Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[chonas]

Oh sweetie. No sugar addition necessary in this brew. You only need the cooked rice and fermentation critters. You ve made a precursor to rum with rice flavoring.

 

[cuisinechemist]

Oh sweetie. No sugar addition necessary in this brew. You only need the cooked rice and fermentation critters. You ve made a precursor to rum with rice flavoring.

That makes sense! It does remind me a bit of rum...
I usually add sugar, but it's totally possible that I added a tad too much
In previous batches it is still super sweet and low alcohol by day 20. I know because I don't drink much and don't have a lot of tolerance, but I can drink quite a bit of the rice wine ...
You are right, I don't need sugar, but I just always added it because I wanted fermentation to start early and ward off any unwanted bacteria. I guess the mold fed off of that first and then the high alcohol content resulting stopped them from breaking down more rice starches?
I tried a bit flavoured with syrup. It makes for a very strong fermented rice dessert, but it tastes good . In previous batches, the rice is way too rubbery to enjoy...
What do you suggest that I do?

 

[chonas]

Start a new batch, ARL and rice are pretty cheap. Follow the instructions I posted. If you can't maintain 100F any other way put in your oven with just the light on. I recommend 24 hours.

 

[trbig]

OK, it's been a while since I posted here, but I have learned a few things. I make the rice wine both with and without the red yeast rice. For traditional wine according to some Chinese friends, you use:
10 lbs long grain sweet rice
One 12 oz package of red yeast rice
One yeast ball per pound of uncooked rice.
When done cooking rice, add 2 gallons of cold water in a 5 gallon or bigger bucket. Soak the yeast balls in warm water for a while. It makes them easier to break up. Add red yeast rice and yeast ball mix and stir well. The first couple days, I open the lid and stir it up once a day.

Pretty simple but here's what I have learned. Every time I have made this in the house at room temp, I get a sour wine. Talking with my Chinese friends, they traditionally don't make rice wine until the end of October when it is cooler. The BEST wine I ever made was last year when I used just cooked sweet rice and yeast balls with no additional water. I left the bucket out on my garage floor for a couple months where it was in the low 30's F for most of the time. The wine came out sweet and SUPER STRONG.. guessing @ 20% because a small 6 oz bottle will mess you up. I filtered all the solids out into a glass carboy and put that back out in the garage for another month or so.

I used a racking cane and filled a bunch of small bottles, corked them, then left them with the corks up. What was left in the carboy, I dumped into a couple half gallon jars and put those in the fridge. The solids will continue to drop out and leave clear wine where you can gently pour it off several times over severa weeks until just solids remain.

The red yeast rice recipe above with additional water makes a less potent, but still strong, dry wine. No additional water makes sweet, tasty, rocket fuel. lol. A year later, it still tastes very "alcoholy". If you keep it out of sunlight, I don't see any reason you can't age this for several years... if you can keep your hands off of it to do so.

So.. many recipes and ways, but try a cold-made batch and you won't be sorry. Cold doesn't seem to bother the yeast in these yeast balls. it may slow them down a little, but I've read many stories of blown up bottles in the fridge because this yeast keeps on truckin' in the cold if you put it there before it's done.

 

[chonas]

Insta-pot IP DUO 8 can cook rice and incubate at 96F for 99 hours. In other words you can continuously make 2 gallon batches in one plugin device.

 

[cuisinechemist]

Start a new batch, ARL and rice are pretty cheap. Follow the instructions I posted. If you can't maintain 100F any other way put in your oven with just the light on. I recommend 24 hours.

Will try that.
But I also ended up pasteurizing my last batch and adding some syrup. With some time and some sugar, I'd say it tastes pretty good now and doesn't really burn anymore. I can taste the fruitiness and rice again and it is definitely higher in alcohol than my previous batches. Definitely going to finish drinking it (eventually).

 

[sarthak]

Start a new batch, ARL and rice are pretty cheap. Follow the instructions I posted. If you can't maintain 100F any other way put in your oven with just the light on. I recommend 24 hours.

Does keeping the light on provides it some temperature? Its winters here and the temperature is running around 20C.

And chonas, do you know how to brew beer? or ginger ale?

I know how to malt wheat or barley But what kind of yeast to use? Will those yeasts i show'd you in one of my previous posts work for beer?

 

[sarthak]

Okay. This is the 3rd week post on my rice wine. I had done 2 batches: water cooked and steam cooked.
Both the batches turned out very tart.

The steamed cooked rice has less tart and a lot of alcohol. I don't have a hydrometer to measure. The steamed cooked batch was 310grams of short grain rice. Amount of liquid yeilded is about 350ml. The rice grains appeared as if they were eaten 'inside out', only the outer shells remained. Flavour is very tart, very sour, like that of a sour red wine.

Boiled cooked batch turned out even more Sour, with a little bitterness. I tasted some with a spoon and immediately threw it. This batch was not drinkable.
I have attached pictures of this batch in here, the one with clear glass jar. Rest all the images are of steamed batch.

Will I be doing this again? Probably not. I am not a drinker, just occasional light drinking. Concept of rice wine intrigues me, so I tried it. But I will try a big batch of only steamed rice with arl. Will probably use 1Kg rice in it.

 

[sumatra]

Goodness. I hate to ask basic questions like this, but nearly 600 pages of possible revisions to the original recipe, plus the scientific details regarding yeast/enzyme strains, temperature, and alcohol production is a little overwhelming. Could someone please clarify a few of these for me?

Is steaming, boiling, or soaking best?
What's the difference between using red yeast rice and leaving it plain?
Mold seems to be fairly standard in this... Is there such a thing as too much or perhaps bad varieties?
Should the rice be stirred or just left for the 21-24 days?
What will happen if I don't pasteurize...Really dry alcohol or vinegar?

 

[chonas]

Steaming.

RYR = more fruity, more hangover.

Too much not really an issue, Rhizopus and Aspergillus oryzae are both acceptable.

If it's a small batch you can leave it, larger batches require agitation, if using ARL or yeast ball and not a standalone mold you'll want to minimize oxygen contamination (just close the container and shake it if possible).

Flavors will change, the effect will be minimal if the rice wine is kept below 60F. Above that temperature, sourness and further fermentation are likely.

 

[alien51]

So I did a small patch in a jar that fits 800ml. It's been a week since it have been sitting there. It seems to have stop producing CO2. It looks like a big giant goop with in a puddle of liquid filling up to the goop. I'd say right now I think I have probably 300 to 200 ml worth of alcohol. I think I'll let it sit for another week before I pasteurize it. Probably not worth the trouble of doing it but I'm not going to be drinking it right away. Though, I have a question about pasteurizing it. The post I was reading said something about Bentonite powder https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=423097. Is it necessary? From what I read it's just a process to heat treat the batch to kill off the yeast/bacteria. I'm not sure what is the purpose of Bentonite powder.

 

[Darthbrewder]

Bentonite will help to clear the liquor. This stuff usually clears on its own though given some time. You could also pop it in the fridge to help it clear then siphon off the lees to bottles then pasteurize.

If it hasn't separated yet I would let it ride for at least a couple more weeks. This stuff usually takes about a month to finish.

 

[chonas]

Big brew project coming up as soon as my yeasts arrive.

Testing
1. Vintner's Harvest CL23
2. VH Sn9
3. White Labs 740
4. WLP 099
5. WLP 705
6. Wyeast 4632
7. Wyeast Sake #9
8. Safale 04
9. Nottingham Ale Yeast


I would really love to test Safoeno CK s102, but I can't find a single vendor in the US.

 

[alien51]

So I'm just reporting on how my batch came out. It's a sour and I don't really taste much alcohol. It's not sour to the point of undrinkable. It's more on point of grape juice but less sweet.

Maybe I used too much water. It has been 3 weeks and the liquid separated with chunks of moosh floating/sunk. Well I think I'll try another batch some other time. It was an entertaining experiment.

 

[brewit75]

I've actually made a batch and began drinking it 25 days later. Other batches have "brewed" 45 days. I think I'm a bigger fan of letting them go longer. Stronger taste and less sweet.

 

[Jarudy]

I'm through 350 pages of posts so far and haven't seen any mention of this:

https://youtu.be/87u6BYLHvY4

Foam rice wine?? Wheat and rice with a twist. Interested if anyone has ideas on copying this recipe.

 

[chonas]

I would think just adding priming sugar would be sufficient to do this in this recipe. People have made sparkling before.

 

[gidik]

Order this one yeast for rice wine. Can't find any yeast ball or aspergillus oryzae. So, i've bought this one.
Does it will be ok for makin rice wine?

 

[BeeDeeEff]

Just started a batch in a 1 gall jar using a similar method/materials to the OP.

Bought my rice balls here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Over-1-000-...LS-Rice-Wine-Chinese-YEAST-BALLS/141866638440

4 Yeast balls + costoco jasmine rice 3 cups (measured uncooked) of rice to make it and capped it with an airlock rather than cheese cloth letting sit in a low/cooler part of my house probably in the mid to low 60s

Boiled the rice and let sit in the pot with the lid on for a few hours to cool. Here's hoping it doesn't turn out bad, few people been saying they didn't have luck with cooking the rice in water.

 

[chonas]

The mold needs oxygen to convert rice to starch (supposedly).

 

[gidik]

Just started a batch in a 1 gall jar using a similar method/materials to the OP.

Bought my rice balls here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Over-1-000-...LS-Rice-Wine-Chinese-YEAST-BALLS/141866638440

Will you send it to my country?

 

[Jarudy]

I'm through 350 pages of posts so far and haven't seen any mention of this:

https://youtu.be/87u6BYLHvY4

Foam rice wine?? Wheat and rice with a twist. Interested if anyone has ideas on copying this recipe.

Anyone? It got buried

 

[chonas]

Anyone? It got buried

I responded, just use priming sugar, cap, no pasteurization

 

[Jarudy]

I responded, just use priming sugar, cap, no pasteurization

They used half rice, half wheat. They basically get a giant head on the pour and it seems very intriguing

 

[Darthbrewder]

This is makgeolli. Completely different from what this thread is about.
From what I saw In The video though they make this foam makgeolli by mashing the rice and the wheat before adding nuruk and yeast. Then they strain the solids from the liquid and add nuruk and yeast. Which is why it is more clear and lighter in body than traditional makgeolli.

 

[brewit75]

I'm through 350 pages of posts so far and haven't seen any mention of this:

https://youtu.be/87u6BYLHvY4

Foam rice wine?? Wheat and rice with a twist. Interested if anyone has ideas on copying this recipe.

I've never made makgeolli but, after watching this video, I may give it a try. Not sure about the foaming version but maybe the traditional way first. Looks tastey. Many of my rice wine batches have turned out carbonated but none of them foamy.

Funny enough, I've never tried to carb it. I guess I have just bottled too soon and causing them to carb up.

Finding yeast a balls was a challenge. I wonder how hard it will be to find nuruk.

Thanks for sharing and posting the link to the video.

 

[Jelmi]

I've been eyeballing this thread for a while and finally decided to give it a go today. I've bought some kind of jar in which I've drilled a hole to fit the airlock. So now I've got about 0.5 kg of rice in the container with 2 powder crushed yeast balls (hopefully the right one, my knowledge of the Chinese language isn't that up-to-date). Let's see how this turns out. How long does it generally take for the first bit of liquid to appear?

 

[BeeDeeEff]

How long does it generally take for the first bit of liquid to appear?

Should be able to see some liquid after 1-2 days, can't tell if it is booze or rice liquifying, probably both (also my first go at this). Didn't see noticeable airlock activity until day 2. Pic below of mine in a 1 gallon wide mouth jar after 3 days:

 

[chonas]

I've been eyeballing this thread for a while and finally decided to give it a go today. I've bought some kind of jar in which I've drilled a hole to fit the airlock. So now I've got about 0.5 kg of rice in the container with 2 powder crushed yeast balls (hopefully the right one, my knowledge of the Chinese language isn't that up-to-date). Let's see how this turns out. How long does it generally take for the first bit of liquid to appear?

Looks like you'll be getting vinegar. That rice is a little too wet.

 

[Jelmi]

How can you tell? When the rice had cooled down it looked like a dry rubbery mass to me.