How to make rice wine that is delicious and drinkable?

Using glutinous rice to make wine, what is fermented in the first few days is called glutinous rice wine. If you just want the juice, after making the sweet wine, add cold boiled water and continue fermentation to make rice wine.

I just made a pot of glutinous rice with 2 kilograms of glutinous rice last week, and I am going to use it to make glutinous rice dumplings. Let me talk about my experience of using glutinous rice to make wine. I will try to be as detailed as possible in each step for your reference.

1. To make rice wine in large quantities and delicious, the glutinous rice as the raw material must be selected well.

There are two types of glutinous rice used to make rice wine, one is long glutinous rice from the south, and the other is round glutinous rice from the north. It is recommended to use round glutinous rice from the north.

The round glutinous rice in the north is used to make rice wine, which has a high alcohol content. Moreover, the round glutinous rice tastes softer. If you want to eat glutinous glutinous rice, the resulting glutinous rice will also be softer.

Southern long-glutinous rice is poorly made and tastes harder, a bit like scum.

But whether you use round glutinous rice or long glutinous rice, you must use fresh glutinous rice, not old glutinous rice. The glutinous rice brewed from old glutinous rice also has a stale smell.

2. Soak glutinous rice. Wash the glutinous rice with your hands and soak it in water for 5-8 hours.

To what extent does it need to be soaked before it is ready?

Use your thumb and forefinger to pick up a few grains of glutinous rice and rub them until they are easy to crush.

3. Steam glutinous rice. This step is very important and the most basic, determining everything that follows.

Steam the glutinous rice over water, put it on a cloth and steam it. You can make a few holes to allow the steamed rice to breathe. It is required that the steamed rice "has no raw material inside, is loose and not mushy, and is transparent but not rotten".

If you don’t have a stainless steel steamer at home, it is inconvenient to steam rice directly. Put the glutinous rice in a large bowl, add an appropriate amount of water, and steam them using the usual rice steaming method. This is the method I use when cooking a pound of glutinous rice.

4. Cool the steamed glutinous rice.

There are two methods. If you want to make less rice, you can cold rice by pouring water. Take a quick shower with cold boiled water and make sure there is no accumulation of water. Don't let the rice become mushy, and don't make the rice too soft.

You can also use the cooling method to let it cool naturally. When the glutinous rice is spread out, it will clump. Use cold water to slowly break the rice into small pieces to allow the rice to fully absorb the water.

Generally, about 150 to 200ml of cold water is used for 1 pound of rice. It should not be dry or mushy. It shall be based on the fact that no obvious traces of water can be seen when mixing the koji. (This is the key point!)

Only when the rice is cooled to about 28 degrees, that is, just cool, can you mix in the koji.

Here I will talk about what I have encountered at this step.

5. Add distiller’s yeast.

I have used two types of koji. One is the commonly used Anqi koji (8 grams) on the market, which can make 2-2.5 kilograms of glutinous rice.

The other is traditional herbal koji, which is probably more common in the countryside. 1 grain of koji is 5 grams, paired with 4-6 pounds of raw glutinous rice.

Both can be used to make sweet rice wine. Traditional herbal koji makes wine with a stronger flavor.

Angel liqueur koji is directly in powder form, while traditional herbal koji is in grains and needs to be ground into powder by yourself. Take out one grain, put it in a sealed bag, and knock it with a hard object to turn it into powder.

Mix the distiller's yeast into the glutinous rice, compact it, and make a large, bottom-bottomed nest in the middle. The rice that is mixed with the distiller's yeast needs to be moist. After filling the rice, you need to leave 1/3 of the space.

Choose a container with a wide mouth and a lid for glutinous rice. If there is no lid, it needs to be sealed with plastic wrap.

6. Let the glutinous rice ferment.

The fermentation temperature needs to be around 25°C to 28°C, and the fermentation time is about 2-4 days. If it is too hot in summer, leave it in an air-conditioned room for about 2 days. In winter, when the temperature is low, you can wrap it in a quilt. If the temperature is too low, you can also put a hot water bottle inside the quilt, but remember to change it frequently.

If you use an electric blanket to keep warm, be sure to keep the electric blanket at a low temperature. Some people may ask if you can use a rice cooker, which is also possible, but it requires hot water insulation.

Just remember that the temperature should not be too high, as the glutinous rice produced at too high a temperature will become sour.

7. Wait.

After fermentation for 2-3 days, the aroma of wine will come out, and the dimples will overflow with sweet wine juice. The overflowing wine can be poured over the rice next to it with a clean spoon.

If the rice mixed with koji was not mixed thoroughly before, this step can make up for it, because the sweet wine juice that comes out also contains fermentation components.

Different temperatures lead to different fermentation times. In summer, I use a yogurt machine to make rice wine (amount of 1 jin of glutinous rice), and it’s ready in one day.

The current temperature is about 26℃, no yogurt machine is needed, 2 pounds of glutinous rice is fermented at room temperature, which takes about 3-4 days.

When the whole pot of glutinous rice is fermented, it becomes glutinous rice, which tastes very sweet.

If you mainly want to use glutinous rice, such as glutinous rice balls, egg soup, etc., then you need to put them in the refrigerator to stop fermentation.

Otherwise, if the fermentation continues at room temperature, the sweetness will become less and less, and the wine taste will become stronger and stronger.

But if you want rice wine and only the juice, then you have to add cold boiled water to the glutinous rice wine. One pound of rice can be added with one pound of cold water.

After adding water, place it in an environment with a temperature below 20°C and continue fermenting for 1-5 days. When all the fermented rice inside floats and is empty, it is ready.

If you don’t want any bad ones at all, just filter them out. The filtered dregs are wrapped in gauze and caught in a bowl. If you squeeze it, you can squeeze out a lot of rice wine.

1. No wine was produced

On the one hand, the weather was too cold and the temperature was not reached. Quickly take insulation measures, as written before: wrap it in a quilt, put a hot water bottle inside, etc.

On the other hand, the rice is too dry and the wine will not come out, so the glutinous rice needs to be soaked before, and the ratio of rice to water must be paid attention to.

2. Long hair

If the container is infected during the wine making process, the white hair can be ignored. The black and green hairs are serious infections and should no longer be eaten.

Therefore, the container must be cleaned before use. During the fermentation process, sometimes a small spoon is used to pick out some unfinished glutinous rice and taste it. The small spoon must be washed before use.

And don’t put the spoon in again after tasting. Even if you need to taste again, you must wash the spoon before picking.

3. Bitterness

If you add too much koji, it will taste bitter. This phenomenon will also occur if the temperature is too high and the fermentation time is too long.

4. Sourness

There are four reasons for sourness:

First, the fermentation time is not enough. When the temperature is about 26-28℃ , it will take at least 3 days to confirm. In the early stage, it may be in the process of conversion.

Second, the rice is steamed and softened, or it is caused by adding too much water. Use about 150 to 200 ml of cold water for 1 pound of rice, as long as no obvious traces of water are visible when mixing the koji.

Third, the temperature of the rice when mixing the koji is too high, which kills the live bacteria.

Fourth, excessive exposure to air. When the rice smells like wine, it needs to be sealed. If too much air enters, it will turn into vinegar, so be careful not to open the lid too many times. The fermentation in the first 3 days is particularly important.

If the brewed glutinous rice tastes sour, don’t throw it away in a hurry. You can add sugar water to remedy it.

When making food with glutinous rice glutinous rice, such as glutinous rice glutinous rice balls, etc., it is also necessary to add additional sugar.

In fact, when making rice wine, there will be a certain flexibility index, but if you clarify the above steps and pay attention to the details, there will be no problem in making a pot of juicy and sweet rice wine. .

Nowadays, many machines are equipped with the function of making rice wine. Some rice cookers are also provided directly, as well as rice wine machines, yogurt machines, bread machines, etc. Making rice wine is much more convenient.