Making Chinese red rice wine

I used to remember when I was a kid that my mam would have a huge glass jar of pink rice in liquid that I knew was alcoholic (if just slightly) but was great when warmed up, just like some adult liquid rice pudding.

After all these years I thought I would give it a go. Not sure what spurred that thought but I duly Googled some recipes and it all looked pretty straight forward. Cook some glutinous rice up, crush some rice wine cakes and red rice yeast, mix the rice with the powder mix, throw into a jar, stir every now and again, and hey presto.

This is what it looks like so far.

It might look like I blended some hamsters but it seems to be coming along pretty well.

However, my parents are down in 6 weeks time and that is when it should mature so they can give it a once over. I am sure I will get zero marks and disapproving comments about what an idiot I am and how I don't know how to make it and how I should have left it till mam came down. Usual usual...

So, how did I do all this? Here's how.

Take 1kg of glutinous rice and soak for 8 hours or preferably overnight.

Cook the rice, but I steamed it instead of boiling it in water. Leave to completely cool.

Crush the rice wine cakes, which is basically one kind of yeast.

This is now a powder.

Next is to crush the red rice yeast. These are quite hard and I under-estimated the effort to grind them down. I should have done it in two batches as they ended up more like grit. If you have a electric coffee grinder then both the ingredients could go into that.

So, I have both as powdery as I could get them before getting bored.

Now we have the powder mix, the cooled rice and 500ml of boiled water that has been left to cool down. I rinsed the glass jar out with boiling water as well to ensure no bacteria inside that might spoil the process.

Rinse the hand each time before taking a clump of rice and then covering it in the powder mix. I just rolled it but should have mashed it up a bit more in my hand to get more powder into the insides.

Once all the rice has been used up, use the remaining water to rinse the powder that is left into the jar. Put a lid on but do not close tight as there will be gas created as part of the fermentation process. Leave in a cool dark place.