Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[lowrider_rt2000]

Has anyone tried freeze distilling the rice wine? I put mine in the freezer over night. It was slushy by the next night. I put the slush in a blender with spout. The alcohol goes to the bottom and out the spout. I just scoop/scrape the slush off the top. This made some very very strong rice wine.

 

[MasterCrook]

Has anyone tried freeze distilling the rice wine? I put mine in the freezer over night. It was slushy by the next night. I put the slush in a blender with spout. The alcohol goes to the bottom and out the spout. I just scoop/scrape the slush off the top. This made some very very strong rice wine.

Be careful with this, methanol and other fusel alcohols become concentrated in the wine.

 

[501irishred]

Be careful with this, methanol and other fusel alcohols become concentrated in the wine.

I think the more pressing danger is from the concussion your bound to get from falling off the bar stool!

 

[lowrider_rt2000]

Well...I know I only had a glass full and almost fell off my bar stool!

 

[Urkelbot]

I got a 2 gallon yield and heat pasteurized. How long does it take now for the cloudy layer to settle?

 

[lowrider_rt2000]

You're looking at a couple days then you can rack it if you want.

 

[ChefRex]

Consumed a bottle from last May last night, good things happened to it, I have one that's just past a year and more will be aged. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1427764410.134821.jpg

 

[smacksfrog]

I have tried this recipe a couple times now always with the same result: a sour flavored wine that I dont like much.

I have tried a few different rices, all more or less the same. For the first couple small scale attempts I was pretty cavalier about sanitization but after bad results I got strict. Same result.

Has anyone else had trouble?

My thoughts on possible problems:
My jars are tall and skinny?
My yeast balls maybe contaminated?
I should harvest sooner before acid production ramps up I have tried 3wks and 4 wks for harvests)

Any ideas?

Edit-
Additional info: I make the rice the same way I always make rice, well rinsed and soaked, followed by cooking 1:1 or sometimes 1.25:1 water to rice, depending on rice type.
I think one place I haven't been careful enough is pitch temp. I am an impatient person. I'm fairly sure I tried once with cooler temps, but since I can't be sure I made some experiment rice, cooled it off, and layered it with yeast ball. My thoughts were (before my latest try) that Koji is kept very warm to work well and amylase likes warm temps as well. Ofc, I gave the fermenting yeast no respect
High hopes now, plus I don't mind the failures if I still have fun

 

[z-bob]

Red yeast rice doesn't replace or supplement the yeast balls.
BTW, make sure it is red yeast rice and not red cargo rice...

(Been offline for a month)
It's definitely RYR. My usual batch is a pound of rice (cooked a little on the dry side) and one yeast ball. How much pulverized RYR do I add to make red yeast wine? Will an ounce do it?

 

[Rambunctious]

Just staring a new batch 5cups Jasmine rice cooked water volume 2:1 cant wait.

 

[brooklynkayak]

(Been offline for a month)
How much pulverized RYR do I add to make red yeast wine? Will an ounce do it?

I have made red yeast rice wine twice. Both times I used about 1 part RYR to approx. 15 parts glutinous rice.

This gives a color very similar to Hawaiian Punch.

I might mention that both times my wine had a slightly funkier/yeastier taste than regular rice wine,

I have read that it does affect the taste.
My friends and I agree we like the regular better.

It could also be that my RYR was not good.

 

[MasterCrook]

I have made red yeast rice wine twice. Both times I used about 1 part RYR to approx. 15 parts glutinous rice.

This gives a color very similar to Hawaiian Punch.

I might mention that both times my wine had a slightly funkier/yeastier taste than regular rice wine,

I have read that it does affect the taste.
My friends and I agree we like the regular better.

It could also be that my RYR was not good.

My last 4 batches have been with RYR, and I haven't made a proper yellow batch yet, until now. After I harvest this week, I'll provide some info too

 

[wagz]

Ok so I have a couple questions...
I made a small batch last year, with good results, so like many folks went big (20-25# of dry rice) and that worked great. A group of friends and I plan to make a massive batch 500# of dry rice.
So my questions are
Is a good yield 1 gal of final product per 5# of rice (jasmine?)
How many yeast balls per # of dry rice do people use?
Has anyone used the onto yeast from Canada they are $10/lb?

 

[Lebl468]

Ok so I have a couple questions...
I made a small batch last year, with good results, so like many folks went big (20-25# of dry rice) and that worked great. A group of friends and I plan to make a massive batch 500# of dry rice.
So my questions are
Is a good yield 1 gal of final product per 5# of rice (jasmine?)
How many yeast balls per # of dry rice do people use?
Has anyone used the onto yeast from Canada they are $10/lb?

Just started my batch, 3 cups of Basmati, 1/1.5 rice to water and 6 yeast balls. Bought the balls from Onto, $10/lbs, $18 to ship said pound. BUT, if you order 2 lbs, the shipping only goes up $2. My jars are bubbling away, so they definitely are working, as for finished product taste.....16 days away from telling!

 

[z-bob]

Just started my batch, 3 cups of Basmati, 1/1.5 rice to water and 6 yeast balls. Bought the balls from Onto, $10/lbs, $18 to ship said pound. BUT, if you order 2 lbs, the shipping only goes up $2. My jars are bubbling away, so they definitely are working, as for finished product taste.....16 days away from telling!

I think you're using a lot more yeast balls than necessary. (not that it'll hurt anything)

 

[pdxal]

Ok so I have a couple questions...
I made a small batch last year, with good results, so like many folks went big (20-25# of dry rice) and that worked great. A group of friends and I plan to make a massive batch 500# of dry rice.
So my questions are
Is a good yield 1 gal of final product per 5# of rice (jasmine?)
How many yeast balls per # of dry rice do people use?
Has anyone used the onto yeast from Canada they are $10/lb?

FWIW, about 3# dry rice yields around 2 liters of wine for me. Not sure what everyone else gets. I squeeze the heck out of the batch to get as much as possible of the cloudy wine before I let it sit and clarify.
I typically use 4-6 yeast balls per 2# rice.
So, if you get yields like me, I would expect 83-85 gallons of rice wine from 500# rice.
I'll say it again, too, that you should be able to easily find yeast balls in a local asian grocer. Typically in small packs of 11-12 balls for about $2.25-$2.50 around here.
What the heck are you going to ferment that much rice wine in?
Good luck.

 

[wagz]

This past year we did a group cider buy, and have 2 275gallon totes, so we will use one of those.
Our goal is 100gallons so we will have to increase the rice some.
I saw in earlier posts (only read the first 1000 so far) that saramc said something like 2balls/kilo of rice. Is that still a good ratio?

 

[Lebl468]

I think you're using a lot more yeast balls than necessary. (not that it'll hurt anything)

I think so too. I stood there with 3 balls crushed up, and chickened out and crushed up 3 more. next time going to drop it back to 4 and if that goes good, down to 3 (1 ball per cup).

 

[z-bob]

I use 2 cups (raw) of rice (about a pound) and one yeast ball, and I think I'm probably being overly generous with it. Going to add a tablespoon or RYR too next time and see what happens.

 

[pdxal]

2 cups dry rice equals roughly 0.86 pounds for long grain rice, and I have been using 4 yeast balls lately per 2-8 cups of rice with similar results across the spectrum of yeast/rice ratios when I look back at my recipes. 1-2 balls per pound should work fine. About 18# rice took up about a 5 gallon bucket for me, if that helps you with volume calculations any.

 

[hornetd12]

If you are using onto yeast balls, it says on their website to use 35grams of yeast per kilo of rice, I weighed them and it works out to approx 5 yeast balls, I believe it also says on the bag that 1 lb of yeast balls to 19 kilos of rice.

 

[yetilicious]

Hello all,

I bottled my first two sweet rice batches last night. One jar the rice came out of the cooker more like a porridge and the other looked like normal rice.

The "porridge" wine came out like a very dry white wine and had a bit of a kick to it. The "normal" wine was also dry but had a much bigger kick to it.

Does everyone strain and filter out the sediment that settles or do you just leave it in the bottle?

 

[Aniseed]

I have been getting MUCH less sediment to deal with by letting the things rest for a day or two after pulling the rice, then carefully re-rack or bottle with a small siphon so I don't disturb what has settled.

 

[yetilicious]

I have been getting MUCH less sediment to deal with by letting the things rest for a day or two after pulling the rice, then carefully re-rack or bottle with a small siphon so I don't disturb what has settled.

Yeah, I think I'm going to rebottle tonight and our it through a coffee filter in a funnel and see how that works.

 

[Aniseed]

I have not had much luck with the coffee filter process, the sediment tends to clog the filter quickly creating the "stuck sparge" effect pretty rapidly. Done quite a few batches and my best clarity has come with the method I mentioned above, by the way, when I'm racking off, I'm using a very thin hose ( I think it's like 1/8" ID) - takes longer but makes it easier to rack without disturbing.

FWIW, I did even try sparkleloid (sp?) in a batch, but apparently the suspended solids are not the type that attach themselves, so no real net effect, other than it took some of the color out of my ihfused versions.

Personally, I don't mind the lack of clarity; but I know a lot of the "common folk" get a little tweaks when they see a homemade beverage that doesn't have that "commercial clarity" to it.

 

[badlee]

Got these from our office cleaner today,just in time for Thai new year.
So,after bottling homebrew this evening,my first rice wine will be brewed

View attachment 1428633499687.jpg

 

[badlee]

And,after over cooking the 1 kg of rice(cooked it like normal long grain rice,******* that I am) and "pitching" both yeast boulders,four hours later the air-lock is going ape!

 

[Vodkiwi]

Cooking like normal rice is fine, I use that technique to make my vodka mash, and everyone that has tried it likes it. It tends to turn out sour.

 

[badlee]

Cool,thanks. I am a fan of sour.

 

[yetilicious]

Got another just like it taste like grapefruit kicks like gin.

Yeah weird, a bottle that i flavored with blueberries also tastes like i made it with grapefruits. Same (for me) overbearing tartness. Does this go away overtime or can i add a ton of sugar to counteract it?