Homemade Chinese Fermented Rice 自製甜酒釀
One of the special traditional foods that my grandma made was Homemade Chinese Fermented Rice, also known as Jiu Niang or 甜酒釀, a fresh, sweet and slighty winey fermented rice with a porridge like texture. Its taste is ricey with a slightly sake like flavor while still really fresh and sweet tasting with the rice grains soft and almost dissolved in the clear sweet broth of the fermentation.
- Prep time
- 3 min
- Cook time
- 30 min
- Yield
- 6 servings
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
Quantities are shown as originally provided.
- 4 cups glutinous rice 糯米, 500g
- 1 rice yeast ball 上海酒餅丸, 10-15g
- 1/2 cup boiled water, cooled to room temperature
Instructions
- 1
Soak rice 4-5 hours or overnight.
- 2
Drain and rinse a couple of times until the rinsed off water is pretty clear.
- 3
Drain off water and then add fresh water to just cover the rice.
- 4
Steam over high heat for 30-40 mins until rice is completely cooked. Let cool completely.
- 5
Crush the yeast ball to powder.
- 6
Put cooked rice, yeast ball powder and around 1/2 cup cool boiled water into a sterilized mixing bowl and use a sterilised utensil to mix completely, loosening the rice grains to separate them as much as possible. You can use your hand here too to mix, just be sure to clean and dry your hands really well before mixing.
- 7
Pour into your sterilized fermenting jar. If using a non transparent jar, use a sterilized utensil like a chopstick to poke a finger sized hole into the center of the rice all the way to the bottom.
- 8
Cover the jar, but leave a small gap so that fermenting gases can escape.
- 9
Place in the warmest place for 2-5 days, around 86º-95ºF or 30º-35ºC.
- 10
The fermentation is done when rice is very wet and liquidy and moves around freely when you gently shake the jar. If you have a hole, the fermentation liquid should fill the hole up. If you can see into the sides of your jar, there should be 1 1/2 to 2 inches of liquid at the bottom of the jar. The texture of the fermented rice should be like a thick rice congee or porridge and the taste should be very sweet and fresh, ricey and slightly alcoholic.
- 11
Stir the fermented rice with clean utensil and store in the fridge for up to a month. To serve, use clean utensil to spoon from jar.