Mei Kuei Lu Chiew--Chinese Rose Wine??

[cjeanean]

Hey, everyone! I've been trying my hand at making homemade lap cheong (Chinese cured sausage) for my celiac-afflicted baby sister, and one of the traditional ingredients is Mei Kuei Lu Chiew. According to Google, this wine is made from sorghum and rose, but I have not been able to find any information on how to make it. Technically, I could buy this stuff from my local Asian market, but it's very difficult to determine if a particular type is gluten free--easiest proven way is to use my sister as a guinea pig (typical use for a younger sibling), but the explosive effects of gluten make her a *little* hesitant to agree to this plan.

Anyway, I'd love to know if anyone here has a recipe and instructions for a basic batch of Mei Kuei Lu Chiew, or if some of the experts can throw some hypothetical ideas out for me to try. I have no freaking clue how to ferment sorghum into wine--do I need meal? An extract? Something else...? How would rose be added to a brew--make a tea and toss it in as flavoring at the end? Ferment some petals with the sorghum? No idea, so any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Bocochoco]

I can't verify the process you speak of but I have used rose hips in polish beer making. It gives off a hop like bitterness. I've made wine using plain sugar and a bunch of rose petals from my garden that came out pretty decent but just tasted like rose so it was kind of boring. I didn't look up a recipe. I'm sure it needed acids and maybe tannin to balance it.
I'm interested in this topic. Eastern medicinal treatments don't get the attention they deserve.

 

[Bocochoco]

As for the Sorghum I'm betting on Amalayse. Chinese use it like crazy to extract fermentibles

 

[cjeanean]

Thanks! I'm definitely hoping to put something together soon. Any idea as to the form of sorghum that would be used? Meal vs syrup? Might be a dumb question lol!

 

[cjeanean]

And what was your process for rose wine?

 

[Bocochoco]

Well like I said I wouldn't know with sorghum but I assume it's similar to other wheats where you convert the ground up germ to fermentables.
The rose petal wine I boiled the petals, an arbritrary amount that seemed right, and added sugar to an SG of I believe 1.080 and used D47. It was just a gallon to test and it needed to age a few months after racking. I always ferment the same temp. I keep my house at a constant 70 degrees and ferment in the pantry that has no temp variation.
The rose hips I split in half and added to the boil in the last 15 minutes.
All that said, I've never heard of that wine and plan to take a trip now to the Asian market by me. They sell Amalayse super cheap too.

 

[Bocochoco]

Keep in mind no rose petal is alike. Acidity in the soil and rose type all make a difference. I have both heavy scented and decorative roses. I used a combination of 12 different roses.