Almost all families in the Hakka area make red rice wine. To make red rice wine, soak red rice and glutinous rice in a large water tank, wash them out, then drain them and pour them into a rice steamer. Steamed into rice. Move the rice steamer to the large pottery bowl, pour half a bucket of cool water to cool down the rice, then put the rice in the rice steamer into the wine vat, and when the temperature drops to about 20 degrees, mix in the wine cakes evenly. fermented yeast (made from rice bran, Chinese medicine asarum, etc.), stir it repeatedly, then flatten the rice, dig a small well from the center of the rice, cover the cylinder lid, and transfer it to a bamboo basket with straw. , to facilitate heat preservation and fermentation. The temperature is high in summer. After 24 hours, when the cylinder cover is opened, fragrant wine will gush out from the small well, which is called red rice wine. Use a ladle to turn over the lees, and then cover the cylinder lid. However, it should not be too tight and a hole must be left for the air to escape, otherwise the wine will easily become sour. After 7 to 15 days, pour the lees into the wine basket and squeeze out the wine. Then, put the wine liquid into the wine jar, seal the mouth of the jar, and send it to the greenhouse to boil with steam. This was the rice wine sold in shops at that time. The process of making home-made rice wine is the same as above, but the quantity is smaller. It is rare to brew 4 to 6 buckets of rice at a time. In addition, men are the masters of brewing in workshops (i.e. hotels), while home brewing is mostly operated by women.
There are two essentials to master in brewing red rice wine. The first is that the wine and cakes should be good. It is said that the wine cake used by the Hakka people originated from the She people. In the past, the main ingredient of She people's wine cakes was an herb called wine cake grass. Sprinkling it in could turn rice into wine. To this day, there are still She people who mix leftover rice, whether red rice or japonica rice, with wine cakes and grass to make wine and drink it. The Hakka people learned this technology from the She people and made wine and cakes for sale. It may not be noticed by the society at first, but after long-term practice and continuous improvement by some individuals, it becomes a secret recipe passed down from family to family, and it is not widely spread. For example, the Hakka Huaitu wine cake is a raw material for brewing specialty red rice wine and is extremely popular, but the secret of making this wine cake has become a patent of the Huaitu people. It can be seen from this that the wine culture of the She people has a significant influence on the wine culture of the Hakkas. The second is that the water quality must be good, and high-quality spring water must be used, that is, sweet spring water emerging from the ground, commonly known as well water. Most of the drinking water in cities and towns today is tap water. The tap water contains bleaching powder and has a strange taste, and there are not many wells left. So when making wine, people use groundwater pumped out by water pumps. The effect is also good. If tap water is used, it will not only lose its sweetness. It has a watery taste, and if not done well, it can easily make the wine taste sour. The above two essentials are indispensable. Otherwise, a jar of wine will turn into a jar of vinegar.