As we all know, glutinous rice is a kind of rice with better viscosity than ordinary rice. In the south, people will make many cakes with glutinous rice, such as green balls, glutinous rice cakes and sweet rice wine. Do you know what Koji is? I didn't know that before. I remember when I was a child, my mother wanted to make sweet rice wine and asked me to buy koji in a small shop. I don't know what it is, so my boss gave me a small white ball to take home.
Later, I learned that this little white ball is distiller's yeast, and sweet rice wine can be made by adding it to glutinous rice. Besides buying koji, we can also make our own koji. The raw materials are simple. We can pick up a handful of weeds by the roadside to make wine koji.
The weed used here is Polygonum hydropiper, which is very common in rural areas and there are many on the roadside. Its stem is reddish, and there will be inflorescences at the top of branches. There will be seeds when the flowers bloom, and the seeds are reddish. Many seeds are piled up in spikes, just like foxtail.
There are two kinds of Polygonum hydropiper, one is called Polygonum hydropiper growing by the roadside, and the other is called Polygonum hydropiper growing by the water. Polygonum hydropiper is usually used to feed pigs. Polygonum hydropiper is much more useful. Polygonum hydropiper is spicy and it will be difficult to harvest it. Can be used for fishing and making distiller's yeast.
First, prepare the raw materials for making koji, such as stem rice, Polygonum hydropiper, orange leaves, bay leaves, lentil leaves, bamboo leaves, barnyard grass, verbena and so on. 500 grams of stem rice, 50 grams of spicy grass and 25 grams of other materials.
Soak the stem rice in clear water for a few hours first. If you have rice noodles at home, you will save more time. If not, use stem rice. Pick up other kinds of grass, remove impurities first, and then rinse it with detergent several times.
Putting everything in a stone mortar is very common in rural areas in the south. Generally, during the Chinese New Year, people will pound glutinous rice with this mortar, so that they can make Ciba. After all the raw materials are put in, they are all smashed into powder.
The light green powder finally came out. If the powder is loose, you can add a little water. When adding water, add it bit by bit, as long as you can knead the powder into a ball. Knead all the powder into a ball, put it in a dustpan (a bamboo weaving tool used to dry things), then prepare a small bowl, put some old distillers' yeast in the bowl, pound it into powder with a rolling pin, and then sprinkle it on the distillers' yeast balls in the dustpan.
Shake the dustpan, let the curved ball roll up, and evenly dip it in the old curved powder, which will make it easier to ferment. Prepare a cool place. You can spread dry straw on the bottom first, then put the dustpan on it, cover it with a layer of clean gauze, and then cover it with dry straw. After two days of fermentation, many white hyphae will grow on the curved ball, and you can smell a thick bouquet.
Shake the dustpan again and take it outside to dry. Don't expose it to the sun. You can air it for a while in the morning and evening, which will dry the koji. After drying in the sun for about two days, our liqueur koji will be ready, so we can put it in a bag and take it out when making liqueur in the future.
Even if you only use Polygonum hydropiper grass, you can make distiller's yeast. The production method is similar, that is, you can remove other raw materials, and the vine veins of honeysuckle can also be used to make liqueur yeast.
Sun-dry the vines of honeysuckle, then boil the water, filter the boiled water and add it to the stem rice flour, so that it can be kneaded into curved balls and then fermented in a cool place. After drying, it is a successful starter ball. When it is used, it can be taken out, crushed and mixed with glutinous rice.
It's convenient to make liqueur now. You can make koji with your own materials, sell koji outside, and sell bagged koji powder in the supermarket.
Dear readers and friends, have you learned to make koji with spicy peppers?