Rice wine brewing method

Huangjiu is a kind of wine that is very popular because of its reasonable price and good taste. Its main raw material is rice or millet. It can not only be drunk as a beverage but also as a traditional Chinese medicine, which has many benefits for the human body, such as nourishing yin and yang, promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, relieving dysmenorrhea and so on. Because rice wine is very popular, many people also want to make it at home, so let’s introduce the brewing method of rice wine below.

Soaking rice--steaming rice--raking--filling jars--pressing--loading jars--finished wine

Rice soaking usually takes about 15 days. The purpose of soaking is to make the rice absorb water and swell, so that the starch particles gradually become loose, and ferment to produce a certain acidity, which is convenient for steaming, gelatinization, saccharification, fermentation and forming the unique style of rice wine.

Steaming rice is to heat and gelatinize the starch in the glutinous rice to facilitate saccharification and fermentation. The meat must be cooked through, without being mushy, without any white core, and must be cooked thoroughly but not rotten, and uniformly cooked. Add materials into the tank (add materials into the tank means mixing water, rice, and malt koji, adding saccharifying bacteria and yeast, and putting them into the tank for saccharification and fermentation)

Opening and pre-fermentation Opening and fermentation are the key technologies in brewing Shaoxing wine, and must be supervised by experienced winemaking technicians. Raking is the process of stirring the mash in the fermentation tank using a wooden rake. By raking, the upper and lower temperatures of the mash can be adjusted to make the fermentation components uniform, and carbon dioxide can be discharged to supplement oxygen, so that saccharifying bacteria and yeast can grow and reproduce better under suitable conditions. This can inhibit the invasion and reproduction of miscellaneous bacteria and ensure normal fermentation.

The purpose of filling the jars and post-fermentation filling the jars is to reduce the contact area of ​​the semi-finished products with the air, prevent excessive evaporation of alcohol, control the invasion and reproduction of miscellaneous bacteria, and facilitate the continued growth and reproduction of yeast in the post-fermentation period, thereby improving the quality of the wine.

Pressing and decoction Pressing is to separate the liquor and lees in the semi-finished product with lees, that is, to filter it into clear wine, which is convenient for decoction. The main purposes of decocting wine are: first, to kill microorganisms, destroy residual enzyme activity, and basically fix the various components in the wine to prevent the wine from becoming sour and deteriorating during storage; second, to promote the aging of the wine, and make some soluble proteins coagulate and precipitate, making the color of the wine clearer and more transparent.

Fill the jar, cover the jar mouth, and make the mud head. After the rice wine is sterilized by boiling, it is poured into the sterilized wine jar. The mouth of the jar is immediately covered with boiled and sterilized lotus leaves and bamboo shells, and tied tightly with fine bamboo strips. After the mouth of the jar is tied, it is trimmed and then the workers apply the mud.

After the mud is dried, the rice wine is moved into the warehouse for storage. The storage of rice wine is called aging, which refers to the storage of newly brewed finished wine in pottery jars. Normally, the taste of newly brewed rice wine is rough, less fragrant, more irritating and less soft. However, aging can effectively promote the association between alcohol molecules and between alcohol molecules and water molecules, and promote the esterification of alcohol and acid, making the wine fragrant, sweet, soft and long-lasting.