rice wine, anybodoy ? propagate rice wine yeast.

[andrew_ysk]

any body make rice wine as red rice wine or yellow rice wine made by asian ?

i am wondering if one can grow rice yeast ourselves, since yeast is living stuff.

 

[Richard.]

If you want to get the starch in the rice to be the source of alcohol as in Saki then wine yeast alone as we know it can't do it. You will need (as per the Japanese techniques) a fungus to break it down before then fermenting with a yeast.

 

[andrew_ysk]

oh, i see, starch thing is not directly fermentable with yeast..
i have a bag of rice yeast (rice innoculated with yeast) purchased from asian market. it is not like yeast ball from store at all; it is actually rice with yeast outside.. red color.

If you want to get the starch in the rice to be the source of alcohol as in Saki then wine yeast alone as we know it can't do it. You will need (as per the Japanese techniques) a fungus to break it down before then fermenting with a yeast.

 

[LED_ZEP]

Not tried it but I'm sure someone out there will have: Would you be able to use alpha amylase as you would with other starchy stuff like potato and maize to convert the starch?

It wouldn't be Saki but it would be a rice wine.

 

[johncrobinson]

Japanese brewers use a fungus called Koji to convert the starch into sugars.

Yeast (any yeast.) cannot ferment starch.

Rice wine (not saki ) can be made without koji,but you will need to add sugar as normal to get to strength.
Wine will likely be cloudy.

Amylase will do the same thing as koji.

I got my koji from a homebrew shop so it is available in UK.