Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

Production methods from starch to sugars.

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Yummyrum
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Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

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Getting enzymes down under ( that's about Australia ) is not easy or cost effective so having heard a lot about Rice Vodka's cleanliness and being alerted to Chinese Yeast balls I did some googling and found that Saki uses a similar fermentation process and having tasted Sochu ( basically distilled Saki ...Japanese whiskey ) I though why the hell not have a crack .
Now there are a few posts where the rice is boiled to release the starch , and then either enzymes are added at Sacc temp .....AKA Uncle remus Rice Vodka ....or similar where it's still treated as a sloppy mash and the yeast balls are added at around just above room temp or 30 Deg C

I found that there were site after site were the rice was steamed ( or boiled ) so it was just like eating rice and the yeast balls were added when it cooled . There were also many sites that suggested rolling the rice into balls .
Decent "Wobbly" fella on Another Forum got me some yeast balls as he lives in the City where there are Asian Markets ....couldn't find them around here .... Rural :problem:

So here's what happened one night after a few when I should have known better :wink:

Got 10Kg sack of Medium grain rice a added about 22 liters of water and commenced and evaporative boil ...that's where you add enough water to rice so that when all of the water has evaporated the rice is perfectly cooked ....well that's what happens small scale in the kitchen anyway .
20 liters water and 10kg of medium grain rice.jpg
Lid on ..LOL ....thought my large WOK was appropriate ...and it fitted :thumbup:
lid on.jpg
All done
done.jpg
Unfortunately There was too much fire in the hole and I scorched the shit out of the rice :thumbdown: ....it smelled nasty :think:

So the next thing was to spread it out onto a flat surface to cool down to about 30 Deg C . I had a roll of builders plastic which I spread on a table and spread the rice on it .... Jezz it was claggy shit :esad:
cooling down.jpg
The burnt stuff in the BOP was a worry :esurprised:
burnt bottom.jpg
So I waited and waited and waited until it cooled....NO Don't loo at what the thermometer says ..it was just what it read while I was waiting....and waiting ....and waiting :tired:
waiting to cool down.jpg
Finally it was cool enough to add the yeast balls . I had this cunning plan that I could smash my balls up a bit with mallet......
busting balls.jpg
and us a Moully to distribute the "ground" powder over the rice
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mouly mashine.jpg
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Yummyrum
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

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Unfortunately the yeast Balls were too hard for the Moully and it shit it self :thumbdown:
trashed it.jpg
So it was plan "B"
Crush them in a bag and sprinkle by hand over the Rice
rolling them.jpg
sprinkling the balls.jpg
Now the Nasty bit started ....hand mashing the Yeast ball powder into the rice .....again ...Jezz that stuff is Claggy :eh:
kneeding the rice.jpg
The next bit was to form the rice into balls and place into a fermenter .
Hands on.jpg
rice balls.jpg
Finally after abit of stuffing around I ended up with fermenter full of Balls
bucket full of balls.jpg
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

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So lid on and Air lock fitted nothing happened for days :cry:

Then suddenly my fermenter of apparently dry stuff became a fermenter of sloppy stuff
Sloppy.jpg
And it appears that this simultaneous scarification and fermentation begins . :thumbup:
Fermenting.jpg
So almost a month later ... there is bugger all happening in the airlock any more ....can't take an FG reading as its so sloppy the reading is pointless .

There appears to be maybe some discoloration on the top so executive decision to distill it :thumbup:

Emptying the fermenter from the drain I got a layer of creamy ricey gunk for about 1/4 fermenter , then about 1/2 a fermenter of clearish but milky stuff then the top 1/4 was ricey goo .

I wanted to steam strip this but I was unsure about how nasty it would be to clean out of a regular keg Iff'n it was a thick baked on nastiness so I dumped it into my old Still spirits boiler which has a large opening for easy cleaning and did it in two runs .
Stripper setup.jpg
What was a worry was that the initial scorching carried over to the strip ...well thats what I detect anyways ....thinking that steam mashing might be the go next time :thumbup:
Waiting to Run this through the reflux still ....was going to do a Pot still spirit run but think I might need all the help can to beat the burnt smell out of this :roll:
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

Post by fizzix »

I applaud your effort. You got some huevos for putting a flame to that goo now that we know what it turned into.
I'm worried about your scorch. Ain't done it myself but nothing I've read about one is promising, and I'm sure my day's a-coming.
Rice seems to be an all-around motherf***er no matter who's tried it. Keep us posted, please. Best wishes.
Last edited by fizzix on Fri Jan 12, 2018 4:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

Post by Swedish Pride »

farking hell Yummy, that is a whole lot of work, nicely documented thread
Don't be a dick
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

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Thanks fizzix You,re right about Rice being a bit of a challenge , how ever I do have an update ....and a confession or too :oops:

Yup its a lot of work Swedish but not so sure if its any more work than doing an all grain and having to stuff around with rests and sparging and all that bullshit ......just different work I guess . Just got to get work smart

So part of my confession is that I fudged the stripping run . First I ran out of gas . So as I was fluffing around changing the gas bottle over , I had the thumper suck back into the boiler a bit , not a lot I don't think but wasn't ideal .Luckily I had a 1" pipe feeding that thumper .

Second stripping balls up .
I was gravity feeding my condenser from my 2000 liter tank and it run out :thumbdown:
Busy doing other shit in the shed and look up to see ........yes need a good ass kicking for that one :oops:
No water.jpg
So the strip run wasn't a text book affair .

So then I decide to Run it through my 2" VM and just so happened to find a bag of scrubbers I'd forgotten about so I figured why the hell not make my still 1.5 meters . was looking around for suitable section to pack and come up with this solution .
Found some scrubbers.jpg
Not the best setup but it works .
Its up.jpg
Had to stick a ladder there to adjust the Gate valve .....even stuck a strap to the roof truss ...just in case ...after the photo shoot .
way too tall.jpg
So I fired it up and held it in full reflux for about 1/2 hour before taking off fore shots at a drip .....and that's when I got confused . See I always stick my fingers under the spout and have a sniff ...even foreshots ...but this smelt clean ....real clean

So I'm thinking with all this extra packing I should really be able to separate out all the fractions like I've never done before but I'm getting clean stuff ???? where are the Fores . ...so maybe everything they have said about Rice is true and it really is a fine Vodka . :thumbup:.....highly unlikely but hey I'm a reasonably open minded guy .

Then I wonder how hard can I push this thing :?: so I start to increase take off , more and more ...and its 's still coming out clean .
Then on the third trip up the ladder , I happen to glance around the back of the still which would normally be on the side and at head-ish height ....and I see :oops:
Somethings missing.jpg


Then it all makes sense ...dickus headus has forgotten to to stick the thermometer in the thermo port and the bloody VM has had an aperture that was not part of the design :eugeek: ....what a twat :oops: .
Not to mention more wasted alcohol that could have been dangerous ...thankfully My still was near the door and I run it on electricity .

Now the funny / annoying / stupid thing is that I could smell the burnt smell ( from the initial scorch ) and I was thinking it was just venting out the top

Learn't a few good lessons about complacency during this exercise

So how did the Rice ferment turn out ? well actually bloody good :thumbup: . All the Burnt smell /taste did not come out in the final Vodka . ....But what has spun me out is the mouth feel of the stuff . Now I've heard of this mouth feel and I know folks and commercial distillers add Glycerin to obtain it ...but this Rice Vodka has the smoothest slippery feel to it that I have never experienced before .

So will I do it all again .......Hell yeah ....but This time I'm working on Steaming the Rice with a steam mashing setup and seeing I dodged a lot of bullets with this one I'm taking no chances .....Building a Manometer for my steam setup right now .
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

Post by fizzix »

You fell in horsesh!t and found a pony! Quite an exploit and I'm glad all is well.
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

Post by Saltbush Bill »

I see you have tidied the shed since I last visited Yummy. :D
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

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Pleased you noticed Salty .... took me ages :D
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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

Post by acfixer69 »

Yummyrum wrote:Pleased you noticed Salty .... took me ages :D
My still room is so nasty with clutter " stuff I will not part with " that I won't post any pic's :oops:

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Re: Yummy's Chinese yeast ball experiments

Post by FL Brewer »

Hi Yummy,

I also did a run of Uncle Remus' rice. I agree 100% that it's a sticky mess, but the end product was worth it. I also scorched the stuff on the bottom of the cooking pot, so I made sure I didn't use the bottom inch of what was left in the pot. The cooked rice had a slight scorched flavor, not bad, but it did not come through in the spirit run (I didn't taste the low wines). I was intending to make a vodka, but I ran with a pot still (actually, the discredited CM still design, pretty close to a pot still), so it was more like white whiskey; not what I set out to make, but I really like the stuff. I think I may do another batch and age it on oak, I think the stuff will make a real nice aged whiskey. I also like the mouth feel of this stuff and the nice slightly sweet, slightly grainy flavor.

Another thing I notice about using rice is that the hearts yield was much higher than other grains I've fermented, I think several folks have made the same observation in the original recipe thread. This was about the 2nd or 3rd batch of hooch I ever made, and that screwed me up when I was expecting the same yields on my bourbon runs - I had to redistill my next couple bourbon batches because I ended up with heads and tails in the final product. Bottom line, rice is a great grain to ferment and distill, I encourage everyone to give it a try.

I still have a jar of the stuff, two years old now.... hmmm, think I'm gonna go take a sip.....
Everyone has to believe in something. Me? I believe I'll have another drink......
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