FOOCHOW RED RICE WINE

福州紅酒

Rice Wine

 is widely used in Chinese Cooking

Different dialects 

in the Chinese Community

brew their Rice Wine

unique to their individual groups

Rice Wines 

are called by different names in their own dialects

Cantonese call theirs 'Wong-Zhou'

Hock Kien, 'Mi-Jiu'

Mandarin, 'Huang-Jiu'

 Foochow have their own signature variant of 

'Ang-Jiu' or 'Oint-U'

which is RED in colour!

Basically
all rice wine, whether yellow or red are the same
and
made by the same method
except with some additions of ingredients

My late mother-in-law took pride in her 'Oint-U'

which is sweet and 'strong'

To the older generations
certain 'pantang' needs to be observed
while making the rice wine
but 
my late mother in law just told us to keep our mouth shut while making!

Using her basic method

I have come out with this easy and no fuss method

which I gladly share with you

First of all
There are 2 important rules:
1) to keep all utensils clean and thoroughly dry
2) to make sure the rice is cooked through and cooled overnight.

When completely cooled,
the ingredients are ready to be mixed together.

The glutinous rice already mixed with
blended red yeast
and
ground wine biscuits
ready to be put into the glass bottle

Done!

 Now wait for 26 days for it to mature.

Foochow Red Rice Wine

1 kg glutinous rice

100g red yeast

1 sweet wine biscuit

1 hot wine biscuit

Utensils

a glass bottle big enough for the ingredients, sun dried thoroughly

a piece of cloth to cover the mouth of the bottle

a string to secure the cloth

muslin cloth to strain the wine during harvesting

Method:

1. cook rice in rice cooker, add same amount of water as you would cook rice

2. scoop out fully cooked rice to cool overnight

3. blend red rice yeast

4. put wine biscuits in plastic bag & mash with a glass bottle

5. mix red yeast powder & wine biscuits with rice, in batches

6. put the well mixed batch into the bottle, pressing to the bottom of the bottle

7. continue until all the rice is finished

8. cover the mouth of the bottle with a piece of cloth, secure it with a string

9. cover the bottle loosely with the plastic cover

10. leave in a cool place for 26-30 days

To Harvest:

1) Make sure the top does not have any BLACK mold (poisonous!)

    Pour away all if you find any black spots!

    and start again...... making sure you soak the bottle, cleaned & sun it well 

    Cause: contamination during the process!

2) some white mold is OK, just scoop up the white spots & discard

11. This top layer is kept as 'chow' or residue

12. strain the rest of the mixture through a muslin cloth

13. keep the wine (liquid) in a bottle. Do not fill to the brim but 2" below

      to allow further fermentation

14.keep the residue in a jar & sprinkle some salt on top & store in fridge

Notes:

1. 100ml bottled water or (water boiled & cooled overnight) may be used to clean utensils 

     off the glutinous rice & yeast, and can be added to the lot for fermentation.

2. rice wine will remain red if store in fridge

3. to get a clear bottle of wine, drain the clear wine to a new bottle after it has settled for 

    a few days.

4. cloudy ones at the bottom of the bottle can be kept for cooking mee sua or sea shells

5. you can collect 1 litre of wine from this recipe