Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[Miraculix]

Update on my latest batch.

Several weeks of cold crashing, and the solids have finally settled. I got 2 US quarts of clear yellow, and one of nigori-style. It's very strong, and as predicted, the chemical notes went away. Pleasant nectarine flavors that have never happened before.

I encountered two things. First, what looked like a kahm infestation, but without the unpleasant smell. Now, I ferment a lot of things--kimchi, sauerkraut, kvass, you name it--and kahm happens with all of those. But I've never seen it with rice wine before. I skimmed it off and Bob's your uncle.

Second, it's tangy. Not quite sour, but very very tangy. (Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to drink it). I know this is because about four days in, I added more mash and about two cups of water. @Miraculix or one of our other potion masters, is there something I'm doing wrong timewise?

Sounds good to me!

 

[Rish]

Tasted my Jasmine rice batch today at about 6 weeks. Definitely different than the sweet rice batch. Not as sweet with a bit of a caramel note. Tastes pretty good, for sure alcohol in there. Lees are mushy/sticky compared to sweet rice which was firm and almost dry when pressed. I'll give it more time and check again.

 

[Miraculix]

Tasted my Jasmine rice batch today at about 6 weeks. Definitely different than the sweet rice batch. Not as sweet with a bit of a caramel note. Tastes pretty good, for sure alcohol in there. Lees are mushy/sticky compared to sweet rice which was firm and almost dry when pressed. I'll give it more time and check again.
View attachment 859495

That might be because you have more residual starch leftover in the rice. The enzymes from the fungi cannot chop all of the starches within this rice variety. Whereas sticky rice is almost completely choppable.

 

[Rish]

residual starch leftover

That certainly makes sense; thanks for the input. It's definitely different and enjoyable at this point. It's also less tart than the sweet rice batch.

 

[Rish]

Chinese rice wine with jasmine rice. Bottled at 2 months. Taste is good but lees are very sticky making it hard to extract wine and seems to lower yield. Very cloudy. I'll stick with the sweet rice in the future but jasmine will work if that's all you can get.

 

[TexasTea]

Starting my first batch of rice wine today, will keep you posted. I came to HBT for beer brewing knowledge , picked up a nasty mead brewing habit, started making my own yogurt and now I'm off to rice wine land. You guys are a bad influence.

I'm using this rice and yeast balls. I ordered them off Amazon but I'm betting they sell them at Hong Kong Market in Spring or Houston. I just didn't feel like driving all the way down there.

Sanpatong sticky rice from Fusion Select


Translation from Chinese "New Hang Tail Marine Shanghai Yeast Balls" 3 packs 4 oz each.

 

[TexasTea]

Started with 3 cups dry rice before washing the rice and soaking 4 hours and followed by steaming 45 minutes. Rice cooled on plates before adding hammer crushed yeast balls and mixing in with clean hands. I used 2 yeast balls. AC set on 80 here (heat off). Piece of muslin under lid. Lid, jar, and muslin sanitized with star san. We'll see what happens. rice more than doubled in volume from dry state. I'm keeping the jar in a dark cabinet. Just moved it to my fermentation chamber set at 70 F.

 

[TexasTea]

Switched out the muslin for a piece of folded over cheesecloth sanitized with star san. The cheesecloth seemed a little looser (more air flow) than the muslin which was quite tight.

Quick question: Has anyone ever tried to vacuum filter the final product (Buchner or fritted glass funnel on filter flask attached to vacuum)? What micron media did you use?

 

[Erik the Awful]

Don't over think it.

I have a 1.5 gallon batch on my counter right now. I left it on the counter in a bucket for two months with a paper towel and bucket lid to cover it.

Last week I passed it through a screen to separate the rice from the wine, and I put the liquid in a gallon bottle and a two quart bottle with 1/4 tsp and 1/8 tsp of sparkolloid respectively. It's already separated out into clear yellow liquid and white lees, and when I rack and final-bottle it I'll probably have one full gallon of clear yellow wine with a few glasses to sample.

 

[Rish]

Picked up 5# of short grain sweet rice today to start another batch. The guy at the Oriental market said I should use just one yeast ball for 5# of rice or it would be "different". I didn't question him on it because of language issues (and my old man hearing) but now I'm wondering what the difference might be from using one vs. 2 or 3 which seems to be the norm here. Anyone have input or experience?

 

[wongjau]

Picked up 5# of short grain sweet rice today to start another batch. The guy at the Oriental market said I should use just one yeast ball for 5# of rice or it would be "different". I didn't question him on it because of language issues (and my old man hearing) but now I'm wondering what the difference might be from using one vs. 2 or 3 which seems to be the norm here. Anyone have input or experience?

Most people buying yeast balls at the Asian markets are using them to make a mildly fermented rice dessert type thing. It should be sweet and slightly fizzy, and shouldn’t have a ton of alcohol that knocks you on your butt. Postpartum women eat it for extra calories for recovery and milk production.

For us, we want more fermentation for the alcohol.

 

[beerisgirl]

DIY koji : sprout brown rice in plastic container with lid keep moist and most likely will see white fuzzy mold that's the koji pick that do several bachsche's picking the white mold save the sprouts of something else now steam rice let cool then add the white mold put in plastic container now is koji cake use wisely to save some to make next koji cake yees

 

[Rish]

For us, we want more fermentation for the alcohol.

Makes sense! Thanks, @wongjau

 

[Rish]

Started a new batch. Cooked the 5# of sweet rice using the method posted here by @dwhill back in 2016. Add rice to boiling water, put in a preheated 300* F oven for 20 minutes, turn off and leave in the unopened oven another 30 minutes then remove. Leave it covered at room temperature overnight to cool then transfer to FV, mixing in powered yeast balls as you go. Worked pretty well and wasn't as messy as spreading on sheet pans.

 

[Rish]

^^Strained and squeezed this batch into one container. Nice taste and aroma; some tart and sweet but not too much of either. A little over 4 L from 5# sweet rice. I like this rice; good yield, lees not mushy like jasmine. Gonna let it settle, cold crash before bottling.
I'm thinking about adding more yeast balls and some water to the lees to see if I can get more wine. Anyone tried this or have any thoughts on it?

 

[Miraculix]

^^Strained and squeezed this batch into one container. Nice taste and aroma; some tart and sweet but not too much of either. A little over 4 L from 5# sweet rice. I like this rice; good yield, lees not mushy like jasmine. Gonna let it settle, cold crash before bottling.
I'm thinking about adding more yeast balls and some water to the lees to see if I can get more wine. Anyone tried this or have any thoughts on it?
View attachment 872182

That sounds perfect, taste wise.

Adding more water is a tricky game. You can easily over sour your wine if you trigger the fungi survival mode. It excretes lactic acid that way. Lots of it.

If you add the water at the right time, you just increase the yield and maybe dry out the wine a bit. But you have to hit the right timing. Probably like 4 or 5 days in.

 

[Momoka]

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.

Actually, you can buy aged sake in Japan. I had a 20yo aged sake that was golden brown and very much like oxidised orange wines from Georgia.

 

[Momoka]

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

In practice, using Rhozopus does not result in overt differences in flavour profiles. An adpergillus starter is perhaps slightly earthier and sweeter in aroma and a rhizopus one slightly grassy, but it’s not blatant. The final rice wine has definitely plenty of overlapping notes/aromas/flavours with many traditional nihonshu/sake, and huge differences against traditional Chinese rice wines.

 

[pet]

Heya, first time here, 2nd attempt (first one got bad mold and I was just kinda winging it tbh).

Hoping all goes well, here's my setup, think it should come out to 3, 4 litres?

- 2 kg of glutinous rice
- 1 packet of angel rice leaven (I read that I don't need to add yeast and the first attempt did smell like booze, so should go fine)

The process is something like:
- Steam rice in 1.3x water,leave it to cool overnight inside the pan
- mix 3/4 of the packet with a sanitized spoon
- goes into a 10L plastic fermenter (should have plenty of headspace)
- place the rest of the packet on top to prevent nasties
- leave it alone in a dark place


I'm going to be away from where it is for a few weeks but supposedly the brew is pretty lenient to that if I don't add water? Also doesn't seem like I'd need to stir with this headspace.

I ask if after filtering, you always pasteurise? Or could I use the mead combination of campden + K sorbate too?

And is this a brew that benefits from a bit of racking/aging before drinking?

Also, I'm considering trying cold crashing on this drink as it could leave me with a lot clearer and "cooler" looking spirit, but I'm still afraid of the methanol and nasties so I'm hesitant.

I also got some red rice from a mart, I wonder how it is in terms of flavour profile...

For closing remarks, I just wanted to document this simple attempt, I am very curious to experiment with koji also but sake seems like a bit of a headache?


Will probably update along, fingers crossed

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

Sorry, wrong thread..