Rice wine, often known as sake in Japan, is an alcoholic beverage constituted of fermented rice. It’s sometimes brewed utilizing a course of that entails a number of levels of fermentation and may vary in power from about 14% to twenty% alcohol by quantity. Rice wine has an extended historical past in East Asia, with proof of its manufacturing relationship again to the Neolithic interval. It’s believed to have originated in China and was later launched to Japan and Korea, the place it grew to become a staple beverage.
Rice wine is made utilizing a posh course of that entails a number of levels of fermentation. The primary stage entails soaking the rice in water after which steaming it. The steamed rice is then cooled and inoculated with a yeast starter tradition. The yeast converts the sugars within the rice into alcohol, carbon dioxide, and different byproducts. The fermentation course of sometimes takes about two weeks.