My Chinese wife is fermenting rice in a jar.

[Dieseltu]

Hello, I will keep this short. I wasn't sure where to post it either. Pretty much I could care less except if there's a safety issues. The wife has a jar of rice,or it was fermented rice, turning into wine, hanging on a heater vent in a towel for two days. I assumed she was fermenting something into Kim Chi or other nasty tasting cabbage. But she told me she's making rice wine. Furthermore She brought it out to show me and it smells damn good . Its already got alcohol in it. She said her dad showed her, and its her first time. She said she's leaving it a week . She should of put water in it. . I just want to make sure she wont die drinking it. Other then that. That's about it.

[Brutal]

Yea man find out for us how this was done!

Oh, and she ain't gonna die. Probably not anyway.

[Dieseltu]

Thanks for the reply. I don't know what she's doing . We have a language barrier, but I just asked her to explain. Youre gonna like this . Holy crap. She cooked the rice in a pressure cooker. Here's the kicker. She just showed me 3 balls of rice yeast In a bag from Chinatown. About 3/4 inch around. She rolling pinned one into powder in a paper towel and put it to the rice in a the jar. There's two recipes on a card in the bag written in Vietnam. And it was 79 cents. Apparently she knows what she's doing. She just gave me the See your wife knows a lot of things speech.

I didn't know this was going this way . She is really hateful on alcohol. Chinese husbands get drunk and beat the crap out of their wives. I will keep you posted.

[MDH]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergillus_oryzae" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2011/02/s ... rains.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The strains in yeast balls are very similar to Sake. Some interesting reading in that site as well; they find creative ways to push the yeast into producing esters, including one sake maker who cools his fermentation down until yeast begin to die, only to warm it up and allow strong cells to reproduce, which produces esters in the process. He does that several times over to introduce more fragrance.

[Dieseltu]

The yeast balls are Rice flour, Cinnamon, Ginger, Glycyrrhizae, garlic. She said after a week she is putting more water, then cooking it. More sugar if people like it sweet. I may of translated this wrong but she said something about an egg in there too, twice. I had to ask her again if she's making wine and she says yes. She said she can use rice, corn, many, many things, but it will taste different.

[DAD300]

Chinese Yeast Balls.jpg (13.84 KiB) Viewed 5106 times

I get these at the local Asian Grocery. they end up bing about 30 cents each ball.

Each has Yeast, Koji spores (Aspergillus oryzae) and food for the yeast in a rice flour.

Here's the quick and dirty...

The Aspergillus oryzae turns the rice starch into sugar, the yeast sugar to alcohol.

Yeast balls are a type of brewer's yeast to make fermented rice wine. Known as "jiuqu" in Chinese or "pang khao mahk" in Thai language, each yeast ball is enough to turn 250-500g glutinous rice (a.k.a. sweet rice or sticky rice) into Lao Zao or Khao Mahk. Yeast balls are high quality product that yields sweet fermented rice wine with great taste.

Directions
To make Lao Zao (fermented rice wine): Soak 500g or 3 cups of glutinous rice (a.k.a. sweet rice or sticky rice) for 3 hours in summer or 6 hours in winter. Drain and steam the rice for about 45 minutes. Spray some cold water to help the cooked rice cool down to about 30 °C or 86 °F. Grind one Shanghai yeast ball into powder. In a large vessel, mix the powdered starter with rice. Drill a hole ( about 5 cm in diameter) in the middle of the mixture using chopsticks. Cover the vessel and keep it in a warm place around 25-30 °C. After 24-36 hours, check the hole should be filled with sweet rice juice. When all the rice has become softened, some will float up, the fermented rice wine is ready. Refrigerate and enjoy.

In my local market the owner makes three kinds of drinks for lunch, coconut milk, "rice milk," fruit juice...she fills a clear plastic cup with the sweetened liquid, drops a Yeast ball in and puts a plastic lid on it. When the yeast ball breaks down and settles to the bottom she puts them out for sale. $1.50

This local store sells fermented eggs also and I heard a health inspector giving the owner crap for having eggs outside the coolers.

So, one day she was asking me about buying the yeast balls, short grain rice and some other fermenting stuff in her store. "What you do with this stuff?"

I make rice wine and distill it.

You know how?

Yes...

I ask her, what does health inspector think of her selling fermented drinks in the lunch counter.

She said, "Ah...., Bitch not know what it is!"

[LBHD]

^ ding ding ding -

There is a good rice wine thread on homebrewtalk forum too. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f243/making ... nt-361095/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

dont need water-

[Bushman]

Sounds very interesting but in your second comment. This quote struck me:

She is really hateful on alcohol. Chinese husbands get drunk and beat the crap out of their wives. I will keep you posted.

Not wanting to change the thread but I am sure your going to post the results of the product and not the effect the product has on you.

[Jimbo]

This is a fascinating thread, posting to subscribe, but have to say also, laughed my ass off at 2 comments in here. I love this site.

I ask her, what does health inspector think of her selling fermented drinks in the lunch counter.
She said, "Ah...., Bitch not know what it is!"

and, ...priceless, dieseltu speaking of his wife....

I don't know what she's doing . We have a language barrier.

BAHAHAHA., I wonder if I can 'develop' such a language barrier with my SOH

When I visit Korea for work we drink a white milky rice wine out of bowls at lunchtime. Standard with lunch there. Comes in a plastic soda type bottle. Its not bad. Few of those and its siesta time.

[Dieseltu]

Well, the language barrier sounds good I suspose. Most of the time , I'm tired of trying to explain everything that takes 10 seconds to accomplish. For 30 minutes. If I try and do it myself in 10 seconds. I get crap too. For not being a team player. And not helping. And I sure as hell don't want to start a discussion about Asian wives. And culture clashes....

And oh yea the rice wine is coming along nicely.

[Dieseltu]

Sounds very interesting but in your second comment. This quote struck me:

She is really hateful on alcohol. Chinese husbands get drunk and beat the crap out of their wives. I will keep you posted.

Not wanting to change the thread but I am sure your going to post the results of the product and not the effect the product has on you.

Oh, That comment didn't come out right... I'm not Chinese. I brought her here from China about a year ago.

[S-Cackalacky]

The TV program, "Booze Traveler" was in Japan this past Monday. The host was with a couple of Sake brewers at one point. It was an odd procedure. They had all this cooked rice laid out on a table and were kneading it like dough. Apparently this procedure was to work the koji into the rice. They performed this procedure in a special room that was supposedly a special environment for nurturing the koji fungus. At some point, without much explanation, they showed the ferment in a vat in a liquid form. Seems that some Asian methods for producing alcohol are quite a departure from what we do in the West.

[shadylane]

It's not Japanese, it's Chinese and more than the average person wants to read.
Have fun.
http://www.sytu.edu.cn/zhgjiu/umain.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[InglisHill]

+1, fantastic read.

[netman86]

I've not made rice wine myself, but using those yeast balls is the preferred method- and cooking it in a pressure cooker first is also fairly common practice.

Been meaning to do it, myself... just have not gotten around to it yet.

As long as it smells good, I don't expect you'll have any trouble with illness. Maybe a hangover, though.

[Jo Diesel]

Don't ever knock the alcohol of other cultures. Some of the best booze you will ever have might be something you have never heard of.

Show your wife your a real man and can treat her like a Queen even when you are lit. Real men do not hit women!

[Twinrivers]

Reading this is giving me a craving for sashimi tuna, a volcano roll, and a few shots of Sake Vodka. I think you might be onto something here