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Ok I've made a ton of this wine. I now have questions:

1. I soak, then steam sweet rice. Cool and then put in jar to ferment. How long? I usually go a month.

2. This is like syrup. It's sweet and thick. Anyone thin with water?

3. It seems when I add fruit like berries it tastes really balanced. However I don't like it fruity. Has anyone balanced with acid blend or lemon? It seems it would clean up the syrup flavor a bit.

4. I once saw this on a blog and it was fuzzy. Any ideas? Add sugar and bottle?
 
Ok I've made a ton of this wine. I now have questions:

1. I soak, then steam sweet rice. Cool and then put in jar to ferment. How long? I usually go a month.

2. This is like syrup. It's sweet and thick. Anyone thin with water?

3. It seems when I add fruit like berries it tastes really balanced. However I don't like it fruity. Has anyone balanced with acid blend or lemon? It seems it would clean up the syrup flavor a bit.

4. I once saw this on a blog and it was fuzzy. Any ideas? Add sugar and bottle?

1. I've found a month isn't long enough for me. 6-8 weeks seems to give a better result with more conversion of starches and a higher ABV (guesstimated, not measured). Mind you, it's not really hot where I live so the ambient temp inside was probably 65-70 most of the time. Warmer temps might speed up the process.

2. I've only made it by steaming one time and I got the same result as you. A very syrupy drink. This is just my theory, but I believe that the sugar content got so high that the yeast hit the max alcohol tolerance leaving a lot of unconverted sugar behind. The other times I made it I used a rice cooker and much preferred the result. The rice was gloopy and wet out of the rice cooker, but I think this extra water actually helped water down the sugars enough that the yeast didn't max out so soon. It made for a much more balanced tasting wine.

3. Never tried it.

4. I could be wrong, but if it's so sweet and it wasn't bubbling still by the time you bottled it, the yeast probably won't go any further with added sugar. You might be able to restart fermentation by watering it down and adding some more yeast. The syrupy batch I made, I tried to restart fermentation with champagne yeast and it didn't take. I didn't try watering it down though. I would be very hesitant to bottle it before fermentation is finished because you wouldn't know how far it would go.
 
Ok I've made a ton of this wine. I now have questions:

1. I soak, then steam sweet rice. Cool and then put in jar to ferment. How long? I usually go a month.

2. This is like syrup. It's sweet and thick. Anyone thin with water?

3. It seems when I add fruit like berries it tastes really balanced. However I don't like it fruity. Has anyone balanced with acid blend or lemon? It seems it would clean up the syrup flavor a bit.

4. I once saw this on a blog and it was fuzzy. Any ideas? Add sugar and bottle?

1. I use a rice cooker and never stop the fermentation before 6 weeks but have gone 3 months with good results. Still fermenting at 4 weeks, so I let it finish fermentation just like beer. If it has finished, no need to pasteurize.
2. It is sweeter than commercial sake, Also slightly more mouthfeel. I haven't watered it down to induce more fermentation, but I've watered it down before drinking from my presumed ABV of 20ish to 15-18% like commercial sakes and found it tastes less sweet and has less mouthfeel. Very similar to sake.
3. haven't tried to cut sweetness that way. Commercial sake is clarified with bentonite and filtration, perhaps that would help. I've found my aged and decanted rice wine drier and "cleaner". I know sake breweries do use acid to adjust, though.
4. Fuzzy is OK as long it is white to yellowish, black or other colors are not good. That's just the mold in the yeast balls growing.
 
Just an FYI for those like me who order their yeast balls on ebay, a couple of sellers have great deals right now asianjungle77 has 12 balls for $8.05 ($5.45+$2.60 shipping)and jak1010 has 12 for $8.25 ($4.75+$3.50 shipping)

Good to know. FYI, about jak1010, if you mention that you participate in this forum, they send extras. I asked him/her about a recipe and got hooked up nicely.

I'm still blown away by turning rice into wine. My brother and father both love this stuff. My sister says it's too strong. Can't please them all I guess.
 
I'm still blown away by turning rice into wine.

Me too! There's something really satisfying about making this stuff. It's almost like magic. I love how it doesn't require any fancy schmancy science, being super anal about sanitization, oxygen exposure, temperature control, or even any expensive homebrew store ingredients. It's refreshingly caveman simple and cheap as hell. It's really awesome knowing you can buy a giant 50 lb bag of dehydrated wine granules (AKA rice) anywhere for ~$20 and have rice wine till kingdom come.

As for your sister, you could try mixing it down with pink lemonade, lychee juice, or mint, water, and simple syrup, or coconut water, or something else sweet. Target 2-3 parts juice to 1 part rice wine so the approx ABV is in the 4-6% range. This is a pretty common way of serving soju.
 
I strained at 15 days(wanted it sweet) added blueberry for flavoring, and pasteurized to stop fermentation,and this is some awesome stuff!!!!!
 
Last weekend I did some experimentation. 23 quart jars.

Jar contents:
1. Plantain
2. Ube
3. Taro
4. Asian white flesh purple skin sweet potato
5. American orange sweet potato
6. Sweet Het Rice
7. Ha Bu Kai Rice
8. Han Kuk Mi Rice
9. Pearled Barley
10. Ginger
11. Nagaimo
12. Tapioca pearls
Costco Jasmine rice with the following variables:
13. One with a cinnamon stick and vanilla beans
14. One with 1/4 c vanilla beans
15. One with 1/8 c vanilla beans
16. Two controls from batch one (3 gallon batches)
17.
18. Two controls from batch two
19.
20. One with no additional yeast added
21. One incubated 48 hours
22. One with Happy Panda Yeast Bal

(don't remember the other one off the top of my head)

Standard Procedures:
2c water per 1c starch
(for the tubers this was much too high, they will be steamed for the future).
1. Bring water to boil, add starch, place in preheated 375 oven until fully cooked.
2. Remove from oven, spread on cookie sheet, cool to 100 degrees farenheit.
3. Add 1/4 tsp ARL to warm water, pour over cooled starch, mix with hand.
4. Put one quart of starch into quart jars loosely packed, cover with vodka soaked cheesecloth square and lid.
5. Within 2 hours, place jar in 100F degree oven.
All incubated for 24 hours (except the 48 hour jar).
6. Added 1/16 tsp of Lavlin 1118 and 1/16 tsp Red Star Champagne yeast to top of each jar then shook them.
7. Place jars in cooler with a couple of frozen water bottles to drop fermentation temperature to around 60F degrees (this was too inconsistent, changed to refrigerated water in cooler).

After 2 days, the plantains, han kuk mi, and Ube were the most active bubblers. The tapioca balls had the most mold. The 48 hour jar had the most free glucose. Will post updates weekly hopefully.
 
So this is my first venture into homebrew, I've got a couple of bottles made up after starting about a month ago.

This is probably a stupid question, but I tried pasteurising my resulting bottles at 190f for about 10 minutes, as per the instructions linked a few pages back, and just afterwards cracked them open to give them a sniff. I got a very strong alcoholic smell coming off them. While browsing the net afterwards I read somewhere that ethanol and methanol can boil off at temps as low as 165f, and that methanol is given off more readily.

Just a little concerned as to whether I just inhaled a good few lungfuls of methanol, or am I being unnecessarily worried?

On the bright side, before pasteurising, I gave it a taste, and they were lovely, flavored one with a dash of yuzu juice, which works pretty well :)
 
So this is my first venture into homebrew, I've got a couple of bottles made up after starting about a month ago.

This is probably a stupid question, but I tried pasteurising my resulting bottles at 190f for about 10 minutes, as per the instructions linked a few pages back, and just afterwards cracked them open to give them a sniff. I got a very strong alcoholic smell coming off them. While browsing the net afterwards I read somewhere that ethanol and methanol can boil off at temps as low as 165f, and that methanol is given off more readily.

Just a little concerned as to whether I just inhaled a good few lungfuls of methanol, or am I being unnecessarily worried?

On the bright side, before pasteurising, I gave it a taste, and they were lovely, flavored one with a dash of yuzu juice, which works pretty well :)

Yes you probably let out some alcohol. How much, not sure.

I made some NA beer for a pregnant friend a few years back by bringing the beer up to 180 for some amount of time I can't remember. My wife was diligently stirring it while I did other things. She inhaled too much and got rather drunk after 10 minutes or so. I guess all that alcohol didn't go to waste. It takes a while for it to all evaporate off and the rate of evaporation is affected by the surface area to volume ratio, much the same way that normal boil off rates are affected by this ratio. So a slim, tall bottle would be at the end of the ratio where it would take longer for it to evaporate than a broad shallow pan.

If you only had it open for a brief moment, then you probably didn't let much out.
 
Two people that have made sake (TaylorMade AK, and someone on this forum) pasteurized at 140. That's probably what I'll be using. Methanol begins releasing at 160, the amount of vaporized alcohol that could have been in the headspace of a closed bottle is probably negligible. You probably didn't inhale the fumes from every bottle, so you're probably safe.
 
Sounds like I was getting the temps way higher than necessary :/

Thanks for the info, I have yet to drink either bottle, so not sure how much I reduced their alcohol level, they smell a little less strongly of alcohol than before, at least I know for next time. And I'm here typing this today, so seems I've not gone blind or died from any methanol poisoning!
 
I pasteurize at 165. Milk is pasteurized at 161. But yes, if you try to pasteurize with open bottles or open them while they're still even slightly warm, you will release alcohol. The first time I pasteurized, I did it open in a pot and I'm fairly certain that I boiled off quite a bit of alcohol -- I could see steam wafting off even at just warm temps, far more than you'd see with water, and it smelled very alcoholic. The final product didn't smell that much like sake/rice wine anymore. :(

The boiling point of ethanol may be 173.1, but a lot of ethanol vapors do escape at much lower temperatures. In fact, alcohol will evaporate slowly over time even at cool temperatures. Sometimes liquor (which usually doesn't have a full cork like wine) stored for many years will have a noticeable drop in the liquid level in the bottle due to evaporation.
 
I use the Lowes paint bags and they seem to last forever. I ordered the rice balls from Ebay at a resonance price. Waiting on them to arrive so I can start a batch.
 
Anyone that air locks this wait till bubbling stops, or bottle at 4 weeks no matter what?
 
BTW, I have a new variable to test. Does anyone have unadultered Rhizopus Oryzae or Aspergillus Oryzae cultures? I was able to obtain a super enzyme heavy fungus I wanted to test those two against. Got the idea from a research article on ResearchGate about ethanol production from cassava waste.
 
"or bottle at 4 weeks no matter what"

Some of us add more water and wait longer than the traditional method. This produces a drier rice wine.
 
The OP didn't use glutinous jasmine, just plain jasmine rice (from what I can tell anyway -- it's not exactly clear). I've had great success with Three Ladies Brand broken Thai jasmine rice, also not labeled sweet, sticky, or glutinous and the grains are more translucent than sticky varieties. In fact, I feel the flavor is more interesting than what I got from glutinous rice, though that wasn't glutinous jasmine, just plain small-grain glutinous rice. However, the glutinous rice did convert to more liquid than the broken jasmine overall. On the flip side, jasmine is cheaper. When in doubt, try it. You might discover something you like.

I have a different brand of Thai broken jasmine rice. Just curious if you have tried other broken rice brands and if there are any differences in the different brands in terms of taste/flavor as a regular rice and for making rice wine? Thank.
 
I have a different brand of Thai broken jasmine rice. Just curious if you have tried other broken rice brands and if there are any differences in the different brands in terms of taste/flavor as a regular rice and for making rice wine? Thank.

So far, the only jasmine rice I've tried is Three Ladies Brand so I can't say. I will say that the jasmine rice wine does taste better IMO than the glutenous rice wine, though the yield is smaller.
 
I have done 2 batches of the rice wine and had white mold in the 1st batch and black mold in the 2nd batch.

Other than making sure that every equipment used is sterilized and clean, the water used should be either boiled, filtered water or bottled water to avoid mold.
 
I do not know if you were writing to me or not, but I'll respond.

I have used every type of rice and brand an A+ AsianMart has. From sweet short to sweet medium to Thai long grain. The best batch I have had yet is with the Thai long. However, I will stand by you on this for sure, SOAK YOUR RICE. My best batches come from an overnight soak and good second rinsing before I cook.

I'll have to try cutting my yeast addition with the balls in half, see what that does.

By Thai long, are you referring to Thai jasmine long grain rice or thai long grain sweet rice? Just want to make sure I'm reading correctly.
 
If memory serves, white mold was the one that *should* be ok though I've never seen it personally in a batch (though I've gotten colored mold before it really took off in a batch I soaked overnight which is why I no longer do that).

The last two batches I've done (Thai Jasmine) were a quick dip in boiling water, immediate removal/strain and dump to cool water (cleaning your rice first before any of this of course), follow up strain then immediately to the rice cooker. I've liked the results personally but ymmv.
 
I have done 2 batches of the rice wine and had white mold in the 1st batch and black mold in the 2nd batch.

Other than making sure that every equipment used is sterilized and clean, the water used should be either boiled, filtered water or bottled water to avoid mold.

Mold cannot be avoided, nor should it. Mold is an integral part of the process of making this rice wine. The "yeast" balls everyone is using to make it actually contain mold on purpose. From Wikipedia:

Jiqu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiuqu

"Jiuqu consists of a complex mixture of various molds, yeasts, and bacteria with their associated metabolites, cultured on a starch-rich substrate in a solid state fermentation process. ...The most common organisms found in Jiuqu are the filamentous molds Aspergillus oryzae and Rhizopus oryzae and the amylolytic yeast Saccharomycopsis fibuligera. Amylolytic and proteolytic enzymes are the most abundant metabolites isolated."

The mold is required to produce the amylase that converts the starches in the rice into simple sugars so the yeast can then ferment it into alcohol. Without the mold, there could be no rice wine produced. You'd just end up with solid rice and no alcohol.

Whether someone sees visible mold or not really doesn't matter -- the mold is in there if the starches have converted. The visible part of the mold, the hairy fluff (sometimes with speckles) on the surface, is just the mold going to spore, which it does not always do, hence the fact that some do not ever see the mold. I've read various things about warmer temperatures, higher humidity, and other factors causing the mold to go to spore. Whether or not the mold goes to spore doesn't matter however. I'm not aware of any advantage to keeping the mold from making spores.
 
After 24 hours at 100F Trichoderma had no visible mold, Rhizopus had VERY established mold, Koji had the most liquid rendered.

Tried first jar of the 2 week experiment batches tonight. Got about 20 oz from a quart. Strong alcohol, very little subtlety. Smelled the rest of the jars, I thought the orange, asian, and taro all had very interesting smells. It seems like 3 of the jars of the 23 are not fermenting (plantain, tapioca, and one of the rices) but have converted sugars. The "horchata" jar with vanilla and a cinammon stick smells AMAZING. 2 weeks till harvest (assuming my 5 gallon batch doesn't stop bubbling before then). The pearled barley smells almost identical to the rice.
 
One week from harvest, the alternative starches were a "bust." However, the three varieties of sweet potato seem to add good aromatics. I'd advise less than 1/4 total volume to be grated steamed sweet potatoes though. They gunk up movement and trap fermentables at any higher ratio.
 
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