Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different
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sivispacemparabe11um
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I'm curious what this stuff is actually classified as since I read that it's not technically wine. Is it an uncarbonated ale or beer?
I actually bought 30 vanilla beans, and I'm making two different kinds of extract right now.
That's why I want to use the beans though. The extract won't be ready for at least eight weeks, and I've got 10 vanilla beans left. Vanilla beans don't have a very good shelf life. They tend to dry out really badly.It might be interesting to try some of there other products. I think this is the one that's packaged as rice leaven.
All the rice for the grains experiment with the ARL is cooked. I'll pitch those tomorrow. The intended batches are:
1. 1.5 cups jasmine rice, 1 gram ARL.
2. 1.5 cups basmati rice, 1 gram ARL.
3. 1.5 cups long grain white rice, 1 gram ARL.
4. 1.5 cups sweet rice, 1 gram ARL.
5. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
6. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball, 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
I have also decided to delay the vanilla bottle flavoring experiment. TBBrewer is right, it would be better to use a high quality extract. In addition, I would like to do the cinnamon flavoring experiment in parallel with the vanilla. That would require more finished rice wine then I have on hand right now. I also just put together a bottle of real cinnamon extract for the experiment. Neither that, nor the vanilla, is going to be ready until the beginning of November.
1. 1.5 cups jasmine rice, 1 gram ARL.
2. 1.5 cups basmati rice, 1 gram ARL.
3. 1.5 cups long grain white rice, 1 gram ARL.
4. 1.5 cups sweet rice, 1 gram ARL.
5. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
6. 0.75 cups jasmine rice, 1/2 of a rice yeast ball, 4.5 tsp crushed RYR. Submerged in 22.5% alcohol solution.
I have also decided to delay the vanilla bottle flavoring experiment. TBBrewer is right, it would be better to use a high quality extract. In addition, I would like to do the cinnamon flavoring experiment in parallel with the vanilla. That would require more finished rice wine then I have on hand right now. I also just put together a bottle of real cinnamon extract for the experiment. Neither that, nor the vanilla, is going to be ready until the beginning of November.
![Craft A Brew - Safale S-04 Dry Yeast - Fermentis - English Ale Dry Yeast - For English and American Ales and Hard Apple Ciders - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [1 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41fVGNh6JfL._SL500_.jpg)
I seem to remember one person trying them for a beer. I believe they had a blowout. Then ended with a slightly oddly flavored beer. The second attempt had a blowoff tube, RYR, and some cooked rice in it. Still beer mind you. They said it tasted very much like a Chinese red beer. It also had that nice red color they were looking for.
If you really want to push alcohol content, get some distillers yeast. The stuff I've got from baker and sons is tolerant up to 23%.
I just took a new gravity reading on the red rice wine I added the distillers yeast to. It's been 10 days or so, and the gravity dropped from 1.031 to 1.024. So a 0.9% increase in alcohol content. I'll give it another couple of weeks and take another reading.
Here is the picture for the experiments. All the batches are as described and in order from left to right.
It was interesting to me to observe the differences in the rice when I was loading it in the jars. The sweet rice was incredibly sticky, almost a rice booger. The long grain white and basmati rice were not sticky at all. The long grain white rice fit exactly in the quart jar. The basmati had to be packed into the jar with a spoon. This is odd, because I used the same volume of dry rice for all of the batches. The jasmine rice was sticky, but not like the sweet rice.
In order to avoid needing a great deal of alcohol solution, I packed the rice in the last two experiments into the jars a little. I made a solution with 1/2 cup of everclear, and 1 1/2 cups water, and covered the last two experiments.
I hope the last two experiments will tell us whether the alcohol content it's self interferes with the saccharification process. It should be interesting to see how things stand in a few weeks.
dgr
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That sweet rice is crazy sticky. It's all I use. I don't want the girl at the Asian store giving me dirty looks because she knows what I'm doing and questions why I'm only using a 10 lb bag at a time.
Don't get a big glob of hot sticky rice on your fingers. Dunking them in water does not stop the burning as it's a damn good insulator too and you can't just wipe it off. My dad showed me how to make wheat paste glue when I was a kid. I think I'll have to show him how to make sticky rice glue some time.
I'm very interested in #3 and #4. I'm curious how much flavor comes from the rice vs. the yeast/fungus.
Don't get a big glob of hot sticky rice on your fingers. Dunking them in water does not stop the burning as it's a damn good insulator too and you can't just wipe it off. My dad showed me how to make wheat paste glue when I was a kid. I think I'll have to show him how to make sticky rice glue some time.
I'm very interested in #3 and #4. I'm curious how much flavor comes from the rice vs. the yeast/fungus.
trbig
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I think sticky rice is best also, and with the way I inocculated the batch last time, it seemed to work just fine. After cooking the rice, dump it in the container. Seal the container until it cools, (I let it go overnight) Pulverize up the yeast balls, mix with a little water, then pour it over the rice and seal back up. No hand mixing of sticky rice.
I recently found a source of apple brand sweet rice that isn't to expensive. Depending on how things come out, I may switch to it exclusively for rice wine. My experiment with the various grains and yeast balls came out the best with sweet rice. It's also great for any cold rice based desert. The starches are mostly short chain, so they don't crystallize and get grainy when they cool down.
trbig
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Well, I think I just messed up big time. lol. I was going to go for it with my 12 cup batch of ryr that FINALLY finished up. I figured I had roughly 4 lbs of rice (A little more, but rounded up) I started with and was going to add the 1/3 water weight to it and see if it kicked back off. So in figuring 4 lbs of rice, for some reason I thought I needed 4 pounds of water (Mind went back to 12 cups.. 1/3 of 12 is 4, right? :smack
Yeah, I've been drinkin' a bit. Hush.
OK, apparently I was second guessing myself wrong. I put in a half gallon (4 lbs) of water to this batch of rice wine that was completely done and settled out. I could have used 1/3 more than that according to calculations. Just went and checked and the wine is actively fermenting again and the wine still tastes on the watery side, less sweet.
So apparently it is the alcohol level that stalls everything out.
More data is good data.
I think I'm one more experiment away from getting the "now what are you doing?" speech from my wife.
This time, it's a twist on milk mead, milk liquor and rice wine.
Not sure how it'll turn out but it looks gross. Very similar to the last batch of milk liquor I made that turned out great. (Just Google "milk liquor" if you're curious. It's good stuff)
I made one cup of dry rice cooked and cooled, added 1/2 cup of whole milk, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 of a lemon, 1/2 of an orange and 1/2 of a package of ARL. I figured I'll let it sit for 2-3 weeks.
Any predictions?
This time, it's a twist on milk mead, milk liquor and rice wine.
Not sure how it'll turn out but it looks gross. Very similar to the last batch of milk liquor I made that turned out great. (Just Google "milk liquor" if you're curious. It's good stuff)
I made one cup of dry rice cooked and cooled, added 1/2 cup of whole milk, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 of a lemon, 1/2 of an orange and 1/2 of a package of ARL. I figured I'll let it sit for 2-3 weeks.
Any predictions?
Sounds a bit like koomis, or rather the milk mead variant I've seen on here.
The alcohol content should cause the milk to coagulate and the proteins to drop out. Well, the alcohol and the acid from the lemon and orange should be able to denature the proteins.
I'm a little concerned your alcohol content is going to rise so fast that you won't get much starch conversion. Answering that question is why I'm running the alcohol solution experiments. Another possible issue you could have is with the amount of sugar in the liquid. I don't think you are quite high enough for the sugar to act as a preservative, but you could end up with stalled yeast and lots of sugar left.
Obviously the lactose isn't going to get fermented, but I think your chances of getting a lacto infection in that kind of a batch is actually pretty high.
After saying all that, it will probably be just fine. I would expect you to get something fairly sweet and tangy when it's done fermenting. Probably crystal clear with a light yellow color. I don't think you're going to get much starch particulate. You'll want to remove the denatured milk proteins, and I don't see how you can do that without removing most if not all of the starches as well.
EDIT: Here's the thread I was thinking of. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/milk-mead-spin-koumiss-instruction-recipe-info-381045/
sivispacemparabe11um
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I plan on harvesting this weekend. I have read well over fifteen hundred post and I dont recall a good explanation of the best way to do it. I'm not sure if I should squeeze the rice or just let it drain. How do I keep it from getting oxidized during the process? Should I use cheese cloth or a fine mesh collander? I am getting anxious its my 1st batch and I don't want to mess it up.
dgr
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Buy a voile curtain at wall mart. It's a lifetime supply (ok, 6 months) of extra fine straining material. I don't worry about oxidation and i squeeze once I've rolled the ball back and forth in a large piece of the curtain to get most of the goodness out. You can do your squeeze into a different container if you are worried about it being cloudy but it all seems to settle pretty fast for me.
If you use cheese cloth, you probably won't be able to clean it well enough afterward to ever be able to reuse it.
A colander is probably going to have holes to large and let chunks of unconverted rice into your wine.
I use an undyed dish towel that I wet down before using. I put that in a colander, then put that into a bowl to collect the wine in. Pour or scoop some rice wine into the dish towel. Gather all the corners, and gently squeeze the liquid out. This takes a little while, and you have to kind of massage it....yes go ahead and comment.
Dump the pressed starch out into the trash or compost, pour the wine into whatever bottle you had planned to use, and repeat until you've gone through the whole batch.
This is very much the same process I use to make ricotta, only when you make cheese you retain the solids and discard the liquid.
dgr
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Oh you dirty boy LG. I used to have some nice dish towels that were similar to flour sack cloth. I used them when I was making tofu.
I decided to harvest tonight. Day 23 I guess. This was my side by side of square balls and, well, ball shaped balls.
Before. Half of the floating rice is only slightly buoyant and will sink if rocked back and forth. I can still see active bubbling coming from the bottom but I'm done waiting on this batch and some of it has to get shipped off to a bachelor party.
Final Yield. Sure seems like a lot. Kinda of glad my roommate is on vacation. I'll have to hide some in the back of the kegerator.
My massaging technique. What can I say? It comes naturally. The rice lees give up much more of their goodness than just making a ball and twisting the heck out of it. I start at the bottom, work my way to the top and then back to the bottom. But don't be afraid to mix it up. I'm sure everyone can find his or her own rhythm.
Tasting results: Yup, it's alcohol. I need to wait for it to chill because at room temperature they both give me the head shakes :rockin: But initial taste has me thinking the round balls produced a more sour version.
I started mine three days ago - three cups of rice split between three jars (nothing big enough in the house that I could get sanitary in time). I used three balls of yeast, mashed and sprinkled into the jars between scoops of rice. The rice was probably too hot when I pitched the yeast - not uncomfortably so, but definitely hot to the touch. I'm seeing some discoloration on the rice where it's in direct contact with the yeast, but very little liquid - mostly just drops that look like condensation. Is it possible I killed my yeast with the heat? If so, should I dump and try again, mix in some more dry yeast, or crush some yeast, mix it with a bit of water, and then pitch the slurry?
Spoke too soon, it seems - I came home from work today and noticed the liquid was definitely coming along. I was a bit discouraged seeing little to no liquid after three days when the example from the first few posts was already moving along after two, but no longer. I saw some decent liquid after work, gave a little shake to each jar, and in just a few hours since then it's been rising at a really nice clip.
One of my jars, however, has some little black spores (roughly the size of fine grains of sand) connected by little filaments growing on top of the rice. The other two are free of this, but the infected jar has quite a bit of it. Is this a dump-worthy infection, or should I just trust the alcohol to kill it when the time comes?
durianpicker
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Looks like somebody has found a way already without rocket science.
Fermentation on the tree, live!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_wine
Fermentation on the tree, live!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_wine
Once again LG, you set me straight on things I see in hind sight. Making the liquor, I wasn't concerned about lacto infection. With this recipe and now that you pointed it out, it's very obvious.
As for the starch conversion, once again right on track. I don't see much of a chance for it to happen. Maybe starting the rice and yeast first, waiting 18-21 days and then mix in milk, sugar and fruit would have a better result.
Looks like many more mason jars will be deployed for this.
BTW: I'm about to start another batch of milk liquor. It's amazing how good a $6 half gallon of cheap vodka can taste after just 10-14 days.
I just gave you my opinion. Time will tell if any of the potential problems turn out to be actual problems.
If I was going to do a rice wine with milk batch I would probably pursue more of a sake strategy. Meaning cultivate the bug that does the conversion of the starch on the rice with minimal liquid. Then add more starch and milk instead of water. I'd probably omit the citrus completely, and try to keep things relatively cool. Given the tendency of rice wine, sake included, to get overly tangy.
Yes it does. I find that a bit odd. I have made fermented limeade.
It's probably used as a pH adjuster. According to this, lime juice usually has a pH of 2-2.35. If you adjust the pH below 5 it does severely slow yeast activity.
Different kind of lime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(mineral)
To be fair, I don't know how it works, just noticed that on the page.
With regards to my question about the tiny black spores on top of the rice (a few posts back), does anyone have a good answer? They're in all three jars now, so it's all or nothing at this point. Are spores like that normal? Will the alcohol kill them? Or should I dump and try again at this point?
trbig
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Just because wiki linked it to the chemical lime doesn't mean that's what was used, only that wiki has a definition for lime. BUT.. that doesn't mean it DOESN'T mean the chemical lime as well..
As to your mold... I'd just let it go and see what happens. What have you got to lose, unlesss you're on some kind of time schedule to have some wine for some event? I got my first batch of mold on this last batch I tried. I've just let it go. I've still got liquid in it, but not nearly as much as the batch next to it that I did at the same time. Those batches are at 28 days tomorrow and I'll probably harvest, but they're still fermenting and bubbling out the airlock.. but maybe only once every ten seconds or so.
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