Mum's Red Glutinous Rice Wine 红糟酒

I would like to share my mum's method of making Red Glutinous Rice Wine. The ingredients may not be that exact because the older generation usually does not measure things exactly in weight when they cook. So I just try my best to write the details. It's good for me too, I might need to refer back in future.

Here are the ingredients needed for making 红糟酒.

Use 1 kg of uncooked glutinous rice (糯米), add water (use lesser water than usual) and cook the rice in a rice cooker. When the rice is cooked, spread the rice in a large tray and leave it aside until the rice cools down to room temperature.

Here's the Red rice yeast (红曲米)and Wine yeast (酒饼). You can get them from Chinese medical hall.

Pound the red yeast till fine. Then pound the wine yeast till fine and powdery form. Mix the red yeast and the wine yeast together.

In a deep glass jar (wash and air-dry the jar before using), fill in a layer of rice, followed by a layer of yeast mixture. Continue to fill in with alternate layers of rice and yeast until done.

Sprinkle some cool boiled water (don't use unboiled tap water) at the top layer.

Here's how it looks. Close the jar and leave it in a cool dark place. On the 3rd day, you can give the mixture a good stir with a clean and dry spoon. Then leave the jar closed and store it until the 21st day when it is ready to harvest. In between, if you check and find that there's a separate layer of  rice and liquid, you can stir the mixture evenly again.

This is the 红糟酒 after 21 days. Mum decided not to put it too long and harvest it.

Fill them in separate containers and put it in fridge to store.

You can also filter the mixture to separate the rice wine (红糟酒) and the wine lees (红糟). Store the wine lees in the fridge. Heat the rice wine till boiling, remove from heat and cool down, fill the wine a in bottle, you can keep it at room temperature and use it for cooking. Both the rice wine and the wine lees can be kept for years.

There are some beliefs that the old generation practise when making this rice wine. One of them is to leave the jar in a corner where no one can see to avoid people looking at or people talking about it. Women should not make this during that time of the month. When you are filling up the jar, if you drop some rice on the table/floor, do not pick up and put back in jar because it may be contaminated. All these may result in the rice wine turning sour or become spoiled.

Lastly, there are many different methods of making this rice wine. The above method is used by my mum who has made these many times. If I miss out any details, I will add it after confirming with my mum. Hope you enjoy this post. :)