Home-made Wine

Shirley has skills envied by many.

She is good at all sorts of cuisines; English, Chinese and some Malay ones I believe.

Why? Because she was once a Domestic Science teacher. The cliche once a teacher, always a teacher cannot be more true here.

So today she graciously offered to pass down her skills in wine making ; to be more precise; Chinese wine. It's a rare opportunity and to plough through the massive traffic jam is only a small matter. The non-working ladies gathered eagerly to see her in action.

Here it goes.

The process is simple.

To get about 4 bottle of this white rice wine, the following ingredients are needed.

3 kg of glutinous rice ; steamed and cooled before use. 

100 gm of red rice or "hong kok" if a red hue is preferred; often the red rice residue formed through the fermentation process is an added flavour to cuisines.

However this is optional.

We did not use this for the recipe this morning.

Shirley has a large glass container with cover which she sterilised to keep bacteria at bay for successful fermentation. You can get it at PJ Old Town.She also has a piece of plain muslin cloth and sewed a muslin bag for use later.

Besides preparing the steamed glutinous rice, get 7 pieces of sweet wine biscuits or  often known as 'chow peng' and 2 pieces of 'lat chow peng'. The sweet one is round in shape whereas the other one is in  a cylindrical shape. Go to any Chinese medicinal hall and they will be able to entertain you.

Crush the wine biscuits into fine particles with a hammer. When finely crushed, it is ready for use.

Next, loosen the steamed glutinous rice and the expert used a plastic bag to lay the rice in the container. When the first layer is done , add a spoonful or two of the crushed wine biscuits.

After adding the biscuits, pile up another layer of glutinous rice followed by spoonfuls of the wine biscuits. If you had wanted to use the red rice, sprinkle over the steamed rice layer by layer too.

Shirley's deft fingers very quickly laid the steamed rice and wine biscuits layer by layer and soon the glass container is now filled till 3/4 full.

See, beautifully and professionally done.

The scientific explanation is connected to the fermentation process of the glutinous rice which then produced the wine after a period of time. 

The muslin cloth is placed over the opening and the cover is lightly put over it at an angle which allows air to circulate in the glass. It will be in this position for 7 days. On the seventh day, give 3 big hurls of turning the mixture which by now is softened. Then carefully spread the muslin bag over the container for another 28 days. Do not move the glass container but let the mixture brew at the same spot over the span of time.

The neat and meticulous cook has even prepared a tube ready to transfer the fermented wine from the glass container to smaller bottles for use and keep. She sees to the minutest details.

When allowing fermentation to take place, it best to choose a cool and shady room. Maybe it is old folks tales, but a careless attitude and wrong handling of the process may not see to a successful harvest. Therefore, I wish you all the best for a good harvest when you try this recipe.

Have fun and thank you Shirley for sharing.

If you need to carry out confinement duties overseas, this is surely a god-sent recipe,