Semi continuous Rice process

[Blackened]

Rice Continuous Method

After some experimentation I’ve decided I hate steaming rice! When making wine I’m sure this is the best method and it results in a sweeter, clearer drink. However that’s not required IMHO for a product intended to be distilled. So the following is my take on the entire process. I should also mention I like doing a bit of my favorite hobby every day during the week, rather than tying up my weekends for larger scale brew days. I also buy 25kg bags of rice and process it all over the course of a few of months. Faster if I have more time. Slower if I can’t be bothered.

I'm also trialling a very similar method for making bourbon but that's only just begun and I can't say how well it's working.

General Notes
The Glutenous rice and Ragi Tape can be bought from many asian grocery stores.
This is not my all-time favorite beverage, but I enjoy it enough to keep making, and it’s good to have something that’s quite different from the usual fare. I’d describe the flavour as slightly medicinal with strong rice notes. Mixes well with Pepsi Max. Tastes like crap when made into a sweet liqueur so don’t bother! Although I think there’s plenty of room for experimenting with spices and other flavourings.

Ingredients
Glutenous rice (aka Sticky rice)
Water 2 x weight of rice (eg 1kg rice + 2L water)
Water as a later addition equal to 50% of wine volume
Ragi Tape (inoculant, Chinese yeast balls should work just as well)

Cooking Method
I use an old 10 cup rice cooker and these instructions fill it to the brim.
Boil a kettle full of water first and add this to the rice cooker because it's faster than waiting for the cooker to heat up.

1. Place 1.3kg of rice in the cooker, and add 2.6L or water, cold or boiling. If you stir carefully you won’t spill any.

2. Turn the cooker on.

3. Maybe its just because my cooker is old, but I usually have to stir the rice when it switches to warming for the first time, scraping the bottom to unstick any rice, and set it to cook again.

4. Get a large shallow container that will be used to inoculate the rice. The larger the surface area the more mould growth. Tip the hot rice in and close the lid. The container should be clean, but I never bother sterilising. The heat will help kill a lot of the nasties still present and in my experience, the Ragi Tape will outstrip anything else that tries to grow.

5. Allow to cool for a few hours. I’ll often leave it overnight. No stress about putting the Ragi Tape in quickly.

6. While it’s cooling, follow the Ragi Tape instructions on qty, mine says 1 tablet per 500gm uncooked rice, and since I often do two batches together, I use 5 tablets between the two. Place your tablets in a mortar and crush them into a powder. Then tip this powder into an old spice jar with the perforated lid so sprinkling the Ragi Tape over the rice is easier.


First Stage Fermentation
At this point the rice has been cooked and cooled to below 40C at least although I aim lower just to be safe.
1. Sprinkle the Ragi Tape powder over the surface of the rice

2. Place in an incubator. Mine happens to be a fridge with a heater. I incubate at 30-35C. The warmer it is the faster it goes up to a point. 35C seems to be the safe upper limit. I’d be interested to hear other people’s experience regarding the flavour impact of different fermentation temperatures? I haven’t really made comparisons is this regard.

3. Initial incubation should continue until the rice becomes a watery slurry with a rice/mould cap on top. This can take a week, give or take a couple of days. Depending on the temperature. I also never stir. Stirring would probably speed things up but I can’t be bothered. It has proven unnecessary IMHO. I usually have a couple of batches on the go at any one time staggered by a few days. The end result is that I cook rice once or twice a week, or whenever it seems ready, or whenever the hell I feel like it. It’s not time critical provided you don’t take the next step too soon. The rice can be left in this first stage as long as you like. Go away for a month or two, and you can continue where you left off. Longer is better but I’m not a patient man. I have occasionally found a darker mould growth on the surface of the rice in small patches.. Don’t panic, just scoop it out with a clean spoon. Sterilise the spoon if you need to scoop out any more dark spots just to help avoid transferring the spoors.

Second Stage Fermentation

So now we have a shallow container of rice slurry.
Grab your clean and sterile 25L fermenter. You’ll need to create a basic filter inside the fermenter to stop the rice solids from coming out of the tap. I tried this method without a filter and it worked for a while but the tap eventually became blocked. I use a rolled up piece of ss woven mesh stuffed over the tap bulge. Whatever works for you. Maybe a false bottom? Or just a rolled up piece of cheese cloth wedged into the tap hole? But I haven’t tried either of these.

Now tip the rice slurry in. Keep adding to it over the following weeks as more rice is ready, until it’s full. That’s about it for this second stage. Keep the fermenter in your incubator, as it will contain mostly solids for the duration and I doubt a submerged heating element would be effective.

Third Stage Fermentation

At this point the second stage fermenter is full of rice slurry and bubbling away. Grab another clean and sterile fermenter. No need for a filter on the outlet of this one. Drain some of the liquid rice wine into the new fermenter. You will need to dilute this wine to allow it to fully ferment down to less than SG1.0. Two parts wine to one part water. My pot still can hold a little over 20L, so I transfer 14L and top up with 7L water. Fermenting this at high 20s, low 30sC. I usually go by smell. If it’s too warm it smells *wrong*. Take special care immediately after dilution as it’s at this point that the yeast take off and cause the temperature to spike briefly.

I’ve usually got a couple of fermenters on the go with wine, as it can take up to a month or so to ferment out. It depends how quickly all the previous steps have happened, whether all the starches have been converted etc… Quicker on subsequent fills onto the previous yeast cake. But at least it can go in the still as soon as the first fermenter is ready, rather than waiting for the whole lot.

And so the cycle continues, cook, ferment, dump, transfer…….

Finishing off

At some point the solids in the second stage fermenter will make it impractical to continue. When there’s too much solids you can dilute those solids by the same ratio as the wine, ferment out, drain, and then press the solids to extract the last bit. Or, treat the solids like a beer mash, and sparge water through it until you collect a fermenter full, and just discard the wet solids without bothering to press. Pressing can be done with some cheese cloth and elbow grease, small portions at a time and twisting the cloth. Although I’ve since built a press for the purpose. But for the majority of the process, you only need to handle liquids for the purpose of distilling. I’ve found I can JUST fit an entire 25kg bag of cooked rice into the second stage fermenter, although towards the end the fermenter has to be drained more frequently to allow enough space for more rice to squeeze in. It depends on if the filter on the tap is still free running, as towards the end the solids seem to get pretty compacted and may block up. The fermenter may need a bit of a shake in order to allow the last of the liquid to filter down and out. Once the starches have been converted and drained away/pressed there’s surprisingly little left. Although if the rice isn’t cooked well it may fill up quicker.


Distilling

Strip the wine, dilute to <40% and re-run as you normally would.
I keep the least offensive tails and recycle into the next good run and keep the rest of the garbage for one final tails run, as I would for Rum. Although I haven’t yet collected enough for the final re-run so I can’t say if it’s any good or not.

The spirit will turn cloudy below 50% abv.

Comments anyone??

[Kimbo]

Great Tutorial there Blackened :clap: :clap: :clap:

[Blackened]

Great Tutorial there Blackened :clap: :clap: :clap:

*takes a bow* Thanks Kimbo. :-D

[Brendan]

Good write-up mate :handgestures-thumbupleft: