Rice Wine Making - Lee family tradition

We just had a long weekend holidays, on Tuesday, MIL made rice wine at my house in order to show me how it is done. Her MIL taught her how it was done and now it's my turn. This is what is called passing down the family kong fu...


The process looks pretty simple. Glutinous rice (pulut) must be precooked and cooled. Then rice wine yeast pieces and some red stuff (all bought from the chinese herbal shop, quantity also determined by the shop keeper) were crushed into fine powder form. Get a clean and dry container (we use clay or glass) and sprinkle with generous layer of yeast powder then fill it with a layer of fistful lumps of the cooked rice. This is followed by another generous spread of the yeast powder. Continue to do so in layers until the container is 80/90% full. End with more yeast powder on top and make a hole in the middle and put in more yeast powder.

Sprinkle with water, cover the container with plastic sheet and make a few holes on the sheet.

Cover with 2 layers of newspaper and leave in a cool, dry place. After 3 days, open to check that the fermentation process has begun and add generous amount of chinese white rice wine (whole bottle). Close the container back and wait for 20 to 25 days.

For 6 catties of rice, we should get about 6 bottles of clear rice wine free from debris. The wine that my MIL produced when she tried making it a few months back was really sweet and fragrant. I cooked kampung chicken with ginger and the wine a few times and my hubby and I both loved it so much. We will see how this batch, that is still fermenting in my kitchen, turns out in 20 days or so.  We will be saving this for my confinement in April.