Chinese Red wine making 10/5/2020
I attempted to make red wine a few years ago. I failed a few times before I knew to make it
successfully finally. To make the wine
successfully meaning that there is no white fungus grown on top of the mixture
of rice yeast and water. I made it.
I had stopped making red wine for years. Now my interest in making red wine grows
because of the inspiration from my younger sister. She makes Chinese red wine every now and then
for my mother as an ingredient for cooking.
My mother drinks a small cup or two of red wine a day for health
reason. My sisters yamsam with her
sometimes. I never like to drink wine of
any nature. I only use Chinese red wine
as an ingredient to kill the smell of fish or enhance the taste of chicken
soup.
My youngest sister who demonstrated
Chinese red wine weeks ago raised my insterest in Chinese wine making again. We have found easier ways to make Chinese red
wine /CRW.
First, we boil the water beforehand and let it cool
down. Last time, before an aunt told my
mother so. She boiled the wine on the
stove after the process of fermentation for a period of 20-30 days and then
filtering the fermented mixture with cloth before boiling the wine. Now, I cook a pot of glutinuous rice, usually
5 cups. I do not make the amount of 10
kilogrammes like my sister does and two kilogrammes of red yeast rice together
with 3 pieces of yeast rice booster. She
grinds the red yeast rice and red yeast rice booster together.
Well, when the glutinuous rice is cool, I put it in big
bottles and then add in water and red yeast rice. As far as proportion of each ingredient is
concerned, I only do rough calculation.
I don’t stick to any strict measurement.
Thus the wine that I made on 5/5/2020 was on trial
basis. I cooked 5 cups of glutinuous
rice and left it cool down totally and then put it in two big glass bottles
before I added in red yeast rice and cool water which was just enough to cover
the mixture as I wanted my red wine to be thick enough. Then I stirred the mixture thorough using a
pair of chopstick. One of the bottles, I
also added a ball of yeast rice enhancer/booster. The
lids of the bottles should be loosely closed as the mixture will go through the
process of fermentation which will give out air.
Yes, I am looking forwards to having fully fermented wine. For filtering, i use cake-making sieve instead of cloth/baby napkin to separate wine from the fermented wine paste. I can use wine paste for various cooking purposes. I can use it to cook duck or pork in red wine paste. I can even cook long beans in red wine paste. Some people also use it to make buns. Making Chinese red wine is really
interesting. Would you like to try it?
