People's Republic of Fermentation // Episode 05: Mijiu Rice Alcohol, Distilled Knowledge

In Qinfen, a Dong village in Guizhou, we learn about the fermentation and distillation of rice into alcohol.

// PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF FERMENTATION //

presented by: The Foundation For Fermentation Fervor

with: Sandor Katz
http://www.wildfermentation.com/

and Mara King
http://ozuke.com/

directed, filmed, edited by: Mattia Sacco Botto
https://mattiasaccobotto.pixieset.com...

additional editing: Fabrizio Grasso
http://fabriziograsso.com/

// EPISODE 5 RECIPES // by Mara King

Rice Alcohol

makes about 3 litres/quarts

2 cups glutinous rice (uncooked)
2 rice yeast balls (ground fine)
1/2 cup jiu niang / amazake (if available)
0-1/4 cup water

Soak rice for 2+ hours. Steam for 20-30 minutes. Cool to about 100 degrees F - cool enough to touch, warm enough to encourage fermentation to start. Mix well with ground yeast balls, and, if available, jiu niang from previous batch or store bought. Add just enough water so that rice can move loose and free (can be stirred). Some folks like to layer the yeast and not mix with water... these subtle differences will affect the flavor - but having lots of home made rice wine to share from your many experiments is a fun conversation / party starter. I placed the mix in a wide mouth ceramic crock to ferment. The mixture formed its own protection against excess oxygen by forming a rice skin layer on top. After one week (midsummer) the mixture had turned loose and the wine tasted tart and dry. To bottle at this point strain off and squeeze out spent rice, leaving it to bottle condition for a day or two resulted in a lightly effervescent crisp and dry rice wine. Also in one of my iterations mixed another couple cups of cooked rice in the unstrained mixture at this point and moved the ferment to an airlocked carboy - this resulted in a much boozier saké... this step can be repeated a couple of times before straining and bottling your rice wine.

Be sure to save your jiu niang. It can be used for future rice wine, for making anyu and anro (rice fermented fish and pork see ep. 4) for marinating chicken, making pickles or just eating as a sweet treat or mixed into cold dessert soups.

In the village this fermentation would have been done mid winter and they added no water and fermented for 3-4 weeks before distillation. We chose to share a non distilled version of this recipe as stills are illegal here in the US and we don't want to make anyone go blind by accident. :P


Glossary / notes

Amazake / Jiu Niang = the leavings from making rice wine. It is easy to buy either amazake or jiu niang from the asian food store. Amazake is the Japanese version, Jiu Niang the Chinese version. It is usually found in the refrigerated section in plastic or glass jars. It is easy to make it yourself too. I made mine from fermenting cooked glutinous rice in my instantpot on yogurt setting for 8 hours with crushed rice yeast balls.

Rice yeast balls = little crushed balls of rice and yeast and probably aspergillus orzae (koji) although the label just says yeast and glutinous rice. In the village we used an herb, yeast and fungi powder that they called Jiu Yao (trans. Wine Medicine) I haven't seen the Jiu Yao outside of Guizhou but the yeast balls are ubiquitous all over China and in Asian food stores here in the US.