Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[wc1376c]

If you're going to do a big batch like this I suggest using a :sly:

BIG MOUTH BUBBLERS ftw!

 

[Arrheinous]

BIG MOUTH BUBBLERS ftw!

I didn't wait for the rice to cool before transferring. It could probably help to further sanitize the fermenter. But it could also shatter a glass BMB or deform a plastic one.

 

[wc1376c]

True, I let mine sit awhile before I toss em in. Gives me time to start another batch.

 

[troy2000]

Should still be ok to get rid of the water and cook as normal right?

I let the rice soak for more like 48 hours, because I got sidetracked. Then I cooked it in the water it had soaked in... wow. Talk about some gelatinous, sticky stuff; I think I could use it for furniture glue.

I cooled it to about 80 degrees, and that took forever even with the pot setting in a sink of ice water. Then I powdered four rice balls, stirred them in as best I could, and glopped everything into a 1 gal decorative Ball jar.

After cooking, the four cups of rice made enough to fill the jar up to right below the shoulder; five cups would have been too much.

And if anyone remembers the bean pot I bought for a wine crock, there's a good reason I'm not using it: it has a batch of jasmine rice in it.

 

[jak1010]

I let the rice soak for more like 48 hours, because I got sidetracked. Then I cooked it in the water it had soaked in... wow. Talk about some gelatinous, sticky stuff; I think I could use it for furniture glue.

I cooled it to about 80 degrees, and that took forever even with the post setting in a sink of ice water. Then I powdered four rice balls, stirred them in as best I could, and glopped everything into a 1 gal decorative Ball jar.

After cooking, the four cups of rice made enough to fill the jar up to right below the shoulder; five cups would have been too much.

And if anyone remembers the bean pot I bought for a wine crock, there's a good reason I'm not using it: it has a batch of jasmine rice in it.

I do remember the bean pot. How does it perform as a rice wine fermenter?

 

[troy2000]

I do remember the bean pot. How does it perform as a rice wine fermenter?

It's been in steady use for that purpose ever since I bought it... works just fine. Someday I'll have to buy another one, to use for beans.

For those who didn't see the original picture, here's a rerun.

 

[Zibe]

I'm on week three of a half rice half flaked barley one gallon batch it's had a nice white mold on top since about a week in but now it's getting darker and looking a little ugly. It still smells good is it safe to drink????

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1416782667.374509.jpg


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[wc1376c]

I'm on week three of a half rice half flaked barley one gallon batch it's had a nice white mold on top since about a week in but now it's getting darker and looking a little ugly. It still smells good is it safe to drink????

View attachment 237827


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Its safe, lol. Go to home depot and get some paint filters for future batches. Looks good though.

 

[Zibe]

Cool figured it was ok but my 100% rice batches never looked this bad. I do have paint strainers I use for my hop spider I'll probably collect tomorrow see what it tastes like.


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[Zibe]

Ok bottled my concoction it was 3cups rice and 1pound flaked barley (took water boiled for an hour with a total of 1/4ounce magnum and added flaked barley with 5min left) tasted it and it is rocket fuel. The rice sweetness is gone it tastes dry with a slight hop bitterness and no hop flavor or aroma (even though I did add some of the hops at the end of the boil) no barley or beer flavor at all actually kind of flavor neutral with a little bitterness, unless burning is a flavor cause it friggin burns. Gonna cold crash and rack and reassess right now not sure if I like it or hate it. Debating on throwing a couple whole hop cones (Sorachi Ace of course if LHBS has it) Pic is a 1.5L bottle.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1416844589.836201.jpg


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[wc1376c]

These are some angry batches! I brewed these yesterday. They are making my airlocks put in overtime. Kinda screwd myself by limiting that last one to only one gallon. I woke up this morning and had to throw the whole thing jar and all into a home depot bucket...hope it doesn't mold over. I ended up with a left over rice batch (#17) so I threw some rasberries in with it. Wish me luck! Will post these in a few weeks.

View attachment 1416872562973.jpg

 

[wc1376c]

Ok bottled my concoction it was 3cups rice and 1pound flaked barley (took water boiled for an hour with a total of 1/4ounce magnum and added flaked barley with 5min left) tasted it and it is rocket fuel. The rice sweetness is gone it tastes dry with a slight hop bitterness and no hop flavor or aroma (even though I did add some of the hops at the end of the boil) no barley or beer flavor at all actually kind of flavor neutral with a little bitterness, unless burning is a flavor cause it friggin burns. Gonna cold crash and rack and reassess right now not sure if I like it or hate it. Debating on throwing a couple whole hop cones (Sorachi Ace of course if LHBS has it) Pic is a 1.5L bottle.

View attachment 237941


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Well I hope you didn't toss it. I make A habit of bottling at least one bottle from all batches and throwing it in the back of the closet for a few months.

My thai pepper batch was insane, I wanted to toss it. I tried it again after a few weeks and it only got better. It was "yeasty" as a friend pointed out, so I started cutting my times down. This batch you made looks tasty! I hope time would mellow it.

 

[Zibe]

No I won't toss it I'm looking to make a high abv rice/barley or all barley wine with the rice balls. If I can hit on something that tastes decent I want to collect a few gallons and age it with a little oak. Friend is trying to make a 20+% beer using more traditional methods and I'm trying to beat him with the secret of the balls. Looking for ideas if anyone has done anything similar but I also don't want to hijack this thread as I'm doing something different. What I really want is a Double Russian Imperial Oaked Rice Wine Stout. Yeah that's right now that you've heard of it you want it too.


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[wc1376c]

To scale this up a bit: I used a whole 15# bag of sushi rice for the latest batch and have been fermenting/conditioning it in a broken keg. I used a 2qt starter of rice with 16 yeastballs crushed up to produce a slurry that I could pour over all that rice to more evenly distribute the yeast to initiate fermentation.

I attempted a starter slurry like yours, for this last group, and It wouldn't get going. I am going to try again and try it further out, like five days maybe.
I wanted to use up my Viet yeast tabs that I had remaining (24), so I crushed them up with some nutrient and enegizer, two tablespoons of sugar and some rice. Three days out and it never started.

 

[danmerk23]

Anyone ever make this using corn meal vs rice? Does the rice yeast have enough enzyme to change convert corn?


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I ferment pretty much everything.

 

[pdxal]

I attempted a starter slurry like yours, for this last group, and It wouldn't get going. I am going to try again and try it further out, like five days maybe.
I wanted to use up my Viet yeast tabs that I had remaining (24), so I crushed them up with some nutrient and enegizer, two tablespoons of sugar and some rice. Three days out and it never started.

What's your definition of "never started"? How can you tell it never started? 3days is pretty short, too, to give up on them. You should wait longer to tell if saccharification is taking place.
I've also found the Vietnamese yeast tabs to not ferment as dry as the Chinese yeast balls do. The Vietnamese ones are apparently for making a sweet dessert, not wine. Both generally take 3-4 days before liquid starts to appear in the bottom of the vessel. I don't use airlocks on my batches, so can't speak to CO2 production, though.

 

[wc1376c]

What's your definition of "never started"? How can you tell it never started? 3days is pretty short, too, to give up on them. You should wait longer to tell if saccharification is taking place.
I've also found the Vietnamese yeast tabs to not ferment as dry as the Chinese yeast balls do. The Vietnamese ones are apparently for making a sweet dessert, not wine. Both generally take 3-4 days before liquid starts to appear in the bottom of the vessel. I don't use airlocks on my batches, so can't speak to CO2 production, though.

Hmm never new that @ the Viet ones. I wonderd why there was such a difference in my batches with the two. Chalked it up to different water. Any way there was no motion in that starter ocean...to the observable eye. I still split it between the two big batches (800ml each) soguess I will see post T day. BTW those are the two agressive ones I mentioned in an earlier post.

 

[wc1376c]

So here is the Kraken soaked Heavy Oaked batch. Pulled this AM for fining over the T day weekend.
Initial impressions...nice color, nice Kraken/Oak flavor, not strong at the moment. I will give it a taste again next week, before pasturizing.

View attachment 1416996253711.jpg

 

[jak1010]

So here is the Kraken soaked Heavy Oaked batch. Pulled this AM for fining over the T day weekend.
Initial impressions...nice color, nice Kraken/Oak flavor, not strong at the moment. I will give it a taste again next week, before pasturizing.

That looks a lot better than how I imagined it in my head. Nice color.

 

[ChefRex]

Harvested a Gallon+ today

 

[wc1376c]

That looks a lot better than how I imagined it in my head. Nice color.

Thanks! It tastes like awesomesauce. lol. It didn't have a chance to make it to pasturization.

 

[Arrheinous]

The 15# batch of rice wine came out a bit sour. It might have been from some nearby sour beers or fermenting at 75F for so long. The broken keg also wasn't very easy to seal so there's probably a bit of oxidation going on. I didn't think it would be any worse than the jar with cheese cloth method though.

I've got the bottles washed and plan to carry on. What I did find is backsweetening with something like Splenda kills the sour flavor and makes the wine far more palatable. If it's fixed then I'll have 12 750ml for the office party next week on top of 5G milk stout and 5G Xmas tripel.

 

[z-bob]

I couldn't stand it any longer and I squeezed mine on Thanksgiving (3 1/2 weeks) From 1 cup of sweet rice, 1 cup of medium-grain, and 2 cups of water, I got about 3 cups of cloudy white liquid (looked kinda like milk) and a ball of solids about the size of a tennis ball.

It (the liquid) was very sweet, and also had a little bitterness to it that I didn't expect. The flavor was complex and kind of fruity, and alcoholic. It mixed well with a little unsweetened cranberry juice. It lasted about 3 days.

I will try to let the 2nd batch go a full 5 weeks. I've bought another package of yeastballs.

 

[mythbustingpyro]

I had a similar experience with a 5# batch. Seems I remember reading somewhere in the thread that bigger batches tend to go a little sour.

 

[wc1376c]

Day three of my second attempt at a starter...doesn't seem to be taking off. Gotta see this starter slurry you made. May I'll try Chinese yeast next time.

View attachment 1417652619440.jpg

 

[wc1376c]

So no sooner did I take this pic and pull out some Lalvin K1 to rehydrate....and noticed some airlock bubblige.

 

[Arrheinous]

So I think I saved the soured rice wine in the 15# batch.

Overall I mixed up 6L of the clear liquor, 2.5L of filtered solids/sediment slurry, and used 2 cups of generic non-sugar (Splenda) sweetener. This ratio was prepared on a 3 oz scale in a big graduated shot glass. A lot of sampling went on to get it right, not too sweet but enough to counter the sourness.

There really wasn't enough flavor going on - it didn't feel like rice wine. So I boiled a few fractions of an ounce of galangal and annato with a few threads of saffron in a ~1/2 cup of water. Then added this filtered spice water back and pasteurized the whole thing. It scorched the solids a little bit which is okay because that ends up adding a toasted flavor that went over well last time when it happened in the original batch of rice.

Out of the 15# batch I ended up with 11 750mL bottles and a pint-sized mason jar of wine.

 

[wc1376c]

So I think I saved the soured rice wine in the 15# batch.

Overall I mixed up 6L of the clear liquor, 2.5L of filtered solids/sediment slurry, and used 2 cups of generic non-sugar (Splenda) sweetener. This ratio was prepared on a 3 oz scale in a big graduated shot glass. A lot of sampling went on to get it right, not too sweet but enough to counter the sourness.

There really wasn't enough flavor going on - it didn't feel like rice wine. So I boiled a few fractions of an ounce of galangal and annato with a few threads of saffron in a ~1/2 cup of water. Then added this filtered spice water back and pasteurized the whole thing. It scorched the solids a little bit which is okay because that ends up adding a toasted flavor that went over well last time when it happened in the original batch of rice.

Out of the 15# batch I ended up with 11 750mL bottles and a pint-sized mason jar of wine.

Dude...you rock! BTW rum toasted oak works, you just gotta pasturize and let it age.

 

[Arrheinous]

The starter was done in two quart jars. I made up the rice, cooled some of it down and ground up the yeast balls into that starter rice. This contained all of the yeast balls for the batch so 16 in two jars. It's pretty much a very wet portion of the cooked rice with all the initial yeast concentrated in it.

Then add some water, maybe 1/2 cup per jar and shake whenever you can for a few days. Storing at room temp was fine. It will generate CO2 after 24 hours and if the lid is on too tight it will carbonate it somewhat.

The goal was to create a slurry that could more uniformly be poured out over the rice bed to begin fermenting everything at once. The yeast is also a year or two old but it started up just fine.

IIRC I only gave the starter a day. And if you want to let it go longer then make the starter batch of rice separate from the main batch. Can't remember how long I waited before adding the starter.

 

[Arrheinous]

The other thing about the rice starter is that I didn't get a lot of flavor and aroma. It's like the yeast wasn't stressed enough to generate all the floral and fruit qualities it had before.