OK, could someone do a quick explanation of the difference between the ARL and just the yeast balls? Does it taste different? Is it cheaper?
What's the difference between US-05, WL-001 and Nottingham and you'd be explaining the differences between the rice wine yeasts.
Angel is the name of the Chinese yeast producer. It happens to come in a powder form. Just like yeast balls, it contains yeast and a mold. The mold converts the start to sugar and the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol. Here's what the mfg has to say about their rice wine yeast.
"Angel Rice Wine leaven is manufactured with microbial culture technology and advanced equipment, and the microbial it contains is very useful to the rice wine fermentation. High purity strains, stable quality, very small quantities can achieve the desired effect."
As far as price, they are ridiculously inexpensive. People are using WAY more than they need to from what I could find. Anecdotally, the woman at the store told me to use one package or one square in 10 lbs of rice. Angel specifies .3% to .4% which is 15 grams for 5 kilos of rice assuming my math is correct. Either way, that's 25 cups of rice which I think I could get 5 or 6 liters out of. My package of square balls was 99 cents. A couple of Chinese round balls is somewhere between 99 cents and $2. I haven't found Vietnamese balls or ARL yet.
I would suggest use what you can find local. If you're ordering, get some of each off ebay from the member that posts here. They're cheap.
I think big balls (Chinese), small balls (Vietnamese), square balls (I don't know) and ARL have all been used successfully in this thread.
I got two distinctly different wines from Chinese round vs square but they weren't made at the same time, temperature or length of fermentation so it really means nothing. Both were excellent and have plenty of alcohol in them.