Yesterday I cooked up six cups of sweet rice, yeast and amylase balls, the size of the batch was twice my first batch. Today I took it up yet another notch, almost 40% higher than the second round. They're both 'dry' batches aka I haven't added enough water for things to be floating. That's a problem because the fermentation is going to be super slow. I like it that way though because it'll take a few days to get hold of local yeasties and let them do their thing before my super commercial powerful yeast takes over, which means the taste is going to be a lot more manageable.
I've already optimized the workflow so much within those three/four batches. First thing, soaking and washing rice becomes quicker. Second, I know now how to steam rice. First you need to poke holes in the rice so the steam is let through. You also need to start the water boiling only AFTER you put the rice in so it's slow. That way the rice is not all hard and nasty. Third, you don't always have to use hands to mix rice with yeast and amylase because things get a-messy. Fourth, the more rice I do in a batch, the easier the entire thing is. So scaling up should get me great gains, because the cooking, prep and the punching down times don't scale with the volume at all.
I should have between 3-5 litres of chhyang by the end of this, when I'm back in Seattle in 20 days from now. Gonna be littt. Still need to remember to add water to both the brews tomorrow before I leave though, otherwise the results might be...unexpected.
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