Had an epiphany

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

I bought more calrose rice today to make some wine, alongside that I got some cider to make apfelwine and placed it on my counter to warm to room temp before pitching and I had a thought, anyone ever add sugar sources to your rice wine above and beyond the rice itself? I'm thinking make rice wine, let it get rolling, and adding sugar-fortified (or not) apple cider into the mix and making a hybrid, maybe even carbonating in champagne bottles and pasteurizing? If I get this one soon I will document with pics.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

The rice is on it's way, cooking now, more updates in a few days.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

the sample sized batch, the rest went into a 2 gallon bucket to become proper ricewine. It ended up being fairly small in case the experiment fails. The rice has been thoroughly converted at this point, so I'll be adding the juice today, more pics later.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

Pictured with the cider added. I didn't fortify the cider with sugar beforehand, this particular cider is about 1.060 so if it dilutes the final alcohol of the wine it'll be a weaker, less potent ricewine, hopefully with apfelwein characteristics. Should be interesting! Smells awesome, no farty-smells from the apple juice yet. Will kep the world up to date in the coming days.

 

[Darthbrewder]

This might turn out pretty good. I've bottled my makgeolli using apple juice. 1/2 juice, 1/2 makgeolli. That turned out pretty good. Obviously it wasn't a full conversion of the Apple juice sugars into alcohol but I imagine what you are doing might taste similar. Good luck!

 

[Evilgrin]

Sometimes after i rack off the wine from the rice i add Adriatic Sun syrups for flavoring. They have quite a few good flavors for about $5 a bottle. Sofar ive tried the orange, blueberry and sour cherry.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

Racked off today, I did take a pic beforehand but I'll upload it at a later time. For fans of dry apfelwein this is definitely for you. It's got that nice dry applewine character with the body of the rice wine (and the kick, too) and just slightly milky is very tasty. I'm clearing up one bottle and drinking the remains. The rest of my big batch of regular rice wine is hangin in the fridge. I've seen people add bentonite and I just really don't think it's very worth it, just a little bit of KMBS and put it in a clean container in the fridge, BE PATIENT (key ingredient) and it will fall clear on its own. I could use something fancy like casein (would probably do a better job that bentonite IMO) but I'll just let nature take its course, SWMBO likes it milky anyways, tastes sweeter.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

A pic of the product before pressing off. I've had it settling in bottles right now, hit it with KMBS to 30ppm and letting it clear naturally. More notes when it's ready.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

So one of my bottles is starting to clear pretty nicely, and I was thinking of pouring off the really clear stuff and saving for aging (wit the apple juice in this I think it'll shine 2-3 months in, more later maybe?) and putting the rest in a nice heavy-duty swingtop with a little priming sugar source (honey most likely) and letting it carb up and age. The other bottle that ive been drinking is really enjoyable, dry, with a nice combo of the two going on. More pic when I do the thing.