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6/29 batch results

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

Exactly 5 cups return. Maybe another half cup in the Lees. Sweet but not super sweet. Just slightly tart near finish and semi dry mouth feel on finish. I racked it off into a 2qt mason jar with air lock for a few more days. VERY happy with the results of this recipe.

Next RYR+Yeast ball batch will be 2 cups Koshihikari and 1 cup sweet rice.

RedRiceYeastWIne5.JPG
 
My bottles are still aging, I didn't get a chance to try it on the weekend.

You're ryr batch looks good. You use a lot of ryr though
 
The 6tbs of RYR were before grinding. One recipe i found was in grams so i took a WAG and tried to stay a bit lighter. IIRC one of the recipes called for 150 grams to a kilo of rice. The other called for 2oz to a pound of rice.

I guess i should start using a scale.
 
I just ordered some Angel Rice Leaven. I think i will try it next with a bit less RYR.

I put the sweet rice batch with just yeast balls in the fridge to cold crash. Looks great already. Tomorrow i will bottle and pasteurize.

The RYR+yeast ball batch isnt settling as quickly but i will cold crash it tomorrow too. The cloudy portions of both should make excellent marinade.
 
I have always been curious about ARL, in comparison with the yeast balls. I just bought a bunch of Onto Yeast balls so i think that'll last me 4 batches or so. Maybe when I'm done with those I'll try ARL. I'll keep everyone posted on what happens with the Onto Yeast, I'm thinking maybe in September. How long is the delivery for the ARL?
 
Website says allow 10 days for delivery. They are on the east coast. Im in the central USA.
 
Wow, these guys at 360videoshopping are slow shippers. I just received my USPS tracking number and the package has not even been picked up yet by USPS.

I guess i cant expect much for free shipping from CHINA!!!!
 
I've made 4 or 5 batches of this now; I'm sipping some right now that I let ferment for 2 months. They've all (including this one) been too sweet. If I add a little more water, will the yeast be able to ferment it dryer? If so, when do I add the extra water, at the beginning or when it's almost finished?
 
Have you tried red yeast rice and a sake yeast or maybe Lalvin EC-1118 with some nutrients?
 
I added RYR to the last batch. It's very boozy, but it's also sweet (and kind of thick); there's a lot of sugar left after the yeast ran out of steam. Maybe a little extra water would lower the ABV so the yeast can keep going.
 
My ARL arrived today from China. It looks like they sent an extra free package. It has sticker on the package with Chinese writing and a smiley face. Manufacture date is 3/22/2015 on all the packages

Now, the package says 8 grams is enough for 2-2.5kg of rice. It sort of implies the weight is for dry rice. The recipe is actually for a type of fermented porridge and not really wine although im sure longer fermentation than directed (36hr) will produce wine.

Ive decided on equal parts sweet rice 2.5 cups and Akitaotome short grain rice 2.5 cups. IIRC another member recommended using roughly 1 gram per 1.5 cups of rice. I may add a little RYR just because i like the "fruitiness" it seems to give the wine.

6 dry cups rice sweet and sushi mix
1 package ARL
3 TBS (before grinding) RYR
Rice well rinsed and soaked
Cooked in my microwave rice cooker with a little less water than used for eating....This microwave cooker works surprisingly well when you figure out the correct water to rice ratio for each type of rice.
 
Last edited:
Good Day!
Nothing too exciting too post in comparison to some of the experiments i see going on, of which I am very impressed. But SWMBO decided to take it upon herself to start up a couple jars of rice, her first fermentation project ever :rockin: She started these on July 31st, I hope she either makes more, or saves some seeing as I'm out of country for a while yet... :mug:

3 cups rice, 2 cups water. Generic sushi rice from the store and 2 yeast balls.
received_10207920607397196_zpsyicxmljc.jpeg


5 days later
received_10207920571636302_zpsq3w4fstg.jpeg
 
Anyone tried using RYR for a few days for starch conversion then pitch a yeast like KV1-1116 or EC-1118? I have both but i dont really want to waste a package if the results were poor.

Also has anyone tried a secondary fermentation to make a less sweet wine AFTER pasteurizing by adding the above yeasts?
 
z-bob said:
I added RYR to the last batch. It's very boozy, but it's also sweet (and kind of thick); there's a lot of sugar left after the yeast ran out of steam. Maybe a little extra water would lower the ABV so the yeast can keep going.
Click to expand...

To make the wine drier and less sweet, I usually add water before fermentation. The amount added depends on how full the jar is already, as the rice ferments into wine, more liquid is present and could overflow the jar. Also, too much could make a light wine, not my preference. I usually add about 1-2 inches of water, depending on how full the jar is.
 
Test batch nuruk and K1-V1116. I followed this recipe with the exception of the type of yeast. Rice used was Akitaotome. Its a true short grain sushi type rice that is less sticky than Koshihikari.

http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/makgeolli

I chose nuruk for this test because the rice starches are converted to sugars very quickly. After just one night there is a huge difference in the rice mass and the K1-V1116 is really going to town. It has already turned into a porridge.
 
The nuruk batch has almost completely liquified the rice and fermentation with the Lalvin yeast is bubbling like mad. ATM the aroma is more like beer to me than wine. I think im going to add more rice to it today or maybe some sugar. Its only slightly sweet.

The RYR and ARL batch had liquid 3/4 of the way up the rice. I stirred it yesterday and made another hole in the center. Out of curiosity i tasted the spoon when i was done....Delicious, i could eat a bowl of this stuff.....Now i see why ARL is used to make a drunken rice porridge.
 
Its beginning to slow down now. Im going to filter off the larger stuff today and put it in jars with an air lock. Gunna try adding some Korean rice syrup.
 
I've skimmed through the thread a few times in the past and decided this weekend was the time to try it out for myself. I have two 1 quart mason jars going with 2 cups (Japanese, ~180ml) each of jasmine rice cooked in a rice cooker, and one ground up ball each of yeast. I put one in the oven with the light on, which holds it at around 95°F. That one has a lot of liquid and is very goopy and smells like sake. It has a couple spots of dark mold on top as well. I know higher temps aren't great because of lactobacillus contamination, but I wanted to see how it turned out. I put the other jar in the cupboard, and room temp is around 78°F right now. It's going much slower but has plenty of liquid after a few days. It also has a coating of mold on top with thin white tendrils and dark dots at the tip.

I'm particularly interested to know if anyone has taken it a step further and tried making huangjiu like Shaoxing wine at home. I gather the process is much more involved, making a seed mash with acidified grains and xiaoqu, then adding acidified rice and daqu as well as red yeast rice. I'd really like to recreate something at least vaguely similar similar, because I do a lot of Chinese cooking and it's impossible to buy any Shaoxing other than low-end salted cooking wine in Ontario.

4r2IYOX.jpg
 
Bob_McBob said:
I've skimmed through the thread a few times in the past and decided this weekend was the time to try it out for myself. I have two 1 quart mason jars going with 2 cups (Japanese, ~180ml) each of jasmine rice cooked in a rice cooker, and one ground up ball each of yeast. I put one in the oven with the light on, which holds it at around 95°F. That one has a lot of liquid and is very goopy and smells like sake. It has a couple spots of dark mold on top as well. I know higher temps aren't great because of lactobacillus contamination, but I wanted to see how it turned out. I put the other jar in the cupboard, and room temp is around 78°F right now. It's going much slower but has plenty of liquid after a few days. It also has a coating of mold on top with thin white tendrils and dark dots at the tip.

I'm particularly interested to know if anyone has taken it a step further and tried making huangjiu like Shaoxing wine at home. I gather the process is much more involved, making a seed mash with acidified grains and xiaoqu, then adding acidified rice and daqu as well as red yeast rice. I'd really like to recreate something at least vaguely similar similar, because I do a lot of Chinese cooking and it's impossible to buy any Shaoxing other than low-end salted cooking wine in Ontario.

4r2IYOX.jpg
Click to expand...

I thought huangjiu is exactly what we've been making? I haven't heard of a method involving acidified rice. From what I've gathered from online sources, rice wine made with yeast balls and glutinous rice (RYR optional) falls into the huangjiu category
 
I thought huangjiu is exactly what we've been making?
Click to expand...

Basically that is correct and it is translated roughly into "yellow wine". Fujian wine also falls in this category. A few of the higher end varieties are even aged for 3 years. Some versions are reddish or other colors from the RYR and/or aging.

IMO, sweet rice or a true short grain rice will make a better Shaoxing type wine than jasmine rice although mixing rice has produced some very interesting wines. Botan or Kukuho calrose medium grain varieties would be my next choice.
 
MasterCrook said:
I thought huangjiu is exactly what we've been making? I haven't heard of a method involving acidified rice. From what I've gathered from online sources, rice wine made with yeast balls and glutinous rice (RYR optional) falls into the huangjiu category
Click to expand...

For Shaoxing wine specifically, here's a description of manufacturing the most popular variety based on the Handbook of Food Science, Technology, and Engineering.

Glutinous rice is soaked for 18-20 hours in slightly acidified water before steaming. Large cisterns are filled with 144 kg of cooked rice, 2.5 kg of "wheat qu" (wheat yeast, da qu), 5-8 kg of "sprinkled rice jiu mo" (a pre-fermented rice mash produced with "jiu yao", xiao qu), 84 kg of the starchy soaking water, and 112 kg of fresh water. Adding the fresh water is intended to lower the acidity of the starchy water to an acceptable level for fermentation.

The mash is stirred and left for 12 hours during which time a large amount of saccharification occurs, then mixed once or twice a day for up to 6-8 days depending on the initial internal temperature (which affects the taste a lot). It's then transferred to smaller jugs and allowed to continue fermenting for 70-80 days before being filtered, pasteurized, and aged.

A little bit more complicated than my first attempt in this thread ;)
 
Bob_McBob said:
For Shaoxing wine specifically, here's a description of manufacturing the most popular variety based on the Handbook of Food Science, Technology, and Engineering.

Glutinous rice is soaked for 18-20 hours in slightly acidified water before steaming. Large cisterns are filled with 144 kg of cooked rice, 2.5 kg of "wheat qu" (wheat yeast, da qu), 5-8 kg of "sprinkled rice jiu mo" (a pre-fermented rice mash produced with "jiu yao", xiao qu), 84 kg of the starchy soaking water, and 112 kg of fresh water. Adding the fresh water is intended to lower the acidity of the starchy water to an acceptable level for fermentation.

The mash is stirred and left for 12 hours during which time a large amount of saccharification occurs, then mixed once or twice a day for up to 6-8 days depending on the initial internal temperature (which affects the taste a lot). It's then transferred to smaller jugs and allowed to continue fermenting for 70-80 days before being filtered, pasteurized, and aged.

A little bit more complicated than my first attempt in this thread ;)
Click to expand...

I see. Shaoxing wine seems to have a different procedure than what we've been using for basic huangjiu. Complicated indeed :)
 
i picked up some extra old shaoxing wine from taiwan. there is no substitute for it when it comes to some hardcore cooking now that i've tried it. drinking however... its a really acquired taste imho. to me its like unsalted alcoholic soy sauce.
also its made from a mix of rice and sorghum afaik
 
z-bob said:
Maybe a little extra water would lower the ABV so the yeast can keep going.
Click to expand...

After advise from others on the list, I experimented with using more water and longer fermentation time to produce a drier rice wine.

I think most of my friends prefer the results, especially for summer drinking.

The batch that had a total water to rice ratio of just under 4 to 1(including soaking water) and two months fermentation was preferred.

It produces a much drier flavour similar to Sake . I suspect it would taste similar to strong beer/ale if hops were added.
 
My next batch, I'm going to start exactly like normal, but after a week or so (when it's liquefying and smells like alcohol) I'll add another cup of water.
 
The nuruk and K1-V1116 batch with a little rice syrup added tastes much different than i expected. It taste more like sake than Chinese rice wine. Not very sour like some makgeolli ive tried. The yeast has eaten all the rice syrup or nearly all. I only used a coarse stainless mesh for straining so it still has quite a bit of sediment in the jar.

The RYR and ARL batch was a bit slow and seemed to have stalled. I added 1.5 cups of water a few days ago and stirred it. Now it smells like rice wine and the rice is starting to float.

Next batch will be
Sweet rice soaked in water with a little citric acid.
RYR only for the first 48 hours in a warm closet. Im considering adding a tiny bit of amylase also.
EC-1118 and 1cup of water added after 48 hours
60 day ferment time
 
Hi all, I've only made it to page 350 and I intend to read all the way to the end, but I just wondered if these are okay. So far I haven't seen this brand in any of the first 350 pages:

IMG_0333.jpg
 
Evilgrin said:
The nuruk and K1-V1116 batch with a little rice syrup added tastes much different than i expected. It taste more like sake than Chinese rice wine. Not very sour like some makgeolli ive tried. The yeast has eaten all the rice syrup or nearly all. I only used a coarse stainless mesh for straining so it still has quite a bit of sediment in the jar.

The RYR and ARL batch was a bit slow and seemed to have stalled. I added 1.5 cups of water a few days ago and stirred it. Now it smells like rice wine and the rice is starting to float.

Next batch will be
Sweet rice soaked in water with a little citric acid.
RYR only for the first 48 hours in a warm closet. Im considering adding a tiny bit of amylase also.
EC-1118 and 1cup of water added after 48 hours
60 day ferment time
Click to expand...


it almost takes effort to make makgeolli turn sour and cruddy. gonna pump up my rice wine thread but i used nuruk and rice and it was extremely easy to make a drink that was not sour. the closer to 52F your fermentation gets, the souring bacteria become almost dormant. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=437006

mixing the ease of just adding nuruk (in my case a big, solid brick purchased) and the easy bits of making sake results in a great drink called cheongju (clear alcohol)
 
Thanks all! I'm going to give this a whirl on Saturday (Sunday I'm brewing beer). This is going to be fun!
 
cheongju was what i was hoping to accomplish with the nuruk and Lalvin yeast. I have no recipe for it so i experimented. The entire fermentation has been in sub 70F temps. My basement gets quite cool in the winter so i will be sure to repeat this test then.
 
I just put my first batch of this together last night using the instructions on the first page (haven't read the whole thread). Anything else I need to know to make it work? Probably just need to leave the yeast and mould to do its thing (as usual, patience will be key).

Pretty excited.
 
brisboy said:
I just put my first batch of this together last night using the instructions on the first page (haven't read the whole thread). Anything else I need to know to make it work? Probably just need to leave the yeast and mould to do its thing (as usual, patience will be key).

Pretty excited.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much all you need to do!
 

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