Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[Leadgolem]

...I am curious why nobody talks about age the wine (I have read up to 90 pages so far, still progressing, sorry if I miss it).

Apart from drinking it fresh, it is also quite common to age the wine in China. That's how we do it. But it is only applicable to glutinous/sticky rice.

After harvesting, let the sentiment settle down and siphoned out the clear wine. The clear wine is bottled 90% full, seal it and let it age in dark. It can be done by wrapping with newspaper. The oxidation will turn the color to golden yellow and brown if longer.

Aging time is at least 1 year, the longer the better. That's how we derive yellow wine or close to Shao Xing family wine. ...

I think you just haven't gotten to it yet. This is a very long thread.

Thanks.

To get the clear wine and age in dark are very important. The sentiment could be the cause of sour taste. That's maybe why the Chinese use clay pot or anything opaque to age. I missed it in the previous post, after the harvest process, the wine should be heated up a little bit to kill off the remaining yeast...

I have 3 bottles of pasteurized rice wine from April first. Not joking, that's the day I pitched the batch. One made with basmati, one with jasmine, and the last with Japanese sweet rice.

I was planning on giving one of them a try around October first.

...So, I think if you add (X) amount of water, you're going to get a much higher yield of alcohol, but it will be less sweet the more you add, though at some point you'll dilute it to where you'll begin decreasing the alcohol.

This is an interesting speculation. I've got a couple of quarts of a sweet red rice wine I wouldn't mind trying out the idea with. They've been in the fridge for a couple of months, so I'll be adding some yeast to get them started. Care to speculate on a gravity, ratio, for the dilution?

I'm kicking around with the idea of using DADY, but I've got a few other things too. Does anyone care to provide a suggestion for the yeast? Here's what I've got laying around right now:

DADY
Rice Yeast Balls
ARL
RYR
Pasteur Champagne
Premier Cuvee
Montrachet
Pasteur Red
Cote des Blancs
Danstar Munich Wheat Beer yeast, no idea what strain this is.
Safbrew wb-06

 

[jak1010]

Just thinking about it, I think this wine is a bit like mead. If you've got a yeast that can only handle 15% alcohol, then any honey you add above that is going to make a sweet mead.

When talking to my Chinese friend, when they make rice wine, after everything is done.. the rice cooked/cooled and yeast balls added, they add a large amount of water before the ferment starts. I let him try some of mine, and he didn't like it at all.. too sweet. I tried his and it tasted a bit like a watery booze, but you had a rice aftertaste. Same wonderful smell of mine, but no sweetness at all. It was that golden color.

So what I'm imagining that's happening is the molds are breaking down the starches into sugars, and the yeast eat all these sugars they can up to maybe 20% alcohol, then they go dormant from too high alcohol, while the mold continues munching away and making sugars.

So, I think if you add (X) amount of water, you're going to get a much higher yield of alcohol, but it will be less sweet the more you add, though at some point you'll dilute it to where you'll begin decreasing the alcohol.

I think you're definitely on to something. With the volume of water and rice added and what's left over when the yeast reach their maximum alcohol tolerance, it makes perfect sense that there would be an effect on the end result and taste.

This makes me wonder would could happen if we use the yeast balls and, rather than pitching and leaving it alone for 3 weeks, do stepped additions of more rice and water throughout the 3 weeks. Similar to sake making. Maybe adding yeast nutrients in staggered stages like when making mead.

Oh boy, I feel many more experiments coming...

 

[trbig]

Care to speculate on a gravity, ratio, for the dilution?

Way back on 3/23 on page 127, I posted this, with a recipe and pic of my friend's rice wine. It calls for 10 lbs of rice to be cooked and cooled, then tossed in a bucket, then add 13 pounds of water, so a little over a gallon and a half of water (He said to make sure it was good filtered water.) So... 1.3 lbs of water per pound of rice? Shouldn't be too hard to calculate at 8lbs per gallon of water.




https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f243/m...un-different-361095/index127.html#post5035040

 

[Leadgolem]

Way back on 3/23 on page 127, I posted this, with a recipe and pic of my friend's rice wine. It calls for 10 lbs of rice to be cooked and cooled, then tossed in a bucket, then add 13 pounds of water, so a little over a gallon and a half of water (He said to make sure it was good filtered water.) So... 1.3 lbs of water per pound of rice? Shouldn't be too hard to calculate at 8lbs per gallon of water.




https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f243/m...un-different-361095/index127.html#post5035040

Lots of about signs, as I'm rounding the numbers a bit for the sake of sanity. Ok, here goes the annoying math part.

One pound of dry rice should be ~453 grams. I weighed 1 cup of dry rice at 212 grams. So, ~2.13 cups per lb, based on my previous weighing of dry rice. That batch of red rice wine was 22.5 cups of dry rice, or ~10.56 lbs. It yielded ~4500 milliliters. That would be ~426 ml per lb of dry rice. 2 quarts of liquid is 1892.71ml. Therefore, I have the equivalent of ~4.44 lbs of rice in harvested wine. That would mean adding ~5.77 lbs of water, or ~0.65 gallons, or 2.6 quarts of water. To 2 quarts of red rice wine. That seems a little on the high side to me.

Hmm. I could take a gravity sample first, assume I'm at 15% ABV and estimate a dilution ratio so that the wine ferments dry with DADY in it. The DADY has an alcohol tolerance of 23%.

I'll have to think about this a bit.

EDIT: After doing the ridiculous amount of math, I realized that it still breaks down to a 1:1.3 ratio by volume...Huh.

 

[dgr]

Thanks.

...the wine should be heated up a little bit to kill off the remaining yeast.

It sounds like pasteurizing to kill all microbes.

I think because of the higher sugar concentration. And the aging time should be more than 12 months.

This is what I have been using and it makes some outstanding rice wine. I think I'll have to hide some from myself and see how it ages.

Just to share, in Chinese society, freshly brewed rice wine is normally consumed by woman after giving birth, cooked with chicken, black fungus and ginger. Contrary, aged wine or yellow wine is more commonly drank socially and with meal, just like red wine with steak, yellow wine blended very well with crab or stewed pork.

I did find a Chinese site that claimed it made women's breasts bigger. It really is a great drink.

If you can share, how is the fermenting done? As you've read, most on here have been cooking the rice, cooling it and mixing in the powdered yeast. But I and others have found references to adding water to the mixture. Do you have any information on that?

 

[Leadgolem]

Hmm, I was going to dilute the red rice wine I had in my fridge for refermentation. The thing is, I don't think I need to. I took a gravity reading and it came out to 1.031 after temperature correction. That means that if it ferments to 1.0 I'm looking at an increase in the alcohol content of 4.1%. If we assume that the original rice wine had an ABV of 15-17% then the distillers yeast should have a high enough alcohol tolerance to consume the rest of the sugar without any extra water.

The distillers yeast is supposed to be alcohol tolerant up to 23%, though in practical terms it doesn't usually go over 20%. On the other hand, if it's already around 19%, it's not going to do much. I can always add water later though.

So, what I did instead was add 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient, 1/4 tsp yeast energizer, and 1/2 tsp of dry distillers yeast. I mixed that in the the three quarts of leftover red rice wine I had in the fridge. I had another quart I didn't see shoved into the back of the fridge. We shall see how things go with it now.

 

[jak1010]

Hmm, I was going to dilute the red rice wine I had in my fridge for refermentation. The thing is, I don't think I need to. I took a gravity reading and it came out to 1.031 after temperature correction. That means that if it ferments to 1.0 I'm looking at an increase in the alcohol content of 4.1%. If we assume that the original rice wine had an ABV of 15-17% then the distillers yeast should have a high enough alcohol tolerance to consume the rest of the sugar without any extra water.

The distillers yeast is supposed to be alcohol tolerant up to 23%, though in practical terms it doesn't usually go over 20%. On the other hand, if it's already around 19%, it's not going to do much. I can always add water later though.

So, what I did instead was add 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient, 1/4 tsp yeast energizer, and 1/2 tsp of dry distillers yeast. I mixed that in the the three quarts of leftover red rice wine I had in the fridge. I had another quart I didn't see shoved into the back of the fridge. We shall see how things go with it now.

LG: was your rice wine all clear or did it have any visible rice solids in it? Did you make a yeast starter or just pitch it right in?

I've got a 2lb bag of Crosby Baker distillers yeast that I'm dying to break open and use.

 

[Leadgolem]

LG: was your rice wine all clear or did it have any visible rice solids in it? Did you make a yeast starter or just pitch it right in?

I've got a 2lb bag of Crosby Baker distillers yeast that I'm dying to break open and use.

It was crystal clear, I just pitched it in. Everything was a little cold, so it will probably be a couple days before I know if it's doing anything.

EDIT: That's the same distillers yeast I've got. I've found that the only real care it needs is in the nutrients. Most yeasts can go skunky if they are short on nutrients. This one most certainly will. That's really it though. You can do a starter if you want, or rehydrate in hot water etc.. If you want to, but I haven't found that it makes much of a difference with this distillers yeast.

 

[jak1010]

I wonder if there are names or titles for mixes when it comes to rice wine...

For example honey, water and yeast gets you mead, add fruit and you get a melomel, use grape juice and you get a pyment, add apple juice and you get a cyser. You see where I'm going...

What could we add to rice and yeast that would fabricate something new? Is this something already out there?

 

[Leadgolem]

I wonder if there are names or titles for mixes when it comes to rice wine...

For example honey, water and yeast gets you mead, add fruit and you get a melomel, use grape juice and you get a pyment, add apple juice and you get a cyser. You see where I'm going...

What could we add to rice and yeast that would fabricate something new? Is this something already out there?

Most likely yes, but I can't pronounce most of the names...

It's always just a little bit funny to me to see brewers trying to find exactly the right obscure technical term to describe a process or product. I worked in tech support for a few years, and was actually specifically trained not to do this. If I got monitored on a call and did that, I'd get docked points for using "jargon".

 

[jak1010]

That's funny, earlier in my career, I worked in a call center and we had a QA department that would dock you for crazy sh!t. Saying bye-bye at the end of a call...I don't miss those days at all.

I know what you mean by names and titles. But I don't really get too caught up in "Proper" names. I had one person correct me when I referred to Joes Quick Grape Mead and they said "actually it's a pyment!" in a really condescending and stuck up tone. I quickly responded with "I'd like to call you rude when you interrupted my conversation but actually you're a pompous as$h@le!"

Anyway, I'm really looking for ideas on what to combine and I figured it would be easier to do an internet search if I knew the name or title.

 

[Leadgolem]

That's funny, earlier in my career, I worked in a call center and we had a QA department that would dock you for crazy sh!t. Saying bye-bye at the end of a call...I don't miss those days at all.

I know what you mean by names and titles. But I don't really get too caught up in "Proper" names. I had one person correct me when I referred to Joes Quick Grape Mead and they said "actually it's a pyment!" in a really condescending and stuck up tone. I quickly responded with "I'd like to call you rude when you interrupted my conversation but actually you're a pompous as$h@le!"

Anyway, I'm really looking for ideas on what to combine and I figured it would be easier to do an internet search if I knew the name or title.

Haha! Yeah, the biggest load of dingo's kidneys was stuff like making typos in account notes. Uh, nobody but us ever sees those....

I've been thinking vaguely of trying some banana wine with rice yeast balls. Peel and cook the bananas. Let them cool, then pitch crushed rice yeast balls or ARL instead of the typical straight up yeast. I'm thinking that you wouldn't have to wait for the bananas to get overripe that way. Plus I'd bet it tastes different.

 

[durianpicker]

bigger breast, haha, I have no ideal, have no direct experience.

From what I know is glutinous rice wine is believed able to replenish (effectively) the loss blood during the baby delivery, increase blood circulation and prevent getting sick during the critical first 30 days of recovery (after giving birth).

The methods discussed over here is actually what the Chinese do also. What surprise me more is you can even get the ingredients like rices, rice ball (Southern Chinese call wine biscuit) from US! unbelievable. rest assured, the rice ball, it is the same.

To add water or not, actually even among the Chinese, some do and some don't, depending on preference. But both seem to agree in one thing, only cooked water is added.

It sounds like pasteurizing to kill all microbes.


This is what I have been using and it makes some outstanding rice wine. I think I'll have to hide some from myself and see how it ages.


I did find a Chinese site that claimed it made women's breasts bigger. It really is a great drink.

If you can share, how is the fermenting done? As you've read, most on here have been cooking the rice, cooling it and mixing in the powdered yeast. But I and others have found references to adding water to the mixture. Do you have any information on that?

 

[Newsman]

Yes, one of my co-workers is from China. He also stated that only pregnant women and new mothers drink the stuff we brew. I don't care who drinks it over in China... we here in America do whatever the hell we want.

 

[durianpicker]

there are few types of yeast and basically in 2 distinct types, (a) sweet and (b) dry. From what I read so far, rice ball used here seem to belong to the former.

Please mention if there are other type of rice ball or wine biscuit. If they are Chinese, Sweet is called 'Tian Jiu Bing' and the dry: 'La Jiu Bing'.

my favorite ratio: 1kg dry rice with 1 dry ball + 2 sweet ball

Good luck!

 

[dgr]

I have two types of Chinese yeast. One is squares and the English is suzhou mifeng tianjiuyao. I suspect that makes them sweet yeast. Unfortunately the round balls I have don't have any English on them. There is also Angel Rice Leaven which is a powder and Vietnamese yeast balls that people have used.

 

[jak1010]

OK, I'm looking to make a rice wine mead combo.

I'm thinking:
6 cups dry rice cooked and cooled.
1/2 pound of honey
8-10oz of water to mix the honey (taken from the pot of water used to cook the rice)
10-15 raisins (they're in JAOM and why not here)
1/2 pack of ARL or 3-4 yeast balls

Place all in a gallon glass jar with cheesecloth and lid for 21-28 days.

I'm looking for feedback before I start this. Should I change anything? Add or remove any of the ingredients?

 

[Newsman]

OK, I'm looking to make a rice wine mead combo.

I'm thinking:
6 cups dry rice cooked and cooled.
1/2 pound of honey
8-10oz of water to mix the honey (taken from the pot of water used to cook the rice)
10-15 raisins (they're in JAOM and why not here)
1/2 pack of ARL or 3-4 yeast balls

Place all in a gallon glass jar with cheesecloth and lid for 21-28 days.

I'm looking for feedback before I start this. Should I change anything? Add or remove any of the ingredients?

sounds interesting. If you do it, let us know how it works out.

 

[trbig]

OK, I'm looking to make a rice wine mead combo.


I'm looking for feedback before I start this. Should I change anything? Add or remove any of the ingredients?

Honestly, as discussed, the rice alone is being made into more sugar than the yeast can eat. Adding even more sugar to the mix sounds like a sure fire way for a sickeningly sweet concoction.

 

[sonofgrok]

OK, I'm looking to make a rice wine mead combo.

I'm thinking:
6 cups dry rice cooked and cooled.
1/2 pound of honey
8-10oz of water to mix the honey (taken from the pot of water used to cook the rice)
10-15 raisins (they're in JAOM and why not here)
1/2 pack of ARL or 3-4 yeast balls

Place all in a gallon glass jar with cheesecloth and lid for 21-28 days.

I'm looking for feedback before I start this. Should I change anything? Add or remove any of the ingredients?

I would probably make them separately and then mix them. The timelines and ingredients are just so different between mead and rw (I make both) that I don't see it working. Still, you are more than welcome to give it a whirl!

 

[trbig]

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 So, I just dumped a half gallon of water into the batch. lol. OOPS. I guess I'll see what happens. Watery hooch anyone?


Yeah, I've been drinkin' a bit. Hush.

 

[jak1010]

The timeline between the rice wine and the mead is the only thing that concerns me...what the heck. It's only about $5-$7 of materials and a few weeks of waiting and wondering.

I'll start this next weekend and see what happens.

 

[Baileisdad]

OK, I'm looking to make a rice wine mead combo.

I'm thinking:
6 cups dry rice cooked and cooled.
1/2 pound of honey
8-10oz of water to mix the honey (taken from the pot of water used to cook the rice)
10-15 raisins (they're in JAOM and why not here)
1/2 pack of ARL or 3-4 yeast balls

Place all in a gallon glass jar with cheesecloth and lid for 21-28 days.

I'm looking for feedback before I start this. Should I change anything? Add or remove any of the ingredients?

I tried this last month . Does not work that good . Something about the honey that stops the rice from converting to sugar definatly do seperat then mix later

 

[durianpicker]

Just snatched a photo. The left is dry yeast, a little yellowish (called 辣酒饼 La Jiu Bing or 浓酒饼 Nong Jiu Bing, diff names for the same thing) and the right is sweet yeast (甜酒饼 Tian Jiu Bing). I don't have the red yeast which can ferment maroon color wine.

The physical form like shape I think is not crucial, I often buy in different size and shape.

I have two types of Chinese yeast. One is squares and the English is suzhou mifeng tianjiuyao. I suspect that makes them sweet yeast. Unfortunately the round balls I have don't have any English on them. There is also Angel Rice Leaven which is a powder and Vietnamese yeast balls that people have used.

 

[Leadgolem]

Ok, here's the 3 week harvest check in for the ARL experiment.

Here's what went in them:
1. 0.5 grams ARL: Jar weight 802 grams
2. 1 gram ARL: Jar weight 785 grams
3. 2 grams ARL: Jar weight 784 grams
4. Rice yeast ball: Jar weight 682 grams

All of the batches yielded approximately the same amount of wine. Considering the appearance, that was a bit of a surprise. I am allowing some lee way for the rice yeast ball batch as that one was a little lite.

1. Aroma: Slight rice, no alcohol, vaguely of slightly soured milk. Flavor: Rice, very sweet, very smooth, nice warmth on the back of the throat. A little on the thick side.
2. Aroma: Slight rice, no alcohol. Flavor: Mild rice flavor, very sweet, very smooth, nice warmth on the back of the throat. For some odd reason this reminds me strongly of corn milk.
3. Aroma: Moderate alcohol, very very slight citrus. Flavor: Mild rice flavor, slightly tangy, very sweet, very smooth, nice warmth on the back of the throat. This also reminds me of corn milk.
4. Aroma: Moderate alcohol, slight rice, slight citrus. Flavor: Mild rice flavor, distinctly tangy, not as sweet as the other samples, not as much of an alcohol warmth as any of the ARL batches.

My opinion is that the manufacturer was correct in this instance. There was almost no difference between the 1 and 2 gram experiments. In future batches I will be using 1 gram of ARL:1.5 us cups of dry rice. The aroma and relatively high viscosity of the 0.5 gram batch says to me that is an under pitched batch.

The rice yeast balls clearly produce a much tangier rice wine. The ones I've got anyway. Both are quite nice, but I believe the ARL to be preferable if you intend to mix with something that doesn't have a lot of tang to it. The ARL batches should also take other savory flavors well, while the rice yeast ball wine would be, IMO, less compatible with those kinds of flavors.

 

[dgr]

durian,
You made me go take a picture. This is only the one that I have. Others have different round ones. I was hoping I could find the Kanji or Hanzi you posted on the package but I can't find La or Nong on there.

Thank you for providing a little insight into this delicious beverage.

 

[dgr]

Great post LG. I'm running the two yeasts I have available to me side by side right now. From my recollection, the square balls gave me a sweeter wine last batch but they were not fermented at the same time. I also may have 6 dry liters of rice fermenting too but darn if I can remember which yeast I used. That's OK, I can always make more and it's my roommates favorite type of alcohol ...



Free alcohol :rockin:

 

[Leadgolem]

I'm planning on mixing the ARL batches from the experiment and bottling a couple with 1/2 a vanilla bean to a bottle. I ordered the beans a few days ago, and I should have some leftover after making the extract I want.

 

[jak1010]

Really great to know that I've basically been using double the amount of ARL than I really need to. I can begin to scale it to what is needed. Thanks LG for an outstanding experiment and documentation to go along with it. In addition, your tasting notes are right on. I've been able to produce smooth, great tasting wine and now I'm looking forward to trying the vanilla bean idea.

If you decide to do further test batches, please share. I've got about 6 mason jars just begging me for tests. My next full scale gallon size batch will be ARL with Red Yeast Rice since the test batch worked out so well.

 

[durianpicker]

Yeah, it is not mentioned on the package. Mostly likely the yeast is sweet yeast.

The 'La' yeast can get high alcohol level, near 20%. So, the best way to know is the end result: the wine is 'dry' and not-sweet.

durian,
You made me go take a picture. This is only the one that I have. Others have different round ones. I was hoping I could find the Kanji or Hanzi you posted on the package but I can't find La or Nong on there.

Thank you for providing a little insight into this delicious beverage.