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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from Sabah, Malaysia

Lihing / tapai (Sabah rice wine)lihing

Lihing is the clear, sweet rice wine of the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut of Sabah, the best known kind of tapai. Steamed glutinous rice is mixed with a dry starter called sasad and kept closed for about four weeks with no added water, while the liquid gathers in the rice. The wine is then filtered and bottled; tapai in the wider sense is drunk from the jar with the rice. Made in 5 steps over 28 days. The longest step, close in a jar and ferment with no water, takes 28 days (Koay M. 2023). Rhizopus and Saccharomycopsis and Mucor and Wickerhamomyces do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step28 daysReported[koay2023][palaniveloo2013]Close in a jar and ferment with no water
Temperature30 °CReported[koay2023]Cool the rice and mix in the starter
AciditypH 3.6–3.8Measured[koay2023]Close in a jar and ferment with no water

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe tested batch method of Koay 2023, based on local practice; the starter rate is a share of the cooked rice weight. No water is added.
Glutinous rice · Washed, soaked 30 min, cooked and cooled to 30 °C[koay2023]
3.8 % of the rice weight (w/w)Sasad, ground · Starter cakes of rice flour with plants such as chilli, garlic, ginger, pepper or tobacco[koay2023]
Starterkoji/qu/mold-starter: sasad (ragi), a dried cake of rice flour and plants

Total time across the recorded steps: 28 days

Start
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What changes: Rice flour and plants are shaped into cakes, dusted with old starter and sun-dried

Step 1 of 5
Make the sasad starter
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Rhizopus
Mucor
W. alcoholproducing
Yeasts
Moulds

Rice flour is mixed with plant material and water, shaped into flat cakes or balls, coated with powdered sasad from an earlier batch, fermented briefly and sun-dried. Starters are sold as sweet, bitter-sweet or bitter. Output: dry starter cakes.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Lihing is made only from glutinous rice, ferments for about four weeks and is filtered into bottles. Tapai, the collective name, can be made from non-glutinous or brown rice in about two weeks and is served cloudy from the jar with its rice.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tapai (cloudy jar wine)Non-glutinous or brown rice, about two weeks, served from the tajau with its rice.
  • Wine from ordinary riceIn one study, common rice gave half the volume of glutinous rice but more alcohol (9.96– 12.53 %), with pH 4.3–4.7.
  • Kinomulok and linutauKinomulok is the fermented rice left after the wine is drawn off; linutau is a water extract of it.
  • Montoku (talak)The wine must, distilled.

Made the lihing / tapai way

Safety

No safety limits specific to lihing were found. Sasad starters carry opportunistic contaminants such as Kodamaea, so starters with defined microbes are recommended.

Hazards the sources name: Kodamaea ohmeri (possible opportunistic fungal pathogen, 1.44 % of the fungi in one sasad).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Tapai is drunk by the Kadazan-Dusun and Murut at the harvest festival. Earlier accounts list several ways to drink it, from the clear lihing to sipping tapai through a thin bamboo straw from a jar topped up with water.

  1. [koay2023] Koay M. 2023, Identification of microbial communities in rice wine traditional starter (sasad) and fermentation of rice wines, MSc thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sabahpaper
  2. [palaniveloo2013] Palaniveloo K., Vairappan C.S. 2013, Biochemical properties of rice wine produced from three different starter cultures, Journal of Tropical Biology and Conservation 10 (abstract)paper
  3. [chiang2008] Chiang Y.W. 2008, Isolation and identification of microflora involved in tapai, a Sabah's fermented alcoholic beverage, thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (abstract)paper
  4. [WP:Tapai] Wikipedia, Tapai (outline only)wiki