Sunday, September 20, 2009

Homemade Chinese red wine 自制红酒

Ok I need to clarify that this is not a wine only for consumption during confinement. In fact red wine chicken 红酒鸡 or red wine meesua 红酒面线 are two of the famous dishes that use red wine as the soup base.

Ingredients:
600g yellow raisins (dried grapes)
600g ice sugar 冰糖 or brown sugar (from sugar cane)
2.52L water
5 wine biscuit 酒饼 (dry them for two days before using)
1 glass jar (can fill about 4L liquids)


I got these two glass containers from my in laws. The above ingredients will produce about 3L wine but it needs some space to raise during fermentation. Make sure it covers well.


Step one: Boil water with all the sugars. Once boiling, pour in raisins and let them boil for one more minute then turn off the fire. Put them aside and let them chill for at least 12 hours or overnight.


Step 2: Use a mortar and pestle to crush the dried wine biscuit. Pour the crushed powder into the glass container.


Step 3: Pour the chilled cooked combination into the glass container. Stir it so that the wine biscuit mixed well with the others. Make sure you leave some space in the glass container as the wine slowly raise during fermentation.


Seal the glass jar finely. Each of my glass jar has an elastic, if not try seal with a piece of cloth. Store it somewhere (not directly expose to heat) for 3 months.


Now fingers crossed for the result!

18 comments:

  1. So what is wine biscuits? Never seen this before. What is this wine for? Is it for the wind? My friend recommended me to drink dried dates with dried longan with rock sugar during my confinement. It supposed to recharge you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I translated it from Chinese, don't know how it is called in English. It is one kind of yeast to make alcohol. This wine usually serve to cook confinement food. I don't know whether it is for the wind or not. I heard about dried dates tea but not share about longan.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dried dates with rock sugar is also good to drink during pregnancy. My mom made me drink it at least twice a week (it shd be everyday but I didn't like the taste). Also, if you can get young coconut juice to drink during your last 2 - 3 months, it helps with the labor!
    To ensure you have a lot of milk later for your baby, drink Mama's milk (milk for pregnant women). In Malaysia I drank Enfamama everyday.

    Just in case you need to make more milk after baby comes, stock up on fenugreek seeds! I found these seeds more effective than the green papaya & kampung chicken soup as the effect for the soup only lasted 2 days then I had to remake the soup! With the seeds, after 12 hours I woke up with my shirt all wet with milk!!!!! (baby boys drink a lot more than baby girls, fyi)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Roni,

    Where did you get the fenugreek seeds and how do you cook it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi. Do you think that is posible to make apple wine by using apple juice and wine biscuits??

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi felix,

    I'm sorry I'm not sure about this. Maybe you can ask The cooking ninja on her foodblog www.cookingninja.com.

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  8. hi, thank for the infor. but beside that i wana ask, the yeast that i use when i crush it, i can see chunky thing i dono wat is that. it seem like tinny piece of oat , when i put for fermentation, after few day, it bubble a lot and the chunky thing turn to spongy thing. and the fermentation water got sour smell.. i think that not normal rite?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi felix,

    Sorry I don't have an answer for you as when I crush the yeast there were not such thing. Please ask someone else. Good luck.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I came across your blog while searching for info on M'sian birth certs. Using your recipe, I tried making red wine for my own confinement. I noticed that you recipe mentioned 5 wine biscuits, but in your picture, I see 10 pieces of biscuits. May I ask which is the correct amount? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi,

    That's bcos I made 2 jars of red wine so everything was x2.
    If you want to make only one jar please use only 5 wine biscuits.

    Good luck

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm using 2L bottles, and using your recipe, I managed to fill two bottles though they are only more than half full. Afer a week or so, I checked on it, and it doesn't smell like fermentation has started. But I guess I need to be more patient? :-P

    ReplyDelete
  13. One of my jars broke after 4 days so I think the fermentation did start. I didn't open it to check on the smell though so I don't know when the fermentation actually started. Good luck.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I checked on it again recently and what difference a few days made. It's starting to smell like wine, I think. Thanks so much for your recipe and input.

    Btw, I do enjoy reading your blog. It's quite insightful. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  15. After 1 week, I found that my raisin wine upper got a layer. Is it ferment turn bad?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The upper layer is like light green color. Is it like tht?

      Delete
    2. Hi Carmenlai,

      I made this 4 years ago, sorry I don't remember it well now.
      I did remember that after several there were something on the upper layer, but couldn't tell for sure. Sorry.

      Good luck and I hope everything will turn out well.

      Delete
  16. excellent where can i buy wine biscuit i live in germany thanks

    ReplyDelete