Looking for a bit of help on making rice wine. I followed the recipe in the link below but am not getting any liquid output even after ~2 weeks. I looked at a number of rice wine recipes including various ones in this thread and they were all fairly similar to this one which I followed:
How to Make Sake [Fermented Rice Wine] - My Fermented Foods
I used 1 cup of sticky rice (
Hakubai Japanese Sweet Rice), steamed it, cooled it, mixed in one powdered yeast ball (
Hang Tail Marine Shanghai Yeast Balls), and placed in my oven with the light on (seems nice and warm, i would guess around the 80 - 85 degrees recommended).
I pull the bucket out every couple of days to check progress and it smells great - yeasty and fruity. I pressed a finger against the cheese cloth and tasted and it is yummy - tastes like people describe the finished rice wine. I am not getting ANY liquid though.
The only think I did differently from that recipe is I placed the cheese cloth bag of rice and yeast ball powder on the bottom of the bucket, not suspended in the air in the bucket.
My thoughts/questions:
1. I did not add any additional water to my primary fermenter. The recipes seem split on this; some say to pour water into the fermenter then add the rice but others say you do not need it. My rice seems moist still even after a couple of weeks in the fermenter. Should I add a couple of cups of water?
2. I started with 1 cup of rice and then steamed it. The recipe calls for "3-4 cups of cooked rice" and 3 yeast balls, so a 1:1 ratio. Given that the rice expands when cooked, did the author mean 3 - 4 cups AFTER cooking? If so, then the ratio might be more like 2 yeast balls to 1 cup of uncooked rice (before steaming).
3. Is 1 cup of rice just not enough, i.e., there is a critical mass needed and it is more than 1 cup?
Any advice would be appreciated!