Making Traditional rice Wine. Cheap, Fun, and Different

[Gar]

the small red jar is fermented Srirachi hot sauce , sort of . made with sweet peppers and then Trinidad Scorpion peppers ( the hottest pepper in the world ) for that real hot feeling .

man i dig your style ive got hot peppers of different sorts in bottles from beer to 3 pepper wines ive not played with the scorpion yet but one of these days ill lay my hands on some seeds and grow some for fermentation of one sort or another.

 

[Newsman]

Here's a couple pics of my rice at just over 10 days...
I haven't tasted it yet.

 

[jak1010]

Looking good. The RYR, for some reason, tends to produce liquid quicker. Is that the mesh bag I sent you? Great idea putting the rice inside of it and then in the fermenter.

I bet it's going to taste great.

 

[Newsman]

Looking good. The RYR, for some reason, tends to produce liquid quicker. Is that the mesh bag I sent you? Great idea putting the rice inside of it and then in the fermenter.

I bet it's going to taste great.

Yep, mesh bag you sent. It's a heck of a lot easier to have the rice inside that and then put that inside the fermenter than it is to try and scoop the rice solids into it after it's done fermenting.

Edit: Just tasted a sample, and it's definitely alcoholic, but it doesn't seem to be quite as alcoholic as my first batch... OTOH, a minute or two after tasting, I can still feel a slight warmth going down my throat, so there's definitely alcohol in it. I'm going to let it go at least through this weekend. Maybe harvest a week early.

 

[jak1010]

Glad you're finding it useful.

It still amazes me that rice and yeast can do this. Especially the yeast balls. They are some amazing critters.

So glad I spotted this thread last year. As soon as I read it, I knew I had to try it. Never would have believed it if I hadn't tried it for myself.

For anyone reading this, do what you can to find the ingredients and start a batch. You'll be amazed and hooked!!!

 

[MarcusKillion]

Tasted mine after sitting a week with a campden tablet in it . Still has that harsh " sting " to it . Hope that goes away with aging longer . I read that it does but have no idea what causes it . It is a bit acidic. About 5.5 PH . Seems okay .

well could be the fact that this method is not actually correct . I did find this informative page about real rice wine manufacturing http://www.jiangnan.edu.cn/zhgjiu/u3-6.htm
Scroll down to 3.6.7 Sealed-jar Rice Wine . A very long process for aging . But I think I will try this next .
Wheat , distilled spirits & seed mash seem to be the thing different in ingredients .

 

[Newsman]

Marcus... RDWHAHB. This stuff will definitely mellow with age. Bottle it, put it away for a few weeks to a few months and come back and drink it. You'll find it's VERY deceiving. You try to drink a whole 12 oz of this stuff and you'll end up flat on your a$$! And it will be SMOOTH as the proverbial baby's behind if you leave it to bottle-condition!

 

[MarcusKillion]

I put my first batch filtered & set at room temp with campden tablet on 11/20 in some wine bottles and corked them yesterday and have them at room temp in dark . Went with the tablet instead of pasteurizing .
this new batch I have going I am going to leave in the jar for 3 months and see what difference that makes .
meanwhile I will just drink my dandelion/citrus wine . i like to mix it with Rhubarb wine from Maple River

 

[Bidwell]

I made a 4 cup batch of sweet rice and purple sweet potatoes. Rice and potatoes steamed together for 45 minutes, cooled, then mixed 8 of my yeast discs. Into the dark at 84°F. Anyone try this?

Update, I made 2 containers and "squeezed" one early,
13 days and this stuff kicks ass. First sniff and the alcohol comes through. Seems thicker and quite tasty, and I like it. I think I can taste sweet potatoes, love the color. Container info is wrong.

 

[RegarRenill]

So, how much ryr do you use per cup of rice? And how are people adding it? I ground mine up at 1/4 cup per 1 cup of jasmine rice and sprinkles it over with 1 Chinese yeast ball (ground up) and 1/8 tsp yeast nutrient...guessing I over pitches, huh? Lol I've been lurking in the thread about 3 weeks, finally finished all 3000+ posts, but there was so much info to remember...

 

[Newsman]

So, how much ryr do you use per cup of rice? And how are people adding it? I ground mine up at 1/4 cup per 1 cup of jasmine rice and sprinkles it over with 1 Chinese yeast ball (ground up) and 1/8 tsp yeast nutrient...guessing I over pitches, huh? Lol I've been lurking in the thread about 3 weeks, finally finished all 3000+ posts, but there was so much info to remember...

Well, I've done it two different ways -- I've ground it up like you did and I'm trying a new method -- I soaked a cup of RYR in warm water for an hour or so to give the yeast a chance to "wake up" and get started, then I mixed the uncooked RYR in with the cooked rice. Both ways seem to work fine for me. YMMV, Void where prohibited, must be this tall to ride, etc. :cross:

 

[Zacharomyces]

Amazon has gallon glass jars on sale for the cheap. They look nice, and with prime it came to under $8 to my door. Also picked up a small reptile heater to go under it for the winter.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000DDVN7/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[jak1010]

Got almost a full 750ml bottle of sweet yet strong red rice wine.

It's amazing how much just a small amount of Red Yeast Rice can take regular rice wine and give it a fruity sweet flavor. This is some potent stuff!!!!

 

[RegarRenill]

So, I harvested my 1st batch on Tuesday (1 .25 gal rice yielded approx. .75 gal liquid). Cooked generic jasmine rice at 1.25~1.5 ratio, ferment temp ~74 deg F, used the larger Chinese rice balls. Unfortunately, after cold-crashing for 2 days I took a sip last night and was not happy. Very tangy taste…not vinegar-ish or like spoiled milk, but not very pleasant, although there was a definite warm glow afterwards...if it was sweeter, it would be very dangerous, hahaha. Think I’ll have to mix with a juice of some sort, will be stopping tonight after work. Batch 2 should be ready in 2 weeks, then I need one more 2 gal jar from walmart and I’ll have a batch done every week after that, lol… 3 weeks til my ½ gallon of RYR/Jasmine finishes alongside my 2 gal of straight jasmine… I’ll give updates!

 

[trbig]

I made up a batch of 10 lbs jasmine rice and one package RYR (14 oz) without grinding up the ryr. The batch is very red, but there is a layer of floating ryr on the surface that seems to be the whole bag that wasn't converted. ??? I wonder if the process that makes RYR removes the starches from the rice?

 

[Newsman]

So, I harvested my 1st batch on Tuesday (1 .25 gal rice yielded approx. .75 gal liquid). Cooked generic jasmine rice at 1.25~1.5 ratio, ferment temp ~74 deg F, used the larger Chinese rice balls. Unfortunately, after cold-crashing for 2 days I took a sip last night and was not happy. Very tangy taste…not vinegar-ish or like spoiled milk, but not very pleasant, although there was a definite warm glow afterwards...if it was sweeter, it would be very dangerous, hahaha. Think I’ll have to mix with a juice of some sort, will be stopping tonight after work. Batch 2 should be ready in 2 weeks, then I need one more 2 gal jar from walmart and I’ll have a batch done every week after that, lol… 3 weeks til my ½ gallon of RYR/Jasmine finishes alongside my 2 gal of straight jasmine… I’ll give updates!

Let it age. I bet you'll be singing a different tune in a month or 6 weeks.

 

[trbig]

Ive never had one that had even a hint of sourness to it get any better..

Rice is cheap. Get another batch going.

 

[Newsman]

So I just harvested the results of 5 lbs of dry Jasmine rice that I inoculated with one package of vietnamese yeast balls and about a cup of RYR that I soaked in warm water for about an hour or so. It's been about 3+ weeks since I started this. I just weighed the lees and after squeezing out as much as I cared to (it was getting to the point of seriously diminishing returns) I have 2 lbs and 13 oz of wet rice leftovers. Not sure what my weight of cooked Jasmine rice was, but I have to say the volume is a fraction of what it was, no matter what the weight was. My fermenter was pretty much packed full of rice when I started. Now there's maybe a couple cups of lees. That's efficiency for you.

Since I squeezed the lees to get the last little bit of rice wine, I'm going to let it sit over the weekend in my cool fermenting chamber along with my hard cider that's fermenting right now so that any solids will drop out. If I can make room in my fridge I'll go ahead and cold-crash it as my fridge has got to be about 20+ degrees colder than my fermenting chamber which is set at 62* F

 

[trbig]

Yup.. Patience is NOT one of my virtues, so waiting months for something to settle out is not going to happen for me. A spare old fridge and a week or two takes care of even the most stubborn of suspended particles. Worked wonders on a simple mead that wouldn't clear.

 

[MarcusKillion]

So, I harvested my 1st batch on Tuesday (1 .25 gal rice yielded approx. .75 gal liquid). Cooked generic jasmine rice at 1.25~1.5 ratio, ferment temp ~74 deg F, used the larger Chinese rice balls. Unfortunately, after cold-crashing for 2 days I took a sip last night and was not happy. Very tangy taste…not vinegar-ish or like spoiled milk, but not very pleasant, although there was a definite warm glow afterwards...if it was sweeter, it would be very dangerous, hahaha. Think I’ll have to mix with a juice of some sort, will be stopping tonight after work. Batch 2 should be ready in 2 weeks, then I need one more 2 gal jar from walmart and I’ll have a batch done every week after that, lol… 3 weeks til my ½ gallon of RYR/Jasmine finishes alongside my 2 gal of straight jasmine… I’ll give updates!

I agree . Nothing pleasant about this swill. Very strange taste kind of hard to describe except for that insane stinging like I just drank some muriatic acid . have no idea what that is about but it does not go away as far as I can tell . The general taste of it does improve a little after a few weeks . Try adding in just a little orange blossom honey .
I bought some wine flavoring , peach and blueberry from the LHBS to put in . Have not tried that yet .
I am aging my next batch for three months before filtering it . ( The real stuff gets that plus in increments distilled spirits poured in to kill the fermentation process and then aged for 4 - 5 years ) This is where they get that 20% ABV

 

[trbig]

You can get 20% from several yeast strains now, and I imagine a batch of rice wine fermented in the right conditions is approaching, if not at that.

 

[FatDragon]

Harvested at four weeks, I believe, all pitched with ARL:

300g cooked rice + 10g pu-er tea - approx 180 mL, untasted, but promising
300g cooked rice + 10g Yunnan black tea - approx 160 mL, untasted but it smells good
300g cooked rice + 10g pu-er tea + 300g water - good smell, thin and insipid, dumped
300g cooked rice + 10g Yunnan black tea + 300g water - smelled great, lots of tropical fruit scents, undrinkable, dumped
3386g cooked rice - approx. 2.25L very tasty wine

I'll add that it squeezed out way easier this time than at three weeks. Harvesting at three weeks was a horrendous pain, but this time it went pretty easily.

 

[Newsman]

I just looked in my fridge where I have about a gallon of this stuff that I harvested Friday night. The "trub" has made a nice cake at the bottom, but there's a thin film on top. I took a couple pictures with my phone. Wondering if I ought ti throw some KMeta and pitasdium sorbate in there?

 

[Gar]

ok guys a bit of a update on a lazymans half assed cider/thi jazz rice/ryr/chinese yeast ball. so i decided to try one of the quart jars i put this in a few weeks ago and at room tempthere is a very slight taste of fruit but i kid you not there is no burn and no hard flavors this is damn close to water except the kick is very strong and thin this is not thick at all if a guy needed somthing to pound this is it. ive got some im gonna age to see if i can get the fruit to come out of it. a quart is beating my down as we speak

 

[MarcusKillion]

I have not tried any yet that did not burn like acid . Might add in that I drink straight whisky and gin so it is not a alcohol burn I am speaking of .

I guess I had better edit that statement .
I just tried a bottle that I have been aging and it has lost that stinging and tastes a whole lot better . Been in the bottle for about 3 weeks .

p.s.y mouth is on effing fire from that sriracha hot sauce I made along with the last batch of wine . Gar ; I would not suggest biting into that orange pepper I sent you . I think I need a fire extinguisher

 

[Weizenstein]

So I just harvested the results of 5 lbs of dry Jasmine rice that I inoculated with one package of vietnamese yeast balls and about a cup of RYR that I soaked in warm water for about an hour or so. It's been about 3+ weeks since I started this. I just weighed the lees and after squeezing out as much as I cared to (it was getting to the point of seriously diminishing returns) I have 2 lbs and 13 oz of wet rice leftovers. Not sure what my weight of cooked Jasmine rice was, but I have to say the volume is a fraction of what it was, no matter what the weight was. My fermenter was pretty much packed full of rice when I started. Now there's maybe a couple cups of lees. That's efficiency for you.

Awesome! How much liquid did you end up with?

 

[Newsman]

Awesome! How much liquid did you end up with?

I haven't measured it yet, but it looks to be just under half the volume of my cookie jar which I think is about 2 gallons. So, maybe just under a gallon of liquid???

 

[Newsman]

So, apparently that film on top of the rice wine was a pellicle, which means my wine was infected. I ended up putting in some KMeta and Potassium Sorbate and stirring it in. Hopefully that killed anything living in there and it's still drinkable. I'd hate to have to throw it out.

 

[Gar]

I have not tried any yet that did not burn like acid . Might add in that I drink straight whisky and gin so it is not a alcohol burn I am speaking of .

I guess I had better edit that statement .
I just tried a bottle that I have been aging and it has lost that stinging and tastes a whole lot better . Been in the bottle for about 3 weeks .

p.s.y mouth is on effing fire from that sriracha hot sauce I made along with the last batch of wine . Gar ; I would not suggest biting into that orange pepper I sent you . I think I need a fire extinguisher

I got your package yesterday ive got a buddy thats always trying to show me how much more heat he can take then me. ill lab rat him and watch the results

 

[sonofgrok]

Fun little sideblurb. *****ebag1, the proprietor of Hot Chicks with *****ebags referenced love for the rice wine in this post: http://hotchickswithdouchebags.com/2013/12/10/chandlerbag-puts-on-the-ritz/

I wonder if he found the post here...

 

[MarcusKillion]

I got your package yesterday ive got a buddy thats always trying to show me how much more heat he can take then me. ill lab rat him and watch the results

my son ate one and said at first it was not as hot as the red ones . then a little later he said it was burning his stomach real bad and then his mouth He ran for the kitchen and was washing out with everything from water to dish soap .

 

[jak1010]

my son ate one and said at first it was not as hot as the red ones . then a little later he said it was burning his stomach real bad and then his mouth He ran for the kitchen and was washing out with everything from water to dish soap .

Ha, been there before. They say yogurt works best. As for brewing with hot peppers, rice wine work great. It can be easy to overdo it so be careful. I've always put red pepper flakes in my martini's. This stuff, when brewed with hot peppers, makes a great martini. Try it. Somewhere in this thread I shared my experience and even posted pics.

 

[MarcusKillion]

put some peach wine flavoring in a bottle . Not too bad but I think i will try some other flavors . Also used some apricot . it was not too bad either . Just used a couple drops in a shot glass.

 

[Gar]

my son ate one and said at first it was not as hot as the red ones . then a little later he said it was burning his stomach real bad and then his mouth He ran for the kitchen and was washing out with everything from water to dish soap .

i grew some jalapinos and hobaneros (im sure i spelled both those wrong) and some others mild peppers this last summer at a house i just bought and they were the hottest versions of these peppers ive ever grown. ive never grown any as vile as you have sent gonna be interesting this next year.

 

[MarcusKillion]

3 people just tried my wine . did not get any response from any of them except for a odd look on their faces . I think they did not like it . It is a strange flavor for sure

 

[MarcusKillion]

Mold . so I read several posts of people getting mold in their wine . I have not had this problem . Must be something specific causing it .
I have a batch going in a large plastic bowl for about a month now . It has only a piece of saran wrap over it loosely with a lid placed on it that does not snap in place nor does it fit tightly and in fact has about a 1/16 inch gap . No mold . Just sitting on the counter with a towel over it .
I do not use any sanitizer to clean it or my jars . I simply wash them in the sink with dish washing liquid . Dawn to be exact.

 

[trbig]

Finally got a big batch to turn out the way my Chinese friend said to make it, except this time I used Jasmine rice.. though I'll probably throw together a batch with sweet rice tonight like they make it with. This turned out very dry with a touch of sweet, but very potent. Previous batches were sour. My friend says warmer temps make it that way and the best wine making temp for this is @ 60 degrees. For this reason, they don't even make it in the summertime.


10 lbs rice made with 5 cups water to 3 cups dry rice
14 lbs water (1.5 gal)
1 bag Red Yeast Rice
10 yeast balls

Cook the rice, throw it in a ferment bucket, add water, stir well until all clumps are broken up and it's soupy, add RYR and ground up yeast balls. Harvest after a month. After the first few days, you might pop the top and give it a stir a couple different times. It likes to form a crust on top, but not sure if it would as bad if I had ground the RYR.

This time, I didn't even bother grinding up the RYR. I just dumped it in with the ground up yeast balls. At the end, the RYR looked like it hadn't even been converted and had the whole grains all still floating on top like they hadn't been converted, but breaking them revealed just a thin mush inside a red shell. I'll probably go ahead and grind from now on, but as red as the wine is, it did it's job.

I ended up with maybe 3 1/2 gals of wine after filtering. I seem to be in the minority, but I prefer the wine clear. The suspended solids have way too much of a moldy rice aftertaste for me and the wine looks terrible. I've stuck it in the fridge and will cold crash it a few days to clear, then bottle it. I'll post a pic of it bottled later.






After I bottle it, I'm going to put some in the fridge and some out in room temp and see what happens to the taste. My friend ages theirs out at room temps for months.. or longer.

 

[trbig]

Just a few hours and it's starting to settle out nicely already.







And I see my camera has the wrong date on it.. lol

 

[jak1010]

Damn that looks good!

 

[trbig]

Thanks, Jak.

Working on a batch of 10 lbs sweet rice tonight with the same recipe. Now that my oldest has moved out, I've got a spare bedroom to ferment stuff out instead of my kitchen bar. If I keep the door closed to the room in these temps, it stays about 60 degrees in there, so I'm going to let this work off in the cool in there. I know the sweet rice makes a lot more sugar than the Jasmine rice does, so I'm hoping for a batch that has maybe a little more sweetness than this one does.

About 6 oz of this stuff accidentally fell into a glass this evening and had to be drank. Really can't taste any alcohol in it with it cold, but that small glass gave me a decent buzz on an empty stomache. Probably not a good social wine. Everybody will be tanked by the end of the 2nd glass. :cross: