Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[sonofgrok]

Hi folks, I've made some rice wine for the first time and it is currently filtering out. Three days filtering and all my sediment is 2cm deep at the bottom of the bucket so all going well. Down side is I had a little taste and it tastes a little sour. Is this the usual taste before sweetening or is my wine turning to vinegar slowly? My wine is filtering indoors which is something I have never done. Any advice would be great fully received. Thanks in advance.

People who have filtered seem to be having less luck and not getting as sweet of a taste.

 

[Jdix]

At that temperature the yeast are going to be stressed and not as able to compete with the other organisms. Black mold is not usually a type of mold you want to see. It's the color of mold that gets houses condemned.

Take another sniff of your mash. I'm guessing you won't smell much alcohol.

I keep the temperature down both because i want the yeast to be as stress free as possible, and I want the enzymes to slowly convert the starch to sugar so the yeast have a chance to build up tolerance. It seems that most of the alcohol conversion happens after 25 days. At 21 days my wine tasted. like candy syrup with a splash of alcohol. At 30 days it slapped me stupid with just enough sweetness to make it worth it.

Don't fear the white fuzzies. It's the right mold doing its job

So I dont smell much alcohol and I shut of the heater heres what it looks like. What do you all think.

 

[Jdix]

Not sure why the pi cs turned side ways.

 

[sonofgrok]

That mold doesn't look so good. Definitely not the same as I get. Sorry! YOu have it all made up though so might as well run with it and see what you get.

 

[bottlebomber]

Yes, that does not look like the mold that I got either. Actually I saw one small sprig of dark mold at the very beginning but as fermentation started rolling it died off. I think the high levels of C02 and alcohol inhibit those types of mold.

 

[Ostomo517]

How is that jar sealed???

 

[nhamilto40]

I soaked and then steamed the 2000 g of Calrose rice in a four tray 10 inch bamboo streamer for 30 min. The cooked rice weighed 2869 g. I then added 2131 g of water and 40 g of crushed yeast ball.

Now the ferment begins.

 

[hebbs]

read the whole thread. heading to asian market today after work.

I gotta lay off this site!

 

[bottlebomber]

read the whole thread. heading to asian market today after work.

I gotta lay off this site!

Good luck with that! I remember when I had 9 posts

 

[Arrheinous]

Alright I think I'm good to go. Local Asian market specially ordered Chinese yeast balls (~$5/4oz) and I got a 15# bag of Nishiki sushi rice.

Edit: Looked up a recipe online, it'll be:
12 cups sushi rice (~5.6#) soaked and steamed
3 yeast balls crushed with 4 tsp white flour (not sure what the flour is adding to it)

 

[WesleyS]

Well, it's been almost a week since I started my batch and it appears everything is going good. No dark colored mold, plenty of liquid in the bottoms of the containers, definite signs of C02 production and the containers are putting off a yeasty, sweet rice and vanilla smell.

 

[Tamarlane]

Alright I think I'm good to go. Local Asian market specially ordered Chinese yeast balls (~$5/4oz) and I got a 15# bag of Nishiki sushi rice.

Edit: Looked up a recipe online, it'll be:
12 cups sushi rice (~5.6#) soaked and steamed
3 yeast balls crushed with 4 tsp white flour (not sure what the flour is adding to it)

I think the flour is sort of like a starter to give the yeast something to munch on while the rice breaks down. One recipe I saw said to add a bit of sugar and corn starch to that effect.

 

[Tamarlane]

So is anybody going to fess up to eating a bowl of the still-fermenting rice porridge? I tasted what was on the spoon i stirred it up with this morning and was quite tempted.

 

[Ostomo517]

I ate a couple spoonfulls but didnt wanna deprive the yeasties. It was a little sweet and quite good. Next batch Im gonna put a little extra rice so I can steal some to eat.

 

[Jdix]

I ate some even with the dark mold. Tasted good a slight vanilla tasten it has the consistency of oatmeal. Not as sweet as the smell. Plus im not sick.

 

[ezzellca]

So is anybody going to fess up to eating a bowl of the still-fermenting rice porridge? I tasted what was on the spoon i stirred it up with this morning and was quite tempted.

Its a dish here in china. After 3 days you can eat the porrige. You can also strain it and put cooked sweet sesame paste dumplings in warmed liquid. Awesome dessert!

 

[Ostomo517]

Its a dish here in china. After 3 days you can eat the porrige. You can also strain it and put cooked sweet sesame paste dumplings in warmed liquid. Awesome dessert!

From what ive looked up seems to be really good for you too

 

[SFGiantsFan925]

This looks too good NOT to try. Im going to try and gather the ingredients to get this going soon! Cant wait. I know the wife will love it too.

 

[natedoggaz]

I must have done something different from you guys... the "rice" that was left over in my batches REAKED so much of strong alcoholic sake I was not even tempted to try it... It was so strong my whole house smelled like a sake brewing plant (or what I would imagine one would smell like). That gelatenous mess went right down the drain.

 

[Leadgolem]

I must have done something different from you guys... the "rice" that was left over in my batches REAKED so much of strong alcoholic sake I was not even tempted to try it... It was so strong my whole house smelled like a sake brewing plant (or what I would imagine one would smell like). That gelatenous mess went right down the drain.

That's pretty much what mine has been like when the wine was ready. Earlier in the process it was much chunkier and sweeter smelling. Less saccharification and less fermentation.

 

[Ostomo517]

I must have done something different from you guys... the "rice" that was left over in my batches REAKED so much of strong alcoholic sake I was not even tempted to try it... It was so strong my whole house smelled like a sake brewing plant (or what I would imagine one would smell like). That gelatenous mess went right down the drain.

I think the main recipes Ive seen harvest the rice after day 3 (also when I tasted it) so it was definately still sweet. The one I will try on next batch is a desert soup with liquid and rice after day 3.

 

[Ostomo517]

And on the other hand how many people do you know can say they got hammered from eating rice

 

[Friedclutch]

Finally read the whole thread. I have yeast balls on order. Got a bag of regular rice and a bag of sushi rice. The largest Asian market in Sacramento area does not have yeast balls. Bummer. They did have live flounder however. Haha. Even frog legs! I plan to start some smaller sized 2.5 cup batches and go from there. The house stays at 65 at night so we'll see how it goes. Can't use my fermenter chamber as it always has beer in it.

 

[Tamarlane]

Its a dish here in china. After 3 days you can eat the porrige. You can also strain it and put cooked sweet sesame paste dumplings in warmed liquid. Awesome dessert!

Yeah I read about it being a popular breakfast food which I think is great but I am afraid if I start eating the rice the batch'll be half gone in no time. I think I am going to make a mini batch just to eat

Mine tasted like a sweet, nutty bowl of sweet grits or cream of wheat with a shot of rum in it

 

[saramc]

So is anybody going to fess up to eating a bowl of the still-fermenting rice porridge? I tasted what was on the spoon i stirred it up with this morning and was quite tempted.

Guilty...I now add an extra cup of dry rice and on Day 3 I remove 2-3 cups sweet fermenting rice and store in refrig.

 

[reverendj1]

One big failure and one small success.

I had 2 batches running simultaneously that are now complete.

Batch 1. This was a large batch I couldn't seem to get full saccharification in. It was a 5 gallon volume of cooked rice, 30 cups of dry rice. I let it go clear to day 33, and warmed it up. It did progress somewhat, but still had small pieces of hard rice in the mix. I'm really not sure what the issue with the saccharification was. The other issue I had was that of scale. It is really difficult to get enough pressure on a rice mass that large to get a reasonable liquid extraction. I ended up yielding only one 750ml bottle of rice wine from it. At that point I gave up. *sigh* That's pretty much a wasted 8 bucks.

Batch 2. This was a much smaller batch with leftover starch mass instead of rice yeast balls. It came out very well. I did get some mold in the rice, but that isn't that uncommon with these batches. Yield was normal, no issues getting saccharification of the rice. All in all, very pleased with the batch. I do think using the leftover starch mass increased the likelihood of getting mold, but the wine is fine. This also took what the prior batch did in terms of time. 26 days.

In summary, I will not be making batches that large again. It's just to much work. I will also be running successive batches with the leftover rice starch mass. Once a batch with undesirable mold in it occurs, I will start the next batch from yeast balls. That should reduce the need for the rice yeast balls by 1/2 or more. The next experiment will be rice wine vinegar, though I think all I really need for that is some more time with the last batch I've got running.

I did a big batch (10 lbs of uncooked rice, ~2-3 gallons cooked rice) and it turned out really good. I even accidentally bottled it 7 days early, because my brain was off by a week for some reason. I ended up with 7 1/2 12 oz bottles. What I think really helped, was I put a paint strainer bag in the bucket (regular old brew bucket), before I put the rice in. I couldn't cinch the bag over the sides of the bucket, but it did work. Everyone who has had it has said it is definitely the best sake they have ever had. I'm going to do a bigger one next time, use more yeast, and leave it the whole 3 weeks.

 

[KegWrangler]

21 Day update: (Nerd Alert!)

I bottled mine up last night here are the results of my two test batches.

Test 1: 2 cups (dry) Jasmine Rice plus 3 cups water into rice cooker, cooled to ~85*F and added one small yeast ball.
From this I harvested 600ml of "wine" by straining through an ultrafine mesh nylon bag for 5-10 minutes (had to get every last bit).
My FG was 1.050 and refractometer indicated 22.0 Brix which corresponds to an OG of 1.142 and ABV 11.5% (per calculator on Northern Brewer site). Residual solids was 5oz (by volume).

Test 2: 2 cups (dry) Sushi Rice plus 4 cups water into rice cooker, cooled to ~85*F and added one small yeast ball.
From this I harvested 800ml of "wine".
My FG was 1.024 and refractometer indicated 19.0 Brix which corresponds to an OG of 1.151 and ABV 16.7%. Residual solids was 3oz (by volume).

Both batches taste sweet/sour, and a little boozy (all in a good way). Definitely sweeter with solids, but good either way. The solids settled into the bottom third of each bottle overnight.

Also, I pasteurized two of the bottles using the following method:
Fill a canning pot with hot tap water, and add the bottles (make sure the water in the pot doesn't go into the bottles but that the water level in the pot matches the liquid level in the bottles). Put a thermometer in one of the bottles. Heat on the stove until wine/sake temperature hits 160#F. Count out 15 seconds (that's all it takes at 160) and then remove the bottles from the bath to air cool. Cap the bottles once they are mostly cooled down.

For me this took 15 minutes while I cleaned the kitchen and the pot water never got more than 180*F.

I'm going to do a taste test later to see how pasteurization changes the flavor (though it's probably too subtle for my palate).

Cheers to all and a big shout-out to sonofgrok for starting this thread.

 

[sonofgrok]

I like shout outs Glad to see some other people having the great success with this brew that I enjoy!

 

[russki]

sonofgrok, thanks for starting this thread! Here's mine (8 cups of Sweet Rice + 8 yeast balls in a gallon jar) after a week and a half - it was all solid rice when I filled it.

 

[TastySalmon]

I made a batch with 4.5 cups of sweet rice and I have had no luck with it juicing out yet after more than a week in the container.

It smells boozy and yeasty, but there's no liquid.

I didn't steam it but instead cooked it in my Zojirushi rice cooker. Perhaps this is the problem. Interestingly, the stuff was so sticky I had problems washing it off my hands.

Does anyone have any insight as to why my rice is so dry?