Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[wongjau]

I am just drinking a glass of a rice wine i must have bottled 2 or 3 years ago. Completely different. Deep golden colour, tastes a bit like Sherry. It is very good and crystal clear.

Congrats. Nicely aged!

That’s what they are going for with the wine in the huge clay jars and the mud and leaves sealing the top.

 

[dharpster00]

Interesting. Then, why is it that Japanese Sake is colorless?

 

[wongjau]

Interesting. Then, why is it that Japanese Sake is colorless?

Expensive sakes have less color because the rice is polished more which reduces the compounds that contribute to darkening.

Less expensive sakes are charcoal filtered, but that reduces the flavor.

 

[dharpster00]

Expensive sakes have less color because the rice is polished more which reduces the compounds that contribute to darkening.

Less expensive sakes are charcoal filtered, but that reduces the flavor.

Ah, makes sense. Kind of like with distilled spirits. Should have thought of that. Thank you.

 

[Miraculix]

Congrats. Nicely aged!

That’s what they are going for with the wine in the huge clay jars and the mud and leaves sealing the top.

Thanks! I'm going to do a new batch soon, maybe tomorrow. This time, I will let it sediment properly before bottling. I have bought some nice 1.5 litres pre-bottling bottles for this with corks. After that, small beer bottles with crown caps plus pasteurisation.

 

[kmarkstevens]

There is a style called Nu Er Hong (女儿红). Traditionalists, create this yellow rice wine (huangjiu aka黄酒）when they bear a daughter. Bury the clay pots and the dig these up for the wedding banquet when the daughter is married off.

I've got a sake going now, but thinking I should revisit using the Shanghai yeast balls and make some of this huangjiu again. It's been a few years since I last did this.

 

[Miraculix]

There is a style called Nu Er Hong (女儿红). Traditionalists, create this yellow rice wine (huangjiu aka黄酒）when they bear a daughter. Bury the clay pots and the dig these up for the wedding banquet when the daughter is married off.

I've got a sake going now, but thinking I should revisit using the Shanghai yeast balls and make some of this huangjiu again. It's been a few years since I last did this.

If I ever have a daughter, I shall make Nu Er Hong.

 

[dharpster00]

Wanted to share a picture of the results of my batch of rice wine. It's amazing. Also, I have 1 final question... does making a "well" in the center of the rice make it easier to pull the wine out without sediment? Thank you.

 

[Time2Retire]

I have vacation coming up, and some glutinous rice in the pantry. Time for another batch.

 

[Orval]

@sonofgrok
"1) A good, glutenous rice. My wife is Thai/Filipino, so we always have Thai Jasmine rice laying around which is what I will be using here."
Thai Jasmine rice is a not-glutinous rice! To avoid any useless argument, just be aware that I live in Loei, Thailand and we grow glutinous rice here (aka sticky rice). We also grow mangoes and the mango wine is just amazing, I posted my recipe on this forum. One day I may try to make some beer, adding glutinous rice to lower the bill because barley malt is quite expensive here. To come back to your rice wine, you have to use glutinous rice because of its higher sugar content, in other words, no Jasmine rice...
About 'yeast' balls, why don't you try Angel Yeast Yellow Label?
About turbidity, why don't you add some bentonite to your wine? Well indeed, the very low quantity you seem to be producing does not allow much of this...

 

[Miraculix]

I filter my rice wine through a brew bag when it's done (you need to massage it), fill the turbid and milky liquid in a bigger vessel with air lock and wait some additional weeks. Narrower vessels are better than wider here, try to avoid buckets for this. Wine bottles also work. The turbidity will settle on its own and you can decant the clear liquid. Use the leftover for cooking.

Regarding rice type, it's not about the sugar content. Both varieties contain very little to no sugar, they contain starches. But the types of starches differ within these two varieties. That's why one is getting sticky when cooked and the other not so much. The starches from the sticky variety are the starches that can be chopped down to sugars by the fungi from the yeast balls. That's the reason why we want the sticky rice.

 

[Time2Retire]

As vacation ended, I threw a long-awaited batch using my tried and true method. Two cups each sticky and Calrose rice. Four HanHeng yeast pellets. Three days in, the rice is liquefying nicely. Tomorrow or so, same again plus two cups water.

This method has been so successful, I thought I'd try something new. To each batch of rice, I added about a tablespoon of ground red yeast rice. We'll see if if makes a difference.

 

[Time2Retire]

UPDATE: Getting ready to throw my second batch. I have the rice cooker and the Instant Pot both in service, and the kitchen is full of the clean smell of rice. Hopefully it will be a lot more funky smelling soon

 

[Miraculix]

UPDATE: Getting ready to throw my second batch. I have the rice cooker and the Instant Pot both in service, and the kitchen is full of the clean smell of rice. Hopefully it will be a lot more funky smelling soon

I'll be making a new batch soon too. I've made a batch of Tibetan/Nepalese Chang which soured quite a bit unfortunately. It's basically the same thing, but with boiled barley instead of rice. Good stuff! A staple of the Himalayas.

I have some packs of sticky rice left, have to use them .

 

[kmarkstevens]

I had chang with Tibetans back in the 1980's.

 

[Miraculix]

I had chang with Tibetans back in the 1980's.

Me too! But recently... Kind of every year, mainly with my Nepali friends. Sometimes with Tibetans too. And of course with these Westerners....

 

[Erik the Awful]

I just bottled my second batch of rice wine. It didn't impress me at first, but sitting here sipping it, I like it. It's the first wine I've made that I didn't have to add sugar to. I made a gallon batch, so I have five bottles and the sampling cup I'm working on.

Now I'm playing with Stable Diffusion, trying to get it to anthropomorphosize "黄酒" into kung-fu fighters for a label. Getting the AI to understand what I want is harder than making the wine! I'm also hoping that isn't a "stupid gringo" move; I truly love old kung-fu movies.

 

[Time2Retire]

Accept no substitute! The one on top is "Han Heng." It's always worked well for me, though I have to buy it online.

The bottom one is "Hang Hing." I spotted it at my local Asian market and thought I'd give it a try. I ended up getting a very sweet brew, lower alcohol and not as much as usual.

Buy Han Heng! I do still have some of the other. I think I'll try using it on barley, like Tibetan chang, or try making rice vinegar with the finished product.

 

[Time2Retire]

Barley update: it's been more than 48 hours, and liquid is just barely starting to form. If it hasn't improved in a couple days, maybe I'll goose it with some rice. The yeast balls really do seem to be calibrated for rice.

 

[Miraculix]

Barley update: it's been more than 48 hours, and liquid is just barely starting to form. If it hasn't improved in a couple days, maybe I'll goose it with some rice. The yeast balls really do seem to be calibrated for rice.

Do not touch it. Any way you touch or move it will leed to souring. It takes time.

 

[Erik the Awful]

If it doesn't start producing liquid fast enough, your rice can mold before the leavening starts working. My experience, from post #6315:

For anyone in a dry climate, you'll need to add some water when you start it, so that you have liquid up to about 3/4 the height of the rice in your container. For the first couple days you'll want to spritz the top of the rice with water morning and evening to keep it moist. After that the liquid level should reach the top.

I aged mine on the countertop for a few months and bottled it last week. It turned out pretty nicely, and the additional water really didn't weaken it significantly.

 

[Miraculix]

If it doesn't start producing liquid fast enough, your rice can mold before the leavening starts working. My experience, from post #6315:


I aged mine on the countertop for a few months and bottled it last week. It turned out pretty nicely, and the additional water really didn't weaken it significantly.

The rice is supposed to mold! The white mold is already on the yeast balls and it is supposed to be there. It is the source of enzymes that chop the starches into fermentable sugars. It can happen that it even shows itself visually as white mold on the surface of the grains but this is no fault. It's perfectly fine, it's supposed to happen.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Yeah, no. I was getting the full rainbow of molds; every color. I'm pretty sure that's not good. Keeping it spritzed worked fine.

 

[Miraculix]

Yeah, no. I was getting the full rainbow of molds; every color. I'm pretty sure that's not good. Keeping it spritzed worked fine.

OK, that's not supposed to happen, you are correct.

 

[Tommyx]

Here is the final product. It tastes absolutely delicious!

It is very sweet with a little bit of wine bite. Remember this stuff is VERY high in alcohol and packs a wicked punch so drink responsibly!

View attachment 83138

I was wondering if adding a little orange blossom honey would be A good alter to the taste?

 

[passedpawn]

My koji, just before adding yeast. Like fluffy clouds. The bucket behind that one is another batch of sake without koji (direct infusion of enzymes instead).

 

[Miraculix]

My koji, just before adding yeast. Like fluffy clouds. The bucket behind that one is another batch of sake without koji (direct infusion of enzymes instead).

View attachment 839400

In before random confused person does not understand that this is not the usual rice wine this thread is about.

Took me a minute too.

"Before adding the yeast?" *Scratching the head*

 

[passedpawn]

In before random confused person does not understand that this is not the usual rice wine this thread is about.

Took me a minute too.

"Before adding the yeast?" *Scratching the head*

You don't add yeast to your sake?

 

[Miraculix]

You don't add yeast to your sake?

This is not a sake thread my friend, it's about Chinese rice wine. For Chinese rice wine, mold and yeast are added together in the form of "yeast balls". Most people don't even know that they contain the same mold that is used in sake production. Fairly simplified process, when compared to sake production.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Most people don't even know that they contain the same mold that is used in sake production. Fairly simplified process, when compared to sake production.

I'm no pro, but my research says they're different. Koji uses aspergillus oryzae while Chinese yeast balls use rhizopus oryzae.