Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[billsea]

Did the extra water you added boil off? Extra water during fermentation will make the wine drier and more sour. I haven't tried boiling the rice, only steaming. I think the popular method is 1:2 ratio rice:water for boiling

I follow the package directions for cooking the rice. Add the rice to the water, bring it to a soft boil, turn down the heat, cover the pot, simmer for 20 min. I think that very little water is lost to boiling. All is absorbed into the rice.

I also think that pre-soaking the rice for an hour or two would add more water to the rice. I don't know how much. I stopped doing that.

The rice that I bought for my next batch says to add 1 1/2 cups water to one cup of rice. Still can't wrap my mind around why some jasmine rice packages call for almost 40% more water than others.

 

[MasterCrook]

I follow the package directions for cooking the rice. Add the rice to the water, bring it to a soft boil, turn down the heat, cover the pot, simmer for 20 min. I think that very little water is lost to boiling. All is absorbed into the rice.

I also think that pre-soaking the rice for an hour or two would add more water to the rice. I don't know how much. I stopped doing that.

The rice that I bought for my next batch says to add 1 1/2 cups water to one cup of rice. Still can't wrap my mind around why some jasmine rice packages call for almost 40% more water than others.

Just a guess, but maybe dryness of the grains, size, age, might be factors

 

[Evilgrin]

I'm having a hard time finding yeast balls. Anyone want to sell me some? I'd buy them online but shipping is insane!

Hi, i just joined the forum and i saw you have an old post about finding yeast balls in the STL area.

Seafood City on Olive east of 170 carries both the small Vietnamese style and Heng Lung yeast balls $1.60/12 balls. They also had red yeast rice close to the yeast balls. $2.00/14oz

Olive Market is just across the street from Seafood City and they also have a big selection of hard to find Asian items.

Global Foods on 421 S Kirkwood should carry some also but i will check next time i go there.

At Fee Fee and Olive there is another good size Asian Market with mostly Chinese items.

At 141 and Olive there are two Korean Markets. They may not have yeast balls but they should carry Nuruk.

 

[Evilgrin]

I started my first batch yesterday.

5 cups of dry rice. Half Sweet rice and half Jasmine. Well rinsed and soaked over night. Then rinsed again. Cooked with a little less water than normal.

4 Heng Lung yeast balls.

Im letting it sit in a warm upstairs closet for the first 36-48 hours in a pail with a air lock. Im may try adding more rice to it after it gets moved to a cooler room. I normally eat Koshihikari rice which is a true short grain sushi rice.

Jasmine and sweet rice should be very good for starch to sugar conversions. They are both high on the glysemic index. Jasmine being one of the highest at over 100. Both are also very cheap compared to real sushi rice varieties such as Koshihikari, Hitomebore and Akitakomachi.

 

[Zymomancer]

Has anyone had problems with mold spores getting loose when making this and infecting things nearby (like other fermentations)? Is the smell particularly stronger or worse than your traditional carboy-with-airlock setup? I'm guessing that I'm worrying about nothing, but I just wanted to ask.

I assume this has been mentioned somewhere in this giant thread, but the yeast balls and red yeast rice are generally called "jiuqu"... the wikipedia page gives you a good idea of what's in there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiuqu

Jiuqu consists of a complex mixture of various molds, yeasts, and bacteria with their associated metabolites, cultured on a starch-rich substrate in a solid state fermentation process. They are typically stored and sold in the form of dried bricks (Daqu), balls (Xiaoqu e.g. Shanghai Yeast Balls), powders or as dried grains (Red Yeast Rice). The most common organisms found in Jiuqu are the filamentous molds Aspergillus oryzae and Rhizopus oryzae and the amylolytic yeast Saccharomycopsis fibuligera. Amylolytic and proteolytic enzymes are the most abundant metabolites isolated.

Also, this is a pretty cool sister thread about using grains other than rice, in case anyone's not noticed it:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=496435

 

[Cheeto]

Easy and simple answer.. Make your rice wine in a different place than you're beer..

It is not uncommon for cross contamination to happen

 

[danmerk23]

I think this has been answered within the 200 pages but is white fuzz ok on top of the fermentation? There are tiny little black specks in one spot but I thought I read that it was ok.

Is this true?

I'm super clean with everything and made this a ton. I've seen this before.

I made a batch and in 12 hours I have the fuzz AND co2 going.

 

[Evilgrin]

Test batch RYR+Yeast

I found a similar recipe online but i used different rices. You would normally use just sweet rice but i wanted to try some of my higher end sushi rice for this batch. Jasmine was added mainly to increase the starch content.

2 dry cups Kagayaki Select Koshihikari rice
1 dry cup Jasmine
6tbs RYR before grinding
1 Heng Lung yeast ball
1tbs sugar
1tbs sweet rice flour

Rice well rinsed, soaked 8 hours then cooked with just enough water to cover the rice in the cooker and allowed to cool over night.

RYR and yeast ball ground together. A quick mix with the sugar and sweet rice four. The flour is also called glutinous rice starch.

Mix it all together and put in mason jars as usual.

One jar i added a tiny bit of water to see how it compares to the other. Around 4tbs of purified water was added.

 

[MasterCrook]

I think this has been answered within the 200 pages but is white fuzz ok on top of the fermentation? There are tiny little black specks in one spot but I thought I read that it was ok.

Is this true?

I'm super clean with everything and made this a ton. I've seen this before.

I made a batch and in 12 hours I have the fuzz AND co2 going.

This is normal, and a good sign

 

[MasterCrook]

Test batch RYR+Yeast

I found a similar recipe online but i used different rices. You would normally use just sweet rice but i wanted to try some of my higher end sushi rice for this batch. Jasmine was added mainly to increase the starch content.

2 dry cups Kagayaki Select Koshihikari rice
1 dry cup Jasmine
6tbs RYR before grinding
1 Heng Lung yeast ball
1tbs sugar
1tbs sweet rice flour

Rice well rinsed, soaked 8 hours then cooked with just enough water to cover the rice in the cooker and allowed to cool over night.

RYR and yeast ball ground together. A quick mix with the sugar and sweet rice four. The flour is also called glutinous rice starch.

Mix it all together and put in mason jars as usual.

One jar i added a tiny bit of water to see how it compares to the other. Around 4tbs of purified water was added.

Interesting, why add sugar though?

 

[Evilgrin]

Interesting, why add sugar though?

Im not sure but a couple Fujian wine recipes called for a little sugar. I was going to use Korean rice syrup instead but i forgot.

http://carolynjphillips.blogspot.com/2011/08/scarlet-rice-wine-of-northern-fujian.html

http://allthatmatters2rei.blogspot.com/2008/06/red-glutinous-rice-wine.html

 

[Evilgrin]

The batch of RYR+Yeast ball+4tbs of added water is already showing over 1/2" of liquid in the bottom and the rice is floating. VERY noticeable alcohol smell.

The batch with no added water has liquid showing in the rice about half way up the jar but the rice is not floating yet. Alcohol smell is MUCH less. It does have more white fuzz in the top inch of the rice.

IMO both look very promising for such a short amount of time.

 

[Evilgrin]

Sweet rice and Jasmine batch from 6/25 using only yeast balls is very soupy now. I have not opened the bucket but just tilting it shows the rice moving freely when i hold it upto the light. It was a very firm mass in the beginning. My pail must not seal well because i see no air lock activity.

EDIT:

I just pulled the air lock for a quick sniff. It smells very very nice. Just like all the rice wines i use for cooking.

 

[Strats]

So I strained and bottled what I had done with slightly less then 4c of rice, got 1.25L of liquid. I wanted it to be ready for an event so I stopped it at 16 Days. The liquid is extremely sweet, like a liquid candy. No taste of alcohol at all. After 12 hours of sitting in a cupboard in the dark I opened the swing tops I have it in, no pop/hiss/nothing to indicate co2. Maybe it was too cold for the yeasts but I got the molds to do their work? 58-62f the whole time except for 12hr or so at 80f in the beginning. I'll definitely try making it again when its warmer, but anything to salvage this?

So I put the liquid in a carboy with an airlock and left it alone covered in a garbage bag in my basement for 2 months. Certainly boozy. I'll try making it again now that the weather is warmer.

 

[jedijon]

I made a 5 cup [dry] rice, 3/4 cup refrigerated Koji [not moistened further], champagne yeast pitched on day 2 batch.

It's in a 1 gallon glass jar with a rubber band/towel airlock.

At this point we're ~3 weeks in and there's been lots of liquid for the majority of the process. I've shaken it a bit to redistribute the mass on top [not very successfully], I've stired it [just once...nervously...contamination ya know].

Have no idea what it should be smelling like and/or how to know it's done. And it's smelled like a lot of things, no necessarily like commercial sake.

I've made tons of beer and all kinds of grape/fruit wines. My fear is that this gets an infection [acetobacter or otherwise] and goes south. In the wine world...we keep out the air, but only when mostly done...and fruit removed. Given I'm a sake first-timer I would like to know HOW to know WHEN to do WHAT

If my wine analogy is causing me to stray don't hesitate to point it out. If I've long since crossed the point where you would've thrown out the remaining rice and created an Oxygen-less environment to settle ala wine making...let me know that too! Thanks.

 

[Evilgrin]

21-28 days till straining seems to be the norm. Rice should float then fall on its own without mixing?

My 6/29 RYR+Yeastball with a little extra water added though has well over an inch of liquid in the bottom now with the rice floating. Roughly double the liquid of the same batch without 4tbs of water added. Both smell very alcoholic and somewhat fruity.

 

[MasterCrook]

I made a 5 cup [dry] rice, 3/4 cup refrigerated Koji [not moistened further], champagne yeast pitched on day 2 batch.

It's in a 1 gallon glass jar with a rubber band/towel airlock.

At this point we're ~3 weeks in and there's been lots of liquid for the majority of the process. I've shaken it a bit to redistribute the mass on top [not very successfully], I've stired it [just once...nervously...contamination ya know].

Have no idea what it should be smelling like and/or how to know it's done. And it's smelled like a lot of things, no necessarily like commercial sake.

I've made tons of beer and all kinds of grape/fruit wines. My fear is that this gets an infection [acetobacter or otherwise] and goes south. In the wine world...we keep out the air, but only when mostly done...and fruit removed. Given I'm a sake first-timer I would like to know HOW to know WHEN to do WHAT

If my wine analogy is causing me to stray don't hesitate to point it out. If I've long since crossed the point where you would've thrown out the remaining rice and created an Oxygen-less environment to settle ala wine making...let me know that too! Thanks.

Can you post a pic?

 

[Evilgrin]

RYR test batches from 6/29. Never stirred but i have tilted the jar enough to get the liquid to the top layer. Liquid in the top jar is actually 3/4 of the way up the rice. A small amount of sugar and sweet rice flour were added to both. 2/3 Koshihikari sushi rice and 1/3 Jasmine rice.

Top pic RYR+Yeast ball
Bottom pic RYR+Yeast ball+4tbs purified water

 

[MasterCrook]

Looks good! I'll be harvesting a batch today, I'll post some pics

 

[MasterCrook]

Here's my latest batch. I used extra glutinous rice this time and the results were different than thai jasmine. I noticed the smell was more like melon, colour was more yellow, tasted sweeter, more alcohol. I'm letting it settle for a week, than I'll post pics of the cleared wine.

 

[Evilgrin]

I found these at Walmart to try on Ball and Mason jars. The hole is large enough for an airlock but it needs a tiny bit of saran-wrap to seal. The small hole needs to be blocked too.

Under $5 for 4

 

[Evilgrin]

Sweet rice has nearly no amylose and contains mostly amylopectin. Many other rices are 20% amylose or higher. Its more difficult to convert to sugars. The Kagayaki sushi rice i prefer to eat is in the 18-23% range. It seems to be working very well for wine and smells fantastic in the Fujian style red rice wine.

I just bought a 15lb bag of Nishimoto Akitaomore rice, mostly to eat but i will be trying it for rice wine also. Its a little less sticky than a true sushi rice although its a true short grain. I will probably mix it 50/50 with sweet rice.

I really wanted to try this one for rice wine. Its a sweet rice and Koshihikari hybrid called Snowflake or Milky Queen but they only had large bags.

 

[MasterCrook]

I think i might try a short grain rice next time. I've had decent batches with Thai Jasmine, and I'm waiting to test my latest batch after a week. From what I've observed so far, Thai jasmine is harsher, makes a more tart, sour wine. The extra glutinous i just bottled is sweet, too sweet actually. I hope it changes flavour over time. My very first batch ever was sushi rice, and it was also too sweet. I'll try it again though.

 

[Evilgrin]

Have you tried a calrose variety? Its a medium grain hybrid rice with a slightly higher amylose content than sushi rice and a bit less sticky. Akitakomachi is another short grain rice that is also less sticky than other Japanese short grain varieties. It might produce a less sweet wine.

Im using mine to replace my mirin which is a sweet 14.5% cooking sake. The lees from the RYR is also widely used for cooking in some areas in China. I will be straining my sweet rice and jasmine mix in 2 days if the sample seems good. It will be at 22days and it smells very "boozy" now.

 

[MasterCrook]

I haven't tried calrose yet, maybe in the near future. Have you compared thai jasmine batches to short grain batches?

 

[MasterCrook]

I think glutinous low amylose rice is the best for yield and abv. I can't wait to try my batch again after it ages!

 

[Evilgrin]

I havent tried a straight Jasmine batch yet. Im out of Jasmine rice atm. I have mixed it with glutinous rice 50/50. That batch i will harvest tomorrow or the next day.

BTW Costco has about the best deal on Jasmine if you dont mind a 20lb bag. Its under $20 for the bag. I dont eat enough Jasmine to justify buying that much. It very high on the glysemic index but also contains a fairly high amylose content too.

Ive got some Himalayan red rice and black rice i want to try but most of what im reading says to avoid rice with a lot of husk/bran material such as brown rice. I may try a small amount mixed with glutinous rice just for color.

 

[MasterCrook]

Yeah, husk/bran isn't good, but mixing it sounds like an interesting experiment

 

[Evilgrin]

Oh WOW, the 50/50 jasmine and sweet rice batch is outstanding. I would swear its a fruit wine. Fairly sweet and very slightly tart. I racked it off into a 2qt mason with an air lock to see if it will clear up a bit.

This really is insanely good if you like a sweet wine. I will post a pic in a little while. I got about 1 3/4qts back from a 5 cup batch. I could have squeezed the lees a tiny bit more.

 

[MasterCrook]

Sounds like a great combination! Looking forward to seeing the pics! The suspense is killing me, I can't wait to sample my extra glutinous batch after clearing

 

[Evilgrin]

Its already starting to clear up.

 

[MasterCrook]

Nice, that really liquified

 

[Evilgrin]

Its close to 1500ml return from 5 dry cups of rice with no additional water added to the cooked rice. I even used a bit less water than normal to cook the rice.

This was strained at 22 days. First 36 hours or so it was stored in a upstairs closet that was quite warm. The rest of the time it fermented in 75-81F temps. Now its in 68-71F temps in the mason jar.

The lees basically turned to powder when squeezed in the fine strainer bag. I almost kept the lees for some cooking. It tasted surprising good and its used quite often in Asian dishes.

 

[MasterCrook]

I've noticed with glutinous the lees get spent more, less material left after squeezing. I usually get around (10) 750ml bottles from 16 cups dry jasmine. I think this time I used only 14 cups glutinous, which is why I got 8 bottles

 

[Evilgrin]

Im sure the lees i got was way under 2 cups. Im guessing around 1.5 cups after a pretty good squeeze. About the size of a baseball.

I sampled and stirred one of the RYR+yeast ball batches. Much drier but good. Im harvesting it in 3 more days. I may salt and keep the lees this time for cooking. It will add a nice color and flavor to Chinese style roast pork.

 

[MasterCrook]

I've noticed that too, ryr with jasmine makes a drier wine with a different mouth feel. I am really enjoying the batches workout ryr at the moment

 

[emreka]

If you can't manage glutinous, go with Jasmine Rice. It's between 1.5-2x the price of regular rice but that's still superior than the 3x-4x price of Glutinous.

The most oriental rice I have access to is locally grown jasmine and even then I'm not sure if it has all the characteristics of the original thing.
So, I have a few questions I can't find any info on, hope someone can answer them. First, I'm guessing that the main difference between gluttonous and jasmine rice is the alcohol yield, am I correct? If so, what should my expectations be, will I at least achieve %12-13 ABV? Can I compensate by adding sugar? If so, should I also add (regular) yeast nutrients?
Btw, I'm using Angel Rice Leaven.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Evilgrin]

The main difference for making wine is the amylose content. Sweet or glutinous rice only has about 1% and jasmine can easily exceed 20%. The higher the amount, the harder it is to convert the starches to sugar.

I got an excellent conversion on my jasmine sweet rice mix with just yeast balls. I kept it slightly warm for roughly the first 36 hours and then let it ferment for the remaining 22 days in one of the warmer rooms upstairs. This promoted mold growth and enzyme production.

I only added a small amount of sugar and sweet rice flour to the ground red yeast rice.

I haven't added any yeast nutrients but i may try it in the future.

 

[emreka]

The main difference for making wine is the amylose content. Sweet or glutinous rice only has about 1% and jasmine can easily exceed 20%. The higher the amount, the harder it is to convert the starches to sugar.

Thanks for the explanation. So the problem is in the breaking down process. That's a bummer. I'll expreriment with sugar and sugar + nutrients in the future.

 

[Evilgrin]

Jasmine can and does work but the results may not be as good as sweet rice. It partially depends on your tastes and possibly fermentation time or technique.