Brewing question from an absolute beginner

[Tintsy]

Hi fellow brewers, I'd like to know whether I could substitute wine yeast with Chinese yeast balls (Jiu Qiu) for brewing mead. I live in Asia and it's very difficult to get a hold of wine yeast here, even if I were to buy it online and import it, it would cost me quite a hefty sum just for a few packets of Lalvin wine yeast (Around 50USD in total, mostly for the shipping and import fees)

 

[Abhishek Dewan]

You can use any yeast to brew but these yeast balls contain more than yeast - other symbiotic stuff which helps it ferment rice. The flavour too would be different. If you don't have access to wine yeast, why don't you do wild fermentation instead. Use any berry fruit like grapes, raisins, strawberry etc and add to mixture of honey and clean water. Berries should not be washed and should be organic. Berries will bring yeast with them. Honey itself contains yeast which gets activated when diluted with water. Keep it in airlock container. Keep stirring it couple of times a day and you'll notice in 2 days, bubbling. Good luck.

 

[Tintsy]

Thank you for the advice, sir!

 

[AkTom]

I’ve used yeast balls to make rice wine. I don’t know how it would do with honey. I think it be okay. Give it a whirl and let us know.
I didn’t care for the rice wine. I do have extra yeast balls left over, I might try a mead myself with them.
Thanks for the idea.
Cheers

 

[Tintsy]

Do let me know how it turns out! I've decided to do an experiment and make two bottles of mead. One with bread yeast and the other with the Chinese yeast balls.

 

[Bubbles2]

Have a friend who lives in an area who has access to the yeast you want, bake you a dozen cookies and sprinkle a packet atop of each cookie, skip the tax and use a cookie to access your yeast. Just tell them to make the cookies plain oatmeal or Sugar cookies. Package them as Love from Mom