SaTho - Thai traditional rice wine

[arachnyd]

I have several friends in Thailand who teach English to Thai children of various ages. One day, while talking to one of these friends, she mentioned the rice wine her mother makes to celebrate new year's (no celebration this year )

The only ingredients are thai glutinous rice and chinese rice wine yeast - I managed to find both in a local asian food store. The yeast comes as a pair of little balls about 3cm diameter.

The rice (I used 2kg) is washed, soaked and steamed. After cooliing, the rice is mixed with a little water (about a liter and a half). The yeast is crushed and stirred into the rice. The entire thing is covered tightly and put in a warm place for four days. After four days, the entire thing is strained and transferred to a larger container. There is considerably more liquid now as the rice has lost most of the water it gained in soaking and steaming. Fermentation should be complete after about a week. Bottle it and put it in the refrigerator. It is NOT a stable beverage and should be consumed within a couple weeks.

Have fun.

The formal recipe is available online here: SaTho - Thai Rice Wine

 

[rottenpotato]

has anyone tried anything like this? this recipe claims you dont need specialty yeast, which I understand contains enzymes to help convert the rice into sugar:

http://www.trax2.com/stickyrice/stickyrice-wine.html

I recently hacked a 3 gal batch of what I hope will be a drinkable wine. I boiled some sweet rice with probably about 6-7 cups of cane sugar until it was cooked, and then let it soak overnight. then I stirred it up really well and strained the rice out, leaving a sweet, milky white substance that I added lemon juice and dry wine yeast to. that was two days ago and it is bubbling away nicely. Anyone have any experience with something like this? I have read many places you need special yeast to actually get any sugars out of the rice, Im worried all I am feeding my yeast is the cane sugar. I had hoped by using a sweet sticky rice that this might turn out ok...

 

[Dahc]

I recently hacked a 3 gal batch of what I hope will be a drinkable wine. I boiled some sweet rice with probably about 6-7 cups of cane sugar until it was cooked, and then let it soak overnight. then I stirred it up really well and strained the rice out, leaving a sweet, milky white substance that I added lemon juice and dry wine yeast to. that was two days ago and it is bubbling away nicely. Anyone have any experience with something like this? I have read many places you need special yeast to actually get any sugars out of the rice, Im worried all I am feeding my yeast is the cane sugar. I had hoped by using a sweet sticky rice that this might turn out ok...

It will be drinkable and may even be pleasing. The japanese call the sticky rice, sushi rice and I know there is more available starches in a rice like that than normal white rice I might buy in a grocery store.

I just made a batch of rice wine but like you, I used sugar along with the rice. I would also like to know more about different yeasts ability to convert starches into alcohol. I prepared it a little differently but saw the same milky white brew you did. This was my first winemaking experience. I had an issue come up with high temps in my house and siphoned off all available liquid and am cooling it now in the frig.

I did a little "sampling". It may have been more than a sample though. I drank about a quart. It seems to be kind of potent compared to some other wines I've had which isnt a problem for me. It has a slightly fruity taste with a little tartness that hits the back edges of the tongue. It is a bit dry and sweet. It had been brewing 8 days.

 

[reality_felix]

i also got make rice wine that similar to thai rice wine.. but in Chinese style. it call "Red Glutinous Rice wine". for my experiment batch, i using 1kg of Glutinous Rice, 2 rice wine yeast ball and 100 gram of red yeast.

1) wash glutinous rice and cook in inside rice cooker
2) cool down rice until reach room temperature
3) mix well glutinous rice with crushed wine yeast and red yeast
4) mix the mixture inside a clean container and pull 1 litter of boiled water together [water must be in room temperature]
5) covered tightly and put in dark place
6) harvest red rice wine after 30 day fermentation.

 

[noggins]

I made a batch similar to this last weekend...it smells and tastes pretty bad. I'm sure I screwed something up, gonna try again this weekend using your recipe.

 

[brooklynkayak]

Check out the sushi forum. There's a very long thread about Chinese rice wine. You do want to use rice wine yeast and luckily it can be found most Asian supermarkets.The rice wine yeast(yeast balls, rice balls, wine mother, ... and many other names) contains the enzymes that convert rice starch to sugar for fermentation.

If you use brewers yeast, these starches will not be converted and a mediocre or bad batch can be the result.
I have had nothing but good results. It may be an acquired taste, but I liked it immediately and always have a batch or two brewing.

 

[brooklynkayak]

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