the alcohol level that stalls everything out.

 

[Leadgolem]

OK, apparently I was second guessing myself wrong. I put in a half gallon (4 lbs) of water to this batch of rice wine that was completely done and settled out. I could have used 1/3 more than that according to calculations. Just went and checked and the wine is actively fermenting again and the wine still tastes on the watery side, less sweet.

So apparently it is the alcohol level that stalls everything out.

More data is good data.

 

[jak1010]

I think I'm one more experiment away from getting the "now what are you doing?" speech from my wife.

This time, it's a twist on milk mead, milk liquor and rice wine.

Not sure how it'll turn out but it looks gross. Very similar to the last batch of milk liquor I made that turned out great. (Just Google "milk liquor" if you're curious. It's good stuff)

I made one cup of dry rice cooked and cooled, added 1/2 cup of whole milk, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 of a lemon, 1/2 of an orange and 1/2 of a package of ARL. I figured I'll let it sit for 2-3 weeks.

Any predictions?

 

[Leadgolem]

I think I'm one more experiment away from getting the "now what are you doing?" speech from my wife.

This time, it's a twist on milk mead, milk liquor and rice wine.

Not sure how it'll turn out but it looks gross. Very similar to the last batch of milk liquor I made that turned out great. (Just Google "milk liquor" if you're curious. It's good stuff)

I made one cup of dry rice cooked and cooled, added 1/2 cup of whole milk, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 of a lemon, 1/2 of an orange and 1/2 of a package of ARL. I figured I'll let it sit for 2-3 weeks.

Any predictions?

Sounds a bit like koomis, or rather the milk mead variant I've seen on here.

The alcohol content should cause the milk to coagulate and the proteins to drop out. Well, the alcohol and the acid from the lemon and orange should be able to denature the proteins.

I'm a little concerned your alcohol content is going to rise so fast that you won't get much starch conversion. Answering that question is why I'm running the alcohol solution experiments. Another possible issue you could have is with the amount of sugar in the liquid. I don't think you are quite high enough for the sugar to act as a preservative, but you could end up with stalled yeast and lots of sugar left.

Obviously the lactose isn't going to get fermented, but I think your chances of getting a lacto infection in that kind of a batch is actually pretty high.

After saying all that, it will probably be just fine. I would expect you to get something fairly sweet and tangy when it's done fermenting. Probably crystal clear with a light yellow color. I don't think you're going to get much starch particulate. You'll want to remove the denatured milk proteins, and I don't see how you can do that without removing most if not all of the starches as well.

EDIT: Here's the thread I was thinking of. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/milk-mead-spin-koumiss-instruction-recipe-info-381045/

 

[sivispacemparabe11um]

I plan on harvesting this weekend. I have read well over fifteen hundred post and I dont recall a good explanation of the best way to do it. I'm not sure if I should squeeze the rice or just let it drain. How do I keep it from getting oxidized during the process? Should I use cheese cloth or a fine mesh collander? I am getting anxious its my 1st batch and I don't want to mess it up.

 

[dgr]

Buy a voile curtain at wall mart. It's a lifetime supply (ok, 6 months) of extra fine straining material. I don't worry about oxidation and i squeeze once I've rolled the ball back and forth in a large piece of the curtain to get most of the goodness out. You can do your squeeze into a different container if you are worried about it being cloudy but it all seems to settle pretty fast for me.

 

[Leadgolem]

I plan on harvesting this weekend. I have read well over fifteen hundred post and I dont recall a good explanation of the best way to do it. I'm not sure if I should squeeze the rice or just let it drain. How do I keep it from getting oxidized during the process? Should I use cheese cloth or a fine mesh collander? I am getting anxious its my 1st batch and I don't want to mess it up.

If you use cheese cloth, you probably won't be able to clean it well enough afterward to ever be able to reuse it.

A colander is probably going to have holes to large and let chunks of unconverted rice into your wine.

I use an undyed dish towel that I wet down before using. I put that in a colander, then put that into a bowl to collect the wine in. Pour or scoop some rice wine into the dish towel. Gather all the corners, and gently squeeze the liquid out. This takes a little while, and you have to kind of massage it....yes go ahead and comment.

Dump the pressed starch out into the trash or compost, pour the wine into whatever bottle you had planned to use, and repeat until you've gone through the whole batch.

This is very much the same process I use to make ricotta, only when you make cheese you retain the solids and discard the liquid.

 

[dgr]

This takes a little while, and you have to kind of massage it.

Oh you dirty boy LG. I used to have some nice dish towels that were similar to flour sack cloth. I used them when I was making tofu.

I decided to harvest tonight. Day 23 I guess. This was my side by side of square balls and, well, ball shaped balls.

Before. Half of the floating rice is only slightly buoyant and will sink if rocked back and forth. I can still see active bubbling coming from the bottom but I'm done waiting on this batch and some of it has to get shipped off to a bachelor party.

Final Yield. Sure seems like a lot. Kinda of glad my roommate is on vacation. I'll have to hide some in the back of the kegerator.

My massaging technique. What can I say? It comes naturally. The rice lees give up much more of their goodness than just making a ball and twisting the heck out of it. I start at the bottom, work my way to the top and then back to the bottom. But don't be afraid to mix it up. I'm sure everyone can find his or her own rhythm.

Tasting results: Yup, it's alcohol. I need to wait for it to chill because at room temperature they both give me the head shakes :rockin: But initial taste has me thinking the round balls produced a more sour version.

 

[FatDragon]

I started mine three days ago - three cups of rice split between three jars (nothing big enough in the house that I could get sanitary in time). I used three balls of yeast, mashed and sprinkled into the jars between scoops of rice. The rice was probably too hot when I pitched the yeast - not uncomfortably so, but definitely hot to the touch. I'm seeing some discoloration on the rice where it's in direct contact with the yeast, but very little liquid - mostly just drops that look like condensation. Is it possible I killed my yeast with the heat? If so, should I dump and try again, mix in some more dry yeast, or crush some yeast, mix it with a bit of water, and then pitch the slurry?

 

[FatDragon]

I started mine three days ago - three cups of rice split between three jars (nothing big enough in the house that I could get sanitary in time). I used three balls of yeast, mashed and sprinkled into the jars between scoops of rice. The rice was probably too hot when I pitched the yeast - not uncomfortably so, but definitely hot to the touch. I'm seeing some discoloration on the rice where it's in direct contact with the yeast, but very little liquid - mostly just drops that look like condensation. Is it possible I killed my yeast with the heat? If so, should I dump and try again, mix in some more dry yeast, or crush some yeast, mix it with a bit of water, and then pitch the slurry?

Spoke too soon, it seems - I came home from work today and noticed the liquid was definitely coming along. I was a bit discouraged seeing little to no liquid after three days when the example from the first few posts was already moving along after two, but no longer. I saw some decent liquid after work, gave a little shake to each jar, and in just a few hours since then it's been rising at a really nice clip.

One of my jars, however, has some little black spores (roughly the size of fine grains of sand) connected by little filaments growing on top of the rice. The other two are free of this, but the infected jar has quite a bit of it. Is this a dump-worthy infection, or should I just trust the alcohol to kill it when the time comes?

 

[durianpicker]

Looks like somebody has found a way already without rocket science.

Fermentation on the tree, live!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_wine

funny i just rembered that a few years ago i read a asain scientist figured out how turn plant matter into alcohol without harsh chemicals this was a cover page story. well i could be wrong but i think every asain home brewer and now because of this and im sure some other posts this hasent been a secret for a very long time. funny how guzzling and i mean guzzeling super crazy rice wine drink made me rember that

 

[jak1010]

Sounds a bit like koomis, or rather the milk mead variant I've seen on here.

The alcohol content should cause the milk to coagulate and the proteins to drop out. Well, the alcohol and the acid from the lemon and orange should be able to denature the proteins.

I'm a little concerned your alcohol content is going to rise so fast that you won't get much starch conversion. Answering that question is why I'm running the alcohol solution experiments. Another possible issue you could have is with the amount of sugar in the liquid. I don't think you are quite high enough for the sugar to act as a preservative, but you could end up with stalled yeast and lots of sugar left.

Obviously the lactose isn't going to get fermented, but I think your chances of getting a lacto infection in that kind of a batch is actually pretty high.

After saying all that, it will probably be just fine. I would expect you to get something fairly sweet and tangy when it's done fermenting. Probably crystal clear with a light yellow color. I don't think you're going to get much starch particulate. You'll want to remove the denatured milk proteins, and I don't see how you can do that without removing most if not all of the starches as well.

EDIT: Here's the thread I was thinking of. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/milk-mead-spin-koumiss-instruction-recipe-info-381045/

Once again LG, you set me straight on things I see in hind sight. Making the liquor, I wasn't concerned about lacto infection. With this recipe and now that you pointed it out, it's very obvious.

As for the starch conversion, once again right on track. I don't see much of a chance for it to happen. Maybe starting the rice and yeast first, waiting 18-21 days and then mix in milk, sugar and fruit would have a better result.

Looks like many more mason jars will be deployed for this.

BTW: I'm about to start another batch of milk liquor. It's amazing how good a $6 half gallon of cheap vodka can taste after just 10-14 days.

 

[Leadgolem]

Once again LG, you set me straight on things I see in hind sight. Making the liquor, I wasn't concerned about lacto infection. With this recipe and now that you pointed it out, it's very obvious.

As for the starch conversion, once again right on track. I don't see much of a chance for it to happen. Maybe starting the rice and yeast first, waiting 18-21 days and then mix in milk, sugar and fruit would have a better result.

Looks like many more mason jars will be deployed for this.

BTW: I'm about to start another batch of milk liquor. It's amazing how good a $6 half gallon of cheap vodka can taste after just 10-14 days.

I just gave you my opinion. Time will tell if any of the potential problems turn out to be actual problems.

If I was going to do a rice wine with milk batch I would probably pursue more of a sake strategy. Meaning cultivate the bug that does the conversion of the starch on the rice with minimal liquid. Then add more starch and milk instead of water. I'd probably omit the citrus completely, and try to keep things relatively cool. Given the tendency of rice wine, sake included, to get overly tangy.

 

[trbig]

In the article above posted about palm wine, it states that the locals would add lime to the unfermented palm juice to keep it from fermenting. Maybe there's a reason for the citrus other than taste?

 

[Leadgolem]

In the article above posted about palm wine, it states that the locals would add lime to the unfermented palm juice to keep it from fermenting. Maybe there's a reason for the citrus other than taste?

Yes it does. I find that a bit odd. I have made fermented limeade.

It's probably used as a pH adjuster. According to this, lime juice usually has a pH of 2-2.35. If you adjust the pH below 5 it does severely slow yeast activity.

 

[FatDragon]

In the article above posted about palm wine, it states that the locals would add lime to the unfermented palm juice to keep it from fermenting. Maybe there's a reason for the citrus other than taste?

Different kind of lime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(mineral)

To be fair, I don't know how it works, just noticed that on the page.

With regards to my question about the tiny black spores on top of the rice (a few posts back), does anyone have a good answer? They're in all three jars now, so it's all or nothing at this point. Are spores like that normal? Will the alcohol kill them? Or should I dump and try again at this point?

 

[trbig]

Different kind of lime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(mineral)

To be fair, I don't know how it works, just noticed that on the page.

With regards to my question about the tiny black spores on top of the rice (a few posts back), does anyone have a good answer? They're in all three jars now, so it's all or nothing at this point. Are spores like that normal? Will the alcohol kill them? Or should I dump and try again at this point?

Just because wiki linked it to the chemical lime doesn't mean that's what was used, only that wiki has a definition for lime. BUT.. that doesn't mean it DOESN'T mean the chemical lime as well..

As to your mold... I'd just let it go and see what happens. What have you got to lose, unlesss you're on some kind of time schedule to have some wine for some event? I got my first batch of mold on this last batch I tried. I've just let it go. I've still got liquid in it, but not nearly as much as the batch next to it that I did at the same time. Those batches are at 28 days tomorrow and I'll probably harvest, but they're still fermenting and bubbling out the airlock.. but maybe only once every ten seconds or so.