Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[Erik the Awful]

I've been interested in making a rice wine, more specifically a sake, for a while now. I hit up the local Asian market last weekend and bought a 15lb bag of Kokuho Rose - it's the closest thing I could find to short-grain rice. The store employees I asked for help all claimed they had no yeast, no yeast balls, nothing.

When I got home I started researching yeast and figured out that to make sake I needed a yeast with aspergillus oryzae. If I get yeast balls or Chinese/Korean rice yeast I'll have rhizopus pryzae. I searched Amazon for Koji-kin and everything I found was $10 a packet or more. I ended up ordering Angel Rice Leavening from Amazon (www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088H1J2GD) for $4 for 30 packets. I figure if it's a success I'll step up to the more expensive packets next time.

Am I being a snob, or does it matter that much? The videos I've seen with the Angel Rice Leavening say it turns out excellent. Is there much of a difference between Japanese sake and Chinese rice wine?

 

[wongjau]

I've been interested in making a rice wine, more specifically a sake, for a while now. I hit up the local Asian market last weekend and bought a 15lb bag of Kokuho Rose - it's the closest thing I could find to short-grain rice. The store employees I asked for help all claimed they had no yeast, no yeast balls, nothing.

When I got home I started researching yeast and figured out that to make sake I needed a yeast with aspergillus oryzae. If I get yeast balls or Chinese/Korean rice yeast I'll have rhizopus pryzae. I searched Amazon for Koji-kin and everything I found was $10 a packet or more. I ended up ordering Angel Rice Leavening from Amazon (www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088H1J2GD) for $4 for 30 packets. I figure if it's a success I'll step up to the more expensive packets next time.

Am I being a snob, or does it matter that much? The videos I've seen with the Angel Rice Leavening say it turns out excellent. Is there much of a difference between Japanese sake and Chinese rice wine?

Sake and Chinese rice wine are very different.

The Chinese wine that we are making is huang jiu (wong jau) which if aged, becomes like a Shaoxing or sherry type wine.

 

[MilesBFree]

I think I screwed up - I read that you should cover the top of the fermenter with cheesecloth so the mixture gets oxygen. I didn't read that it should then go into a carboy with airlock after a week or so. In the last week, all the liquid has evaporated, so I re-read the instructions and believe it simply evaporated.

My fermenter is a 2-gallon bucket a bit over 12" across, so a lot of uncovered area.

It still smells amazing, so I plan to add a 3rd batch of rice and yeast ball to it, get it restarted, then move to a carboy after a week.



In happier news, I started a batch of bochet following the general approach from the Atlas Obscura article on the "lost and terrifying medieval mead" and it is happily burping away.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-make-medieval-mead-bochet

 

[pdxal]

Never needs to be in a carboy or a fermenter with an airlock.
Not sure what happened to make the liquid "evaporate" but wait it out and see what happens. You can always adjust with your next batch.

 

[Miraculix]

I think I screwed up - I read that you should cover the top of the fermenter with cheesecloth so the mixture gets oxygen. I didn't read that it should then go into a carboy with airlock after a week or so. In the last week, all the liquid has evaporated, so I re-read the instructions and believe it simply evaporated.

My fermenter is a 2-gallon bucket a bit over 12" across, so a lot of uncovered area.

It still smells amazing, so I plan to add a 3rd batch of rice and yeast ball to it, get it restarted, then move to a carboy after a week.



In happier news, I started a batch of bochet following the general approach from the Atlas Obscura article on the "lost and terrifying medieval mead" and it is happily burping away.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-make-medieval-mead-bochet

Adding new rice and yeast at this stage is highly problematic, just let it ride.

 

[MilesBFree]

Thanks pdxal and Miraculix. I will wait and see what happens.

The recipe seems pretty idiot-proof and it was going along so well for the first 3 or so weeks.

What is left of the liquid looks like a sugar "paste" - like you would expect if you let syrup sit out and the liquid evaporated off. It is slightly grainy and tastes like sugar with a bit of alcohol. The taste used to be amazing but now it has lost all of the great flavors.

The rice is starting to harden up.

The only thing I can think of is the temperature is too low and the fermentation stopped. We keep the house at around 70 during the day and 66 at night. I started it in the oven with no heat other than the oven light bulbs, then once it got going pulled it out and set it on the countertop. It seemed fine with that for 2+ weeks after it was moved to the kitchen counter.

Wondering if it would help it to put it back in the oven?

 

[Miraculix]

No. Maybe you used not enough water for the rice? Did you keep the lid open during fermentation? Should be closed during fermentation. I never had excess evaporation.

 

[MilesBFree]

The rice cooked very nicely - if I received that as a sticky rice dish in a restaurant I would have been happy with it.

I think you are right - I left cheesecloth over the fermenter, and didn't add the lid. I will put the lid on now and see if it restarts

 

[Miraculix]

The rice cooked very nicely - if I received that as a sticky rice dish in a restaurant I would have been happy with it.

I think you are right - I left cheesecloth over the fermenter, and didn't add the lid. I will put the lid on now and see if it restarts

It's cheesecloth and on top of this, the lid. It actually also works without the cheese cloth, if the lid is not 100% air tight.

 

[MilesBFree]

Any guesses if putting it back in the oven with just the lightbulb on would help it? Or just leave it on the countertop?

 

[Miraculix]

Any guesses if putting it back in the oven with just the lightbulb on would help it? Or just leave it on the countertop?

I would not. The yeast likes it a bit cooler, the mold likes the heat, but the mold is gone by now and the yeast took over. Maybe thinning it out with water would actually be a good idea, if it is really that thick without liquid. Should be almost done by now.

 

[Time2Retire]

Thus far pleased with my latest batch. I tried a different brand of yeast pills(Han Hing rather than HanHeng) and it adds a little umami. 5# of calrose got me 3 liters, from the taste I'd say it's at least 14%. I pasteurized it last night, now it's cold crashing and I'll see how well it clears. Once you get the solids toward the bottom, I find that part too thick to drink, once the clear liquid is poured off.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I started a batch of rice wine with Kokuho Rose on Friday. It took me all afternoon to steam the rice, 4 cups at a time, in my wife's Crock-Pot instant cooker. Each batch got spread on wax paper and cooled before sprinkling 1/3 of a packet of Angel Rice Leavening. I then rolled each batch up to put it all in a 4 gallon bucket with a cut-out lid holding down a paper towel over the top. I checked after work today (Sunday), and it doesn't look like it's doing anything yet. There may be action underneath, but it seems pretty solid when I shake the bucket. It's in the pantry, which has been 50°F the last few days. Am I on the right track?

 

[Time2Retire]

I started a batch of rice wine with Kokuho Rose on Friday. It took me all afternoon to steam the rice, 4 cups at a time, in my wife's Crock-Pot instant cooker. Each batch got spread on wax paper and cooled before sprinkling 1/3 of a packet of Angel Rice Leavening. I then rolled each batch up to put it all in a 4 gallon bucket with a cut-out lid holding down a paper towel over the top. I checked after work today (Sunday), and it doesn't look like it's doing anything yet. There may be action underneath, but it seems pretty solid when I shake the bucket. It's in the pantry, which has been 50°F the last few days. Am I on the right track?

Sounds good! Now give it 4-6 weeks depending on ambient temperature. Within 3 days, you should see the rice begins to liquefy, and there should be a vanilla-spice smell.

In about 6 weeks, squeeze the rice out in a big brew bag, until it's about the size of a baseball. Have mason jars ready, and Bob's your uncle.

As for me, I might not get to clarify all three liters of my latest batch. I got thirsty, and I find it pretty pleasant even with the solids

 

[wongjau]

I started a batch of rice wine with Kokuho Rose on Friday. It took me all afternoon to steam the rice, 4 cups at a time, in my wife's Crock-Pot instant cooker. Each batch got spread on wax paper and cooled before sprinkling 1/3 of a packet of Angel Rice Leavening. I then rolled each batch up to put it all in a 4 gallon bucket with a cut-out lid holding down a paper towel over the top. I checked after work today (Sunday), and it doesn't look like it's doing anything yet. There may be action underneath, but it seems pretty solid when I shake the bucket. It's in the pantry, which has been 50°F the last few days. Am I on the right track?

Kokuho Rose is medium grain sushi rice. It will give a lower yield compared to short grain sticky/glutinous rice.

If you rolled up each batch tightly, or packed the rice into the bucket tightly, it may be slow to start. The yeast needs oxygen early on to build up.

That’s best done by having loose clumps of rice in the bucket, along with a tunnel or bore in the center of the rice down to the bottom of the bucket. That creates a lot of surface area for oxygen exposure, and the tunnel also lets you see any liquid that starts collecting at the bottom.

50F is too cold. You want the rice at 85F for best results. You can do that by using a temperature bath.

In China, rice wine traditionally was brewed starting in winter. But that was because they did large batches, and much of the process was geared toward controlling temperature rise and not killing the yeast. For our small batches we don’t have that problem, and may even need to heat the rice.

You’ll probably see liquid soon as the amylase works on the rice. Then smell alcohol, esters, and aldehydes shortly after that as the yeast begin to ferment the sugar. Given a good temperature.

Here’s a pic of how I did a couple batches.

 

[MilesBFree]

Nice setup! My wife has been considering an immersion circulator for sous vide cooking so I need to encourage her to get one In the mean time I put my rice wine in the oven with the light bulbs turned on (had to crack the oven door open with an oven mitt to keep the light on) and it did great starting the process.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Thanks for the responses!

Kokuho Rose is medium grain sushi rice. It will give a lower yield compared to short grain sticky/glutinous rice.

Yeah, I couldn't find anything that was short-grain, but I've read where others have said Kokuho Rose works well. I did see some medium grain jasmine rice, but I figured a sushi rice might work better.

If you rolled up each batch tightly, or packed the rice into the bucket tightly, it may be slow to start. The yeast needs oxygen early on to build up.

I think that's my issue right now. The bucket is full to the top, so I had to pack it in a bit. I'll poke some holes down into it.

50F is too cold. You want the rice at 85F for best results. You can do that by using a temperature bath.

I don't have a sous vide setup, but I can move it someplace warmer.

Once it liquifies, I do plan on moving it to a short secondary fermentation with an airlock and some sparkolloid to clarify it. Is that a wise idea?

 

[Miraculix]

Thanks for the responses!


Yeah, I couldn't find anything that was short-grain, but I've read where others have said Kokuho Rose works well. I did see some medium grain jasmine rice, but I figured a sushi rice might work better.


I think that's my issue right now. The bucket is full to the top, so I had to pack it in a bit. I'll poke some holes down into it.


I don't have a sous vide setup, but I can move it someplace warmer.

Once it liquifies, I do plan on moving it to a short secondary fermentation with an airlock and some sparkolloid to clarify it. Is that a wise idea?

No. Stick to the recipe. No air lock, place a kitchen towel underneath the lid, put a weight on the lid, that is it. No clarifier. you will stir everything up once you seperate the solids from the liquid anyway. Clarification happens after that, and is not actually necessary, but can be done before bottling. I bottle with everything and then pasteurise.

 

[wongjau]

Thanks for the responses!


Yeah, I couldn't find anything that was short-grain, but I've read where others have said Kokuho Rose works well. I did see some medium grain jasmine rice, but I figured a sushi rice might work better.


I think that's my issue right now. The bucket is full to the top, so I had to pack it in a bit. I'll poke some holes down into it.


I don't have a sous vide setup, but I can move it someplace warmer.

Once it liquifies, I do plan on moving it to a short secondary fermentation with an airlock and some sparkolloid to clarify it. Is that a wise idea?

Sho Chiku Bai sweet rice is good. I use it for some types of regular Chinese cooking too.

https://www.kodafarms.com/sho-chiku-bai-sweet-rice-preparation-serving-suggestions/
You can get it at the asian markets. I’ve seen it on Amazon and Walmart too.

If you have another bucket, you could split the batch between the two and loosen it up.

If you don’t have a sous vide setup, you can use a water bath with an aquarium heater. I’ve done that for yogurt before.

After a couple weeks at 85F, you can let it go for a another 3 months or so to ferment completely. You can go shorter, but the alcohol and flavor will not be as developed. You can go longer than 3 months without problem, even on the lees without filtering.

Airlock is not required, but you can use one if you prefer after the first couple weeks. Just make sure the batch is protected from fruit flies and evaporation.

Fining agents are not necessary. You can cold crash if you like. The traditional process just relies on straining, pasteurizing, and aging to clarify.

After the initial 3 months, you can transfer the rice wine to a large container for bulk aging. Use a slightly loose top that allows a tiny bit of air exchange without letting bugs to get in. Over time, this allows the wine to oxidize and darken slowly like with sherry. This is part of the process to turn regular huang jiu to Shaoxing style wine.

I just used a little plastic wrap and a loose fitting stopper. Traditional uses leaves, clay, and fabric or paper to make a semi permeable seal.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_64422177_ceramic-jar-of-rice-wine-chinese-national-specialty-wine.html
Here’s a pic of my Shaoxing style wine, on the left, after about 4 years of aging compared to a store bought premium Shaoxing on the right.

 

[Erik the Awful]

My rice is dried out and I have zero liquid in the bucket. What can I do from here?

 

[wongjau]

My rice is dried out and I have zero liquid in the bucket. What can I do from here?

Is the rice actually dried and hard?
Or is it just that there isn’t any liquid at the bottom?

If the rice grains are hard, you have to start over.

If not, you could try letting it sit at ~85F to see if you can get things going again.

You could add a little water to see if that helps. If it restarts, you’ll get a lower final alcohol level more typical of ordinary plain huang jiu.

If you are able to get it restarted, try keeping it covered with plastic wrap to reduce evaporation.

Good luck!

 

[Erik the Awful]

The rice is crunchy and there is no liquid at the bottom at all.

 

[Miraculix]

I have no idea how you managed to do that, but it sounds like you have to start again.

 

[MilesBFree]

I had a similar issue - it did great for like 3 weeks then all the liquid vanished. My mistake was that I didn't cover it with a lid after the first week or so as the yeast took over from the bacteria, and it evaporated.

At this point you probably need to start over as Miraculix said.

Next time, put it in the oven (turned off) with only the inside light on. (I had to prop the door slightly open to force the light to stay on.) Cover the bucket with cheesecloth but no lid. That should give the heat the bacteria need to get going. After a few days to a week, remove it from the oven and either add the lid to the bucket, or move the rice to a wide-mouth carboy or other large jar with the lid just set on top, not screwed down tight.

 

[R-B-Y]

Going to give this another shot soon:
My previous batches have come out pretty sweet and took forever so I'm going to try out a new process to get a drier wine with better efficiency, faster:
- cook 500g of rice: assuming 100% of the carbohydrate is converted this grants 400 grams of sugar.
- inoculate and saccharify
- drain in a little BIAB bag and then sparge like I'm brewing to get 2l of "wort". This should allow me to get all of the sugar out with better efficiency. 200g/l of sugar should compute to 10% abv.
- hit with ale yeast
- pasteurise, clear and age when done
All in all this process should give me a more predictable result than just adding water until it feels right.
Has anyone tried gelatine fining?

 

[Erik the Awful]

I threw my batch out the other day. The top was cruncy, and there was a colorful variety of molds taking root throughout the bucket. There was a smell like fresh baked bread, so I think the process was working, but I'd crammed too much into the bucket and put it in the cold panty, stunting the leaven and allowing the mold to start. The bottom inch or so was producing alcohol, but it was too little, too late.

I'm going to try and get some more rice in the next week and try again, but this time a much smaller batch to start with. I think I'm also going to put some of the leaven on top of the rice - when I spread the rice, sprinkled the leaven, and then rolled the rice up to get it in the bucket, I think that shut the leaven off from the air.

 

[Miraculix]

Going to give this another shot soon:
My previous batches have come out pretty sweet and took forever so I'm going to try out a new process to get a drier wine with better efficiency, faster:
- cook 500g of rice: assuming 100% of the carbohydrate is converted this grants 400 grams of sugar.
- inoculate and saccharify
- drain in a little BIAB bag and then sparge like I'm brewing to get 2l of "wort". This should allow me to get all of the sugar out with better efficiency. 200g/l of sugar should compute to 10% abv.
- hit with ale yeast
- pasteurise, clear and age when done
All in all this process should give me a more predictable result than just adding water until it feels right.
Has anyone tried gelatine fining?

Edit: I missed a line...

YOu have to look up what is going on in this rice wine yeast mold mix thing. This is not beer and the process of getting the starch to convert into sugars is completely different. If you want a drier batch, you have to go a different route. Wihtin the last few pages of this thred, I quoted two great summarys of the whole thread here. Look them up, read them and afterwrds you will understand for yourself why what you are suggesting is bound to fail.

 

[R-B-Y]

YOu have to look up what is going on in this rice wine yeast mold mix thing. This is not beer and the process of getting the starch to convert into sugars is completely different. If you want a drier batch, you have to go a different route. Wihtin the last few pages of this thred, I quoted two great summarys of the whole thread here. Look them up, read them and afterwrds you will understand for yourself why what you are suggesting is bound to fail.

I have,
the only thing i seem to be doing different is straining the husks out before adding water halfway through. Everything else seems fairly equivalent.

 

[Miraculix]

I have,
the only thing i seem to be doing different is straining the husks out before adding water halfway through. Everything else seems fairly equivalent.

Sorry, i missed the inocculating part in your post.... That little line makes all the difference

 

[Miraculix]

Going to give this another shot soon:
My previous batches have come out pretty sweet and took forever so I'm going to try out a new process to get a drier wine with better efficiency, faster:
- cook 500g of rice: assuming 100% of the carbohydrate is converted this grants 400 grams of sugar.
- inoculate and saccharify
- drain in a little BIAB bag and then sparge like I'm brewing to get 2l of "wort". This should allow me to get all of the sugar out with better efficiency. 200g/l of sugar should compute to 10% abv.
- hit with ale yeast
- pasteurise, clear and age when done
All in all this process should give me a more predictable result than just adding water until it feels right.
Has anyone tried gelatine fining?

I am on a similar quest, my next batch will be 1kg rice and I will let the yeast and mold work for about 4 days and then I will add some water. I will have to do a little research on how much water I will need to add. Maybe I will also include a bit of additional rice, but I did not make up my mind yet. Probably water only. I do not want to get ale yeast involved tbh. I Kind of like the wild and dirty approach that this brew has. But I can also understand that one might not like that.

 

[MilesBFree]

I am going to start a new batch this evening, but had a question please...

In my first attempt I used a 2-gallon plastic bucket type primary fermenter with the idea that the rice and yeast ball mixture would have a lot greater surface area for the mold to get oxygen by being spread across the bottom of the bucket vs being in a 1-gallon glass carboy (wide-mouth). That's around 10" across vs 5-1/2" across. That seemed to work well as I mentioned above for the first 3 weeks or so before all the liquid started to evaporate (since I neglected to put the lid on).

I did not add any water (other than the water I used to cook the rice, which was all pretty much absorbed during cooking).

Should I start it in the 2-gallon fermenter then move it to the glass carboy? Or will the extra surface area make that much difference, so just put it in the carboy at the beginning and not worry about it?

 

[Miraculix]

I am going to start a new batch this evening, but had a question please...

In my first attempt I used a 2-gallon plastic bucket type primary fermenter with the idea that the rice and yeast ball mixture would have a lot greater surface area for the mold to get oxygen by being spread across the bottom of the bucket vs being in a 1-gallon glass carboy (wide-mouth). That's around 10" across vs 5-1/2" across. That seemed to work well as I mentioned above for the first 3 weeks or so before all the liquid started to evaporate (since I neglected to put the lid on).

I did not add any water (other than the water I used to cook the rice, which was all pretty much absorbed during cooking).

Should I start it in the 2-gallon fermenter then move it to the glass carboy? Or will the extra surface area make that much difference, so just put it in the carboy at the beginning and not worry about it?

I use buckets all the time. From start, I place a kitchen towel on top, covering the opening of the bucket, place then the lid firmly on top of the kitchen towel plus a 5kg weight disc on top of the lid. This almost closes the lid tightly, but the kitchen towel provides enough pathways for some oxygen to get in and co2 to get out. I keep it that way for the full month, also have kept it like that much longer. first three days next to the heater, after that, just room temperature, preferably somewhere a bit colder in the flat.

 

[wongjau]

I am on a similar quest, my next batch will be 1kg rice and I will let the yeast and mold work for about 4 days and then I will add some water. I will have to do a little research on how much water I will need to add. Maybe I will also include a bit of additional rice, but I did not make up my mind yet.

According to Fred Eckhardt, add water to the cooked rice at .56:1 ratio by volume to make ordinary rice wine at 10-11% alcohol.

 

[Miraculix]

According to Fred Eckhardt, add water to the cooked rice at .56:1 ratio by volume to make ordinary rice wine at 10-11% alcohol.

Thanks! Is the timing at day 4 ok?

 

[wongjau]

Thanks! Is the timing at day 4 ok?

I think that should be ok.

The general process he describes says at around 48 hours when the rice starts collecting liquid at the bottom. At that point the .56:1 water goes in along with .25:1 crushed yeast balls.

I think a lot of us had to go longer than 48 hours for the rice to liquify.

Also, I don’t think we have been adding that much extra yeast balls.

He describes the optimal process. I could see it taking longer if the temps were not perfect. The extra yeast balls should give a faster fermentation, though a lot of us just let the initial dose of yeast balls ramp up the yeast population.

He says after the water/yeast addition, the primary fermentation finishes in 2 weeks. I could see it take longer without the extra yeast.

 

[wongjau]

Should I start it in the 2-gallon fermenter then move it to the glass carboy? Or will the extra surface area make that much difference, so just put it in the carboy at the beginning and not worry about it?

Bucket or wide mouth container would be best for primary fermentation.

More surface area is better.

You can loosely fill the container with clumps of rice. Sprinkle crushed yeast balls as you add layers of rice. Don’t pack it down. You should have air gaps in the rice/yeast mixture.

You can form a vertical hollow in the center of the rice as you fill the container for more surface area. That’s the traditional way.

 

[Time2Retire]

I am on a similar quest, my next batch will be 1kg rice and I will let the yeast and mold work for about 4 days and then I will add some water. I will have to do a little research on how much water I will need to add. Maybe I will also include a bit of additional rice, but I did not make up my mind yet. Probably water only. I do not want to get ale yeast involved tbh. I Kind of like the wild and dirty approach that this brew has. But I can also understand that one might not like that.

I will be watching this with interest. I've always been afraid to add water, but I'm not shy about stealing other people's research

 

[Time2Retire]

Bucket or wide mouth container would be best for primary fermentation.

More surface area is better.

You can loosely fill the container with clumps of rice. Sprinkle crushed yeast balls as you add layers of rice. Don’t pack it down. You should have air gaps in the rice/yeast mixture.

You can form a vertical hollow in the center of the rice as you fill the container for more surface area. That’s the traditional way.

A giant Costco pretzel jar is ideal. Cover the mouth with a brew beg, slap a saucer over it and Bob's your uncle.

 

[wongjau]

I will be watching this with interest. I've always been afraid to add water, but I'm not shy about stealing other people's research

Depends on if you want regular rice wine at 10-11% alcohol, or something higher like Shaoxing style wine.

 

[Miraculix]

Depends on if you want regular rice wine at 10-11% alcohol, or something higher like Shaoxing style wine.

Lucky me has 2 kg of rice here and enough small buckets to do both