At this point the rice has turned into a slightly rubbery, gooey mass and a lot of the rice wine was actually inside it. Each container gave me 2 solid cups of rice wine. The wine is milk white because there are lots of tiny rice particles in there. While you can wait until the solids sink to the bottom, we tried both mixed. I can definitely tell that this is 20+% ABV! I don't quite understand how people can drink this stuff by the cup (which is pretty much what I read on the forum threads where I got most of the information). We prefer to sip alcoholic beverages for the taste and not to get drunk. But hey, your mileage may vary after all.
The wine is quite sweet, but fortunately not cloyingly so, and there is a strong alcoholic taste to it. I also detected a hint of plum. The Chinese and Vietnamese yeast balls both had different end results, with Nicki preferring the Chinese variety slightly. As I had a sinus headache at the time of sampling, thanks to the ever changing weather here, I'm still not quite sure which one I like best.
At this point both mason jars have been sitting in the fridge overnight and there was already a slight build up of CO2. I decided to pasteurize both jars this morning to stop the fermentation and to prevent these from turning into rice vinegar. While we could definitely use the vinegar in cooking, that wasn't entirely the point of the experiment!