Beni-Koji. Red Yeast Rice. Old School... like really really Old School

You GO Lead Golem! I took off from work for a bit tonight and grabbed some wine cakes or JhiQhu or whatever they are in Chinatown. If I get time tomorrow I plan on doing 2 big batches, 10lbs rice each, same rice as before...one white (rice, water, JhiQhu) and one red (rice, water, ryr). If yours doesn't start to ferment I can always add another type of yeast to the ryr one. I just hate to waste a big batch. It's a lot of work to rinse and steam 20lbs of Rice!

TheDemonSlick said:

You GO Lead Golem! I took off from work for a bit tonight and grabbed some wine cakes or JhiQhu or whatever they are in Chinatown. If I get time tomorrow I plan on doing 2 big batches, 10lbs rice each, same rice as before...one white (rice, water, JhiQhu) and one red (rice, water, ryr). If yours doesn't start to ferment I can always add another type of yeast to the ryr one. I just hate to waste a big batch. It's a lot of work to rinse and steam 20lbs of Rice!

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No joke. That's why I'm running all these experiments in the quart jars. I want to get things dialed in before I go to the work of making a big batch.

I wanted to get something done before another 12 hour shift tomorrow. It's odd, working 8 hours almost seems like playing hooky.

In my (ahem) other thingy, I'm trying substituting Chinese yeast cakes instead of bakers yeast with my 5 gallon sugar wash... 10lbs sugar, Chinese yeast cake, 12oz Gerber Barley instant baby food. The baggie is the yeast cake after I bashed it with the round side of a ladle.

TheDemonSlick said:

In my (ahem) other thingy, I'm trying substituting Chinese yeast cakes instead of bakers yeast with my 5 gallon sugar wash... 10lbs sugar, Chinese yeast cake, 12oz Gerber Barley instant baby food. The baggie is the yeast cake after I bashed it with the round side of a ladle.

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Wow, you're trying all kinds of things out.

The yeast in the yeast cake doesn't seem to like the high percentage sugar solution. I added 2 crushed balls at 100F, after 3 hours, nothing. Added 2 more at 80F, went to bed, this morning, nothing. At noon today I threw in 8.75 grams bakers yeast, dry, right from the package...wash was at 74F, by 2pm it was bubbling like crazy. Corn/ryr/bakers yeast still bubbling but it's gotten real slow again.

Very interesting thread! Sub'd

Here they are for their one week checkup. All of the batches are much more visibly red then they were last week.

RYR with jasmine rice: Visible white mold all over the rice. Visible decrease in starch mass and visible liquid mixed with the rice. Strong yeast smell.
RYR with jasmine rice, and distillers yeast: No visible mold, no visible liquid. Mild yeast smell.
RYR with Extra Long Grain rice: Visible white mold all over the rice. Visible liquid in the bottom inch of rice. Moderate yeast smell.
RYR with Extra Long Grain rice, and distillers yeast: No visible mold, visible liquid in the bottom inch of rice. Mild yeast and raisin smell.

I'll take door number 4! My corn is stalled... smells good but it's stopped. I ordered some of that korean enzyme from H mart, depending when it gets here I might try stirring some of that in. Maybe a rice, ryr, nuruk batch... we'll see what's in the house when I get brewing. That Korean stuff was like 3 days to ferment out completely, so that's kind of exciting.

TheDemonSlick said:

I'll take door number 4! My corn is stalled... smells good but it's stopped. I ordered some of that korean enzyme from H mart, depending when it gets here I might try stirring some of that in. Maybe a rice, ryr, nuruk batch... we'll see what's in the house when I get brewing. That Korean stuff was like 3 days to ferment out completely, so that's kind of exciting.

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Yeah, I read that too. To be honest though, that seems a little fast to be believable. Maybe it's got an alcohol content, the enzyme could have finished in 3 days sure. It's just that I've never seen a batch of anything hit the teens in ABV in three days. Warm ferments with aggressive yeast strains and high pitch rates are usually more like 8. Five at the least. I guess it's possible, but it seems more likely to me that what the poster had was a very sweet partially fermented liquid.

Got any pictures of the batch Slick? Why do you think it's stalled?

EDIT: I do find it odd that the best aroma right now is coming from the jar with the long grain rice and distillers yeast.

I dunno why it's stalled, and I'm kind of scared to open it... It took off like a shot right away, died by noon the next day, then after 2 days it bubbled slowly for 2 days, now it's just stopped. 3 days now. I'm kind of hoping the monascus has an "aha" moment or something... When I do open it, I'll post a pic, eventually I have to look. I'm skeptical about the korean stuff too, but if monascus doesn't like corn, maybe nuruk will. I hate to just dump the bucket behind the garage. Cost me ten bucks!
Edit- I know I can get it bubbling with sugar, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

subscribing

Holy Crap, I ordered this weds night and it got here fri afternoon! If the Koreans brew like they ship, maybe it can do it in 3 days.
Edit to add the link I used to order the nuruk from Hmart:
http://www.hmart.com/shopnow/shopnow_newsearch.asp?keyword=powderedenzymeamylase

1 pound of nuruk, in. Took before pics for you LeadGolem, I had it open. Smells good, like corn, mild booze smell but very faint... been in there since Easter Sunday. Stirred it in real good with my paddle, then capped. Just fyi, big gap of liquid between the cap and the corn on the bottom. Fingers crossed.

I'm kind of a nut about knowing what I'm putting into me, so, this is what we're dealing with. It's a little nerdy, but informative.
http://www.ksabc.or.kr/admin/contribute/journal/kpaper/JKSABC_54_6_933-943.pdf

TheDemonSlick said:

I'm kind of a nut about knowing what I'm putting into me, so, this is what we're dealing with. It's a little nerdy, but informative.
http://www.ksabc.or.kr/admin/contribute/journal/kpaper/JKSABC_54_6_933-943.pdf

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Looks like a good read. Will dive in this weekend.

So, you tossed the nuruk on top of your corn experiment? Let us know how it went. I put 1lb in 6lbs of rice and it liquified it in 2 days.

Well yeah, but I mixed n it real good, I didn't just leave it like that. Lots of corn at the bottom.

Was there any yeast in there other than the Chinese yeast balls.

Originally it was corn, water, bakers yeast and red yeast rice (monascus). I'm chasing amylase enzymes... malting sucks. There was no chinese yeastcake with the corn one. If you go back you can follow it. I have a couple things going, a Gerber sugar wash I tried with the chinese winecakes and then aded bakers yeast when it failed to bubble, and this corn thingy. More rice this weekend (next 3 days, when I feel like it). I already have everything in the house. Might try a ryr/nuruk rice brew... still drinkin/smokin/playin ME3 and rolling it around in my head.

TheDemonSlick said:

1 pound of nuruk, in. Took before pics for you LeadGolem, I had it open. Smells good, like corn, mild booze smell but very faint... been in there since Easter Sunday. Stirred it in real good with my paddle, then capped. Just fyi, big gap of liquid between the cap and the corn on the bottom. Fingers crossed.

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Thank you slick. For some reason my mind always works better when I've got pictures.

EDIT: Not sure when I'm going to have time to read that file, I've been working 50+ a week for a while now.

Pics or it didn't happen! Waaaaaahhhh!!!

It's 215am here, stirred in the nuruk around 7pm... it's bubbling! Wicked Psyched.

Links for the health benefits of red yeast rice mold? Am I to understand that the mold itself is beneficial, or is it the substances it produces while acting on the rice? Not that the booze isn't beneficial...

loftybrewer said:

Links for the health benefits of red yeast rice mold? Am I to understand that the mold itself is beneficial, or is it the substances it produces while acting on the rice? Not that the booze isn't beneficial...

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I don't think there has been a lot of hard science done on it actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monascus_purpureus
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/herbsupplementguide/a/redyeastrice.htm

You've also got the problem that the strain of red rice yeast you are using may have been changed to one that produces only trace amounts of lovastatin after the FDA ban on the supplement. Lots of unknowns.

I'm actually more intersted in amylase production than any health benefits, but there's stuff online about the statins if that's what you're interest is.

Leadgolem said:

I don't think there has been a lot of hard science done on it actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monascus_purpureus
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/herbsupplementguide/a/redyeastrice.htm

You've also got the problem that the strain of red rice yeast you are using may have been changed to one that produces only trace amounts of lovastatin after the FDA ban on the supplement. Lots of unknowns.

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If I had to guess, I'd say the stuff we are buying will still contain Lovestatin. It's for food use instead of as a dietary supplement, and it's from China where they don't give a damn if the FDA bans something.

edds5p0 said:

If I had to guess, I'd say the stuff we are buying will still contain Lovestatin. It's for food use instead of as a dietary supplement, and it's from China where they don't give a damn if the FDA bans something.

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Agreed. Highly doubt anything has changed.

I made a 20 pound batch with one pound RYR and two yeast balls. It started fermenting off nicely for several days, but seemed to stall out. Yesterday, I was supposed to harvest the wine, but there really wasn't any. There was a very large amount of rice that still hadn't been converted and very little liquid. So, I added about a gallon and a half of filtered water warmed up a touch, then added a packet of 1118 yeast. It seems to have kicked it back off. One day later, much of the rice had been converted and it was bubbling like crazy. Hopefully it'll still be OK with all that water added. I'll give it a few more days to work off before checking again.

Apparently the amylase in the yeast balls doesn't multiply, or the red rice wasn't doing it's job, or there just wasn't enough yeast involved. Not sure which, but that's a lot of rice to throw out if it doesn't work.

My original recipe had added water, it was ok, but it never stalled... bakers yeast and ryr, fermented out in about 9 days, with a 4 day secondary ferment in bottles before I pastuerized it. I know some people with added water had it go sour, but mine didn't.

I think the problem with the batch going sour has to do with both water and time. So a batch with more water that doesn't run as long doesn't have the problem. I think if you ran a batch with the extra water for 21ish days you would have something sour.

What about adding water AT day 21? lol.

We shall see.

trbig said:

What about adding water AT day 21? lol.

We shall see.

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I doubt that will cause a problem. I think what is causing the sour taste is high levels of acetobacter growth in the batch. If you just add water at day 21, then harvest the whole batch within a couple days I don't think you will end up with enough acetic acid for it to be sour.

Well, I'm going to be out of town for the next few days, so I won't be able to get it out of the ferment bucket until probably Thursday.

trbig said:

Well, I'm going to be out of town for the next few days, so I won't be able to get it out of the ferment bucket until probably Thursday.

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Please let us know how it comes out.

I thought about harvesting it this morning, but the airlock is still bubbling. It's going to have to wait until Thursday. That 1118 yeast is hungry stuff. I imagine this is going to be a very dry batch if it works out.

trbig said:

Apparently the amylase in the yeast balls doesn't multiply, or the red rice wasn't doing it's job, or there just wasn't enough yeast involved. Not sure which, but that's a lot of rice to throw out if it doesn't work.

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While there does seem to be a limit on how much amylase producing mold the Oryzae can produce, it can be spored out and multiplied but it needs conditions that help it do so. If you look at the other thread on chinese rice wine with Jiuqu they show examples of the mold sporing up and reproducing. Once that happens it can grow even more mold and as a result more Amylase. As for the Monascus P., I don't think it's as finicky about conditions to multiply as the Oryzae is. I think the bigger problem with this one is the time needed for these things to happen crossed with the race against time versus the Lacto frequently present as well (Oryzae is even slower ).


That said, did you heat the corn to kill any residual enzymes present in it? While malting the corn will indeed convert these into large amounts of Amylase (et al), they are not the only enzyme present and others are more readily capable of breaking down the kernel but not necessarily into something you want or can use. My memory is fuzzy on the exacts but the short of it was corn degrades the amino acids within it by increasing the PH (less acidity) and breaking down those bonds. IIRC the aztecs used potash to accomplish the same thing so they could get nutrative value from the corn. Anyway, I'd wonder if these enzymes aren't thwarting the progress of your mash. You should be able to sidestep this by cooking the corn first I'd think but again, that's just speculation.

I used frozen corn, which I think is precooked, but I boiled it as well. Just 10 lbs. It's bubbling slowly still with the nuruk. And I don't care if it's sour if I can get max ethanol. It's an experiment, so, it's ok if it fails. Of course I hope it doesn't. It's probably "done" already but I'm going to let it ride a bit more. I never got any more rice down, the weekend was busy and Monday was the bombing so it's been a little weird around here. Hopefully Saturday.

Jack Keller does some corn wines IIRC. He probably has more information on the trials associated with it. If you killed the enzymes I'd only be worried about PH but that's just a guess. Nothing more.

Here they are at two weeks. The lower temps here seem to have slowed the process down a lot. My observations are pretty much the same. All of them seem to be slightly farther along then they were last week. The amount of progress they have made I would say is more typical of 2-3 days development though, not a full week.

RYR with jasmine rice: Visible white mold all over the rice. Visible decrease in starch mass. Liquid has now separated a little on the bottom. Strong yeast smell.
RYR with jasmine rice, and distillers yeast: No visible mold, no visible liquid. Mild yeast smell.
RYR with Extra Long Grain rice: Visible white mold all over the rice. Visible liquid in the bottom inch and a half of rice. Moderate yeast smell.
RYR with Extra Long Grain rice, and distillers yeast: No visible mold, visible liquid in the bottom inch and a half of rice. Mild yeast and apple smell.

At this time, I'm not certain if the temperature or using RYR only is the determining factor in how slowly the batches are going. Here is another picture of an RYR batch that also has yeast balls, along with a batch with only yeast balls and oolong tea.

As you can see from the second picture, the RYR+Yeast ball batch has much more liquid in it. Both these batches have been photographed at 14 days. The RYR+yeast ball batch and oolong batches just got started two days earlier. The oolong batch has slightly more liquid in it then my top performing RYR only batch. The RYR+yeast ball batch is outperforming both significantly.

Pic three is from the grains experiment, also taken when everything was two weeks old. I wasn't actually recording temperatures then, or now, but I would say the average temp was some 8-9 degrees higher. That would put it in the high 70's, right now that room is in the low 70's.

Sounds logical. Ball plus RYR would have more enzyme for breakdown. Seems as if you need substantially more RYR than the balls mold by weight for the same efficiency levels.

Well, I went to harvest the rice wine today since it looked like it had quit bubbling the air lock. I took the top off, and it's still bubbling away fairly well. Apparently the seal leaks on the ferment lid and the gasses were escaping there instead of through the lock.

So.. lid back on to let work a few more days. No sour taste to it at all, so that's a plus. Not very "alcolholly" yet either though with the addition of all that water.

I've had three big batches so far and none of them have worked as designed. This one that has 20lbs of rice in it, when I went to stick a spoon down into it the first time I openned it at day 21, there was a huge pocket of CO2 that escaped that had been trapped... guessing like about a gallon pocket of gas? It was about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom. Everything above this gas bubble was stalled out and still mostly whole rice. It had all locked together in a paste and was apparently tight enough to not let any gas flow upward. I added water and yeast, and it has taken off.

My other big batch I have (18 cups, just jasmine rice and yeast balls) was supposed to have been harvested on 3/29! I went to harvest it, and the rice really hadn't broke down, and there was no liquid. So, I added a package of yeast to it, closed it back up, and it didn't really do anything. So, when I put water into my 20 lb batch, I also added @ 1/2 gallon to the 18 cup batch, and now both are back to bubbling, and neither taste/smell sour.

I made my rice in a steamer in the microwave at a 1/1 ratio after soaking for an hour. My very first batch I made was way way sour, and I used a 3/1 ratio. I think I'm going to get some smaller gallon sized jars like many of you do and try a couple batches at a 2/1 water to rice ratio. I have no idea why none of these are working like most of yours are. Temps in the house are in the high 60's to low 70's. Oh, and I use filtered water for everything.