Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[brooklynkayak]

The one disadvantage that freeze concentration has over evaporative distillation is that you are also concentrating the toxic by-products of the fermentation.

Most of the toxic chemicals can be removed in the evaporative distillation process when done properly.

 

[Raenon]

Does anyone have any data on the methanol production from fermenting rice? Apples produce a fair bit more than most grains from the pectin content, and applejack is one of the most famous examples of freeze concentration.

 

[MasterCrook]

The methanol and other fusil alcohols is my biggest concern with freeze distillation. There are a few research papers online comparing methanol to other fusils in rice wine. But I haven't found a comparison of fusils in rice wine to fusils in other wines. Has anyone had bad experiences with freeze distilling rice wine (hangovers, bad taste, etc.)?

 

[brooklynkayak]

Has anyone had bad experiences with freeze distilling rice wine (hangovers, bad taste, etc.)?

All I know is that if I drink a lot of rice wine, I will end up with the same next day symptoms that I get from overindulgence in grape wine or beer.

I do not get the same hangover with distilled spirits after overindulgence.

That's not going t stop me from drinking any kind of wine or beer. I just have to do it in moderation.

 

[MasterCrook]

All I know is that if I drink a lot of rice wine, I will end up with the same next day symptoms that I get from overindulgence in grape wine or beer.

I do not get the same hangover with distilled spirits after overindulgence.

That's not going t stop me from drinking any kind of wine or beer. I just have to do it in moderation.

I have noticed i get a different kind of hangover from rice wine compared to grape wine. Maybe because the rice wine is cleaner, no additives, but the hangovers seem not as bad. I suspect that if freeze distillation is used, the hangovers will be bad since all the unwanted alcohols are concentrated

 

[ThatVideoKid]

If you consume the same amount of alcohol(taking abv into account) you are consuming the same amount of bad alcohols whether it's freeze distiller or straight. If you consume the same amount of a freeze distilled product(by volume) as the original, then yes it will be a problem. But if you get the same amount of drunk there is literally no difference

 

[ThatVideoKid]

And if you are pouring yourself a pint glass of applejack, the methanol is the least of your problems

 

[MasterCrook]

Of course by volume, and time is another factor. Most people would drink the non distilled wine slower, because there is a larger amount. The good alcohol and bad byproducts are present at a lower abv and will get processed by our body slower and result in less drunk/hangover. A smaller distilled amount has more good alcohol and bad byproducts present, hence higher abv, and takes less time to drink, meaning more bad alcohol to process in less time, meaning drunker faster. Both ways can get you drink and give hangovers, but the first way would be less affected by the bad alcohols because they are not as present by volume compared to distilled.

 

[MasterCrook]

If you're taking about abv, what's the point in distilling if you're just going to mix it to bring it back to the previous abv?

 

[ThatVideoKid]

It's all just about knowing what your drinking. If you plan to go a little crazy, any non-distilled beverage is not really the healthiest choice, though concentrating it does enable you to go wild. I make freeze concentrated beverages to sip. The flavor concentration is more important than the abv

 

[ThatVideoKid]

And I mean just taking abv into account, like a pint of 5% cider contains the exact same toxins as 4oz of 20% applejack.

 

[Zymomancer]

I'm about two weeks into my first batch and it's already quite alcoholic so now I'm thinking about how exactly I'm going to decide to bottle it. I see in some other threads that some people prefer to strain out the wine from the solids and let the wine sit for a week or more to settle out the remaining solids, siphoning the clear liquor from the top.

Anyone have any preferences for cloudy vs. clear? I've seen cloudy sake in the store but I've never actually tried it so I have no idea what the difference might end up being.

 

[ChefRex]

I'm about two weeks into my first batch and it's already quite alcoholic so now I'm thinking about how exactly I'm going to decide to bottle it. I see in some other threads that some people prefer to strain out the wine from the solids and let the wine sit for a week or more to settle out the remaining solids, siphoning the clear liquor from the top.

Anyone have any preferences for cloudy vs. clear? I've seen cloudy sake in the store but I've never actually tried it so I have no idea what the difference might end up being.

I prefer it when it clears, the cloudy is a bit sweeter, I let it separate pour off the clear, but I don't waste the cloudy part.
I keep playing with it, it's cheap and you really can't screw it up

 

[user 211287]

The cloudy part also makes an excellent marinade especially for pork.

 

[z-bob]

I made a batch using broken Jasmine rice, where I added extra water after the first week to hopefully have it finish dryer. I let sit maybe 2 months before I strained it. It's just as syrupy as the previous batches made with kind-of dry sweet rice. The taste is good, if it just wasn't so sweet.

 

[user 211287]

Couldn't you pasteurize it then ferment it again using a wine yeast if you really want dry rice wine? I made one batch using a Lalvin yeast with nuruk and it came out dry. I still need to try it with some rice koji instead of nuruk but im sure it would work.

 

[z-bob]

It's in a jar in the fridge, where it'll be left alone until Easter. Maybe when the solids settle out the clear stuff won't be so sweet. Maybe I can use the solids to sweeten my breakfast cereal

 

[nickwoo]

Clear and aged is the best for me. 6 months + is good you just have to wait that long.

 

[MasterCrook]

The longer you age it after bottling the better, i sometimes let mine age 2 months and it's the best

 

[MasterCrook]

I made a batch using broken Jasmine rice, where I added extra water after the first week to hopefully have it finish dryer. I let sit maybe 2 months before I strained it. It's just as syrupy as the previous batches made with kind-of dry sweet rice. The taste is good, if it just wasn't so sweet.

Try pasturize and aging, that should help with the sweetness. I usually make 10 bottles at once so by the time i get to the last few they're nicely aged, dry and strong

 

[hornetd12]

 

[hornetd12]

I made a batch using broken Jasmine rice, where I added extra water after the first week to hopefully have it finish dryer. I let sit maybe 2 months before I strained it. It's just as syrupy as the previous batches made with kind-of dry sweet rice. The taste is good, if it just wasn't so sweet.

It may be the yeast balls you are using, the yeast is dying off before all the starch is consumed. I would use less rice per grams of yeast. I use onto yeast balls(xxx.ontoyeast.ca) and my wine turns out very dry. I use 35g of crushed yeast per 2.2lbs of dry rice. To get a good consistant product you should weigh your yeast balls. Most people say just add 3-4 yeast balls or whatever but not all yeast balls are the same size. I have seen small ones and some larger ones, so just weigh them and go from there. Also remember this yeast likes to be kept warm around 86F, any cooler than this will affect your wine. They have a recipe on the site but I just add the yeast balls and rice, keep it warm and let it ferment for about 30 days.

 

[SeraW]

Mine was neither too sweet nor syrupy but I used the "add water" advice intentionally to avoid that.

 

[Zymomancer]

Thanks for the input re: cloudiness, I was also curious about the dryness. I think what I'll do is a normal cloudy batch, pasteurize and bottle it, and let some of the sediment settle in one bottle while I drink the other. If it's too sweet I'll water it down a bit, so I'll have some idea of what I want to aim for in the next batch.

edit:
It's been three weeks now, it seems to be finished up because there don't seem to be any CO2 pockets forming in the "cap". There's not really a cap at all anymore because stirring once every two days has mixed it all up into a homogeneous mass. I was also just getting impatient even though another week wouldn't have hurt.

It came out a lot cloudier than in the pictures I've been seeing here, probably because of the stirring I did during the process and the squeezing when straining it into bottles. It's only a little bit clearer than milk. I came out with almost 1L from 5 cups of uncooked glutinous rice.

The taste is a lot more sour than I was anticipating, kind of like alcoholic yogurt. Otherwise it's actually not too sweet, but also doesn't have any sort of subtlety, it's just thick, tangy alcohol. I didn't do any temperature control and put it in a room that keeps roughly 72*F at all times during the winter but I suspect if I chilled it a little there might be less lactic acid bacteria activity. It could also just be the particular yeast ball brand (E&B). If this is like anything else I've brewed, though, a lot of the unpleasantness will age out in as little as a week to a month. Not as much fusel character as I expected from being so young!

 

[CanadianJesus]

Very excited about this!

I have read 83 pages into this thread so far. No way I could hold out and read the entirety of it before making a first attempt!

What I have done is, I used a wok/steamer combo I have and steamed up 10 cups of Walmart Calrose sushi rice. I added 10 balls of Onto Yeast that I purchased online (It's actually fairly local to me). All of this went into two 1-gallon jars that I sanitized with bleach/vinegar/water mix and rinsed very well. (I do not have any StarSan yet).

My sushi rice came out of the steamer pretty darn dry. I read that too moist is not good, but too dry is also not good. I guess I'm hoping for the best here in that regard since this is my first time actually steaming rice and don't have anything to compare it to. I saw a small amount of condensation in the jars about an hour after filling them, so I might be good there.

What I'm wondering is if 1 yeast ball per 1 cup of rice is the appropriate mix for Onto Yeast brand. The bag they came in says the whole shebang is good for 17Kg of rice, which is a heck-of-alot. I haven't bothered to count the yeast balls in the bag, but I am somehow getting the feeling that 1 ball per 1 cup is a little much on the yeast side.

I'll try and get some pictures posted up in a few days here when I start to notice some results in my little project here. For good or worse.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I soaked the rice for 3 hours and rinsed it well.

 

[MasterCrook]

Very excited about this!

I have read 83 pages into this thread so far. No way I could hold out and read the entirety of it before making a first attempt!

What I have done is, I used a wok/steamer combo I have and steamed up 10 cups of Walmart Calrose sushi rice. I added 10 balls of Onto Yeast that I purchased online (It's actually fairly local to me). All of this went into two 1-gallon jars that I sanitized with bleach/vinegar/water mix and rinsed very well. (I do not have any StarSan yet).

My sushi rice came out of the steamer pretty darn dry. I read that too moist is not good, but too dry is also not good. I guess I'm hoping for the best here in that regard since this is my first time actually steaming rice and don't have anything to compare it to. I saw a small amount of condensation in the jars about an hour after filling them, so I might be good there.

What I'm wondering is if 1 yeast ball per 1 cup of rice is the appropriate mix for Onto Yeast brand. The bag they came in says the whole shebang is good for 17Kg of rice, which is a heck-of-alot. I haven't bothered to count the yeast balls in the bag, but I am somehow getting the feeling that 1 ball per 1 cup is a little much on the yeast side.

I'll try and get some pictures posted up in a few days here when I start to notice some results in my little project here. For good or worse.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I soaked the rice for 3 hours and rinsed it well.

1 ball per cup isn't enough for onto yeast, the website has a recipe but it looks like it's down now

 

[user 211287]

Google has neat feature called "cached". I was able to get to the Onto recipe using it.

Preparation:

1.Cook 1kg of rice with a steam cooker

2. Once rice is cooked, wait for the rice to cool down to room temperature approx 23 degrees

3. Once cooled, add 35g of crushed ontoyeast (powder) and mix it in with the rice

4. Place the rice mixed with ontoyeast into a container, with a breathable pin hole.

5. Store the container in 30 degrees temperature (you can wrap it up with a blanket)

6. After 5 days add 2ltrs of warm to hot water into the container. Relocate the container in room temperature and wait another 25 days

7. Results is 3.5 ltres of 12% alcohol

 

[CanadianJesus]

My Onto yeast balls weight 6.36g per ball. I didn't scale out my rice when I cooked it. I don't want to add water to my batch and I'd like a higher ABV than 12% so I'm just going to wait it out and see how my batch turns out.

It's showing some nice (good) white mold growth on day 1. I think I'm going to have something nice when it's finished. I plan to harvest on day 21-24.

 

[MasterCrook]

Google has neat feature called "cached". I was able to get to the Onto recipe using it.

Preparation:

1.Cook 1kg of rice with a steam cooker

2. Once rice is cooked, wait for the rice to cool down to room temperature approx 23 degrees

3. Once cooled, add 35g of crushed ontoyeast (powder) and mix it in with the rice

4. Place the rice mixed with ontoyeast into a container, with a breathable pin hole.

5. Store the container in 30 degrees temperature (you can wrap it up with a blanket)

6. After 5 days add 2ltrs of warm to hot water into the container. Relocate the container in room temperature and wait another 25 days

7. Results is 3.5 ltres of 12% alcohol

Thanks for adding the recipe, I'm unable to get the cached site from my phone

 

[user 211287]

Roughly 5 cups of rice=1kg of rice. So their recipe calls for almost 1.5 balls per cup.