Fermenting Rice?

[RajBoab]

Hi all,

I was wondering if I could make a drinkable brew from rice, or something that includes rice with fruit juice etc?

I ask because I've read a bit about Sake and it seems you can't just bung the yeast in with moist rice and expect fermentation. This seems to be because the yeast can't ferment the starches present in the rice. The Sake makers use some sort of fungus to turn the starch into sugar before they add yeast and it seems quite complicated

So could I use Amylase (Amylase is an enzyme that breaks starch down into sugar - wikipedia) to turn the rice starch into sugars which would then be fermentable in the normal way?

Maybe add some fruit/flavouring to make the brew paletable?

Stuart

[alan66]

The rice will ferment as it is, but to make sake as you say ,you need a fungi called kome-koji. iif you have got a supplier or find one in this country please let me know.
I have rice brewing as we speek and i have in the past made some very good rice wine with just a quater of a pound of sultanas or raisins added.
Hope this helps
Alan

[mysterio]

Check out the Basic Brewing podcast 9th Nov 07, some guy is describing the process of home sake making:

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?p ... radio-2007

[RajBoab]

Gents,

Thanks for the info.
Will listen to the podcast tomorrow and investigate further.

Stuart

[mysterio]

Let us know how you get on Boab

[maxashton]

You can buy sake kits from BeerTech here