Help with Korean Rice wine. Soju

[doodles]

I spent years trying to buy Soju in the UK with no luck so I plan on trying to brew some.

Soju is a clear ever so slightly sweet 20%ish nondistilled rice wine. Online recipes incorrectly list illegal methods I will not use.

I remember the basic recipe from when I lived there.

Plan is the following

2lb of cooked glutenous rice with water added to make up to a gallon but keeping the water used in cooking.

High alcohol yeast (need suggestions)

Yeast nutrient

What ever amount of sugar the maths say I need to hit 20%

Problem item time I need Nuruk which is an enzyme that changes the starch in the rice to sugar. Would amylase do this?

Is this going to work or will I have problems? If so suggestions to solve them would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Moley]

From the outset, I have no idea what Soju is and haven't done a search yet.

However, I have done a few quite potent rice & raisin wines.

I haven't yet tried to push Young's Super Yeast Compound to its absolute limit but know that it will tolerate at least 18% abv, so I would suggest that you start with 325g sugar to the litre to give an OG around 1.120 and then feed the fermentation.

To explain, when the gravity gets down to 1.000 add another 30g sugar per litre (130g to the gallon) to take it back up to 1.010, and repeat that until your yeasties quit. That way you should never end up with a sickly sweet wine.

I would agree with the amylase but can't quantify how much sugar that might convert, which is why I've played safe with the OG above.

 

[luckyeddie]

Is glutenous rice the short-grain pudding rice?

I've got a pound of that in the cupboard, some brewing sugar, amylase, a spare demijohn and some young's wine yeast - and I'm going on hollybobs tomorrow. I might sling something together tonight and just see what happens.

 

[Eradite]

Hi,

I know absolutely nothing about this, but I have seen this on the wyeast website.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/he_s_yeaststra ... .cfm?ID=43


A little internet searching came up with this (Could not see anything UK based).

http://www.organic-cultures.com/other_t ... oji_spores



Hopes this helps, looks interesting!

 

[doodles]

Is glutenous rice the short-grain pudding rice?

I've got a pound of that in the cupboard, some brewing sugar, amylase, a spare demijohn and some young's wine yeast - and I'm going on hollybobs tomorrow. I might sling something together tonight and just see what happens.

Yes pretty much the same stuff. I have most of the ingredients too just need to grab some more yeast and a demijohn when I get a chance.

 

[Anbhás]

I would you 1.5 kg of white sugar and 2 tsps of yeast. I recently got cider to about 18-20% but then the apple juice had sugar in it too so if I was feeling dangerous, 2kg sugar. However I have never heard of this rice wine and havn't done any research on it yet. So I wouldn't trust me fully.

 

[SamWise72]

Real glutinous rice (which is not quite the same as pudding rice, is available at your local chinese supermarket. So are many spices you might use in brewing (cloves, cinammon, coriander) MUCH cheaper than at the supemarket (not to mention lots of tasty food)

 

[chef2323]

Sam is right about the Rice

 

[doodles]

My rice is from the chinese supermarket but if someone doesn't have near them then the cheapest short grain rice they can find will probably do the job.

Thanks to everyone that has helped and contributed. I can't wait to have a nice glass of the stuff I used to drink in the mountains of Korea back in 2002 : : : . Just hope it doesn't taste like the cheap soju they sell in most small restaurants there :sick:

 

[doodles]

Got a 5 gallon batch going well at the moment but with one small problem. The high level of gluten is giving me a constant hydrometer reading. It is still fermenting as it's bubbling well but the reading isn't going down. Is there anyway of working out how much sugar is left apart from tasting it every few days?