1868 The complete Practical Distiller

THE COMPLETE PRACTICAL DISTILLER,

124

AKRACK, OR SPIRITS OP RICE.

Rice contains no sugar, and its composition appears to b^ essentially farinaceous. Carolina rice contains from 83 to 85 per cent, of its weight of fecula, or starch. To produce arrach ftom pure rice, it would be necessary to malt the latter, and, for this purpose, to submit it to all the operations connected with malting; that is, it should be steeped, malted, dried, and ground into flour. The only difi'erence that would exist between this process and that of malting grain would be, that rice requires much more time to be sufficiently steeped and malted. As for the rest of the operations, they are exactly the same. Rice, being thus brought to the state of ground malt, may undergo a very good spirituous fermentation, whether it be mashed and fermented in the state of lob, or whether its farinaceous principles be extracted by means of the double-bottomed tub. The distiller might adopt either of those two methods, according as he wishes to distil either heavy matter or such as is exempt from sediment. As to the method of fermenting rice prepared by either of those two processes, it is absolutely the same as in the fermentation of corn. The mashiug requires the same temperature — the quan- tity of water made use of has the same influence over the spirituous produce ; the only difi'erence between the fer- mentable properties of rice and those of other corn is in the impossibility of causing it to ferment by solely pre- paring it by mashing. However, it might be sufficient