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Alcoholic drinks from India

Sunda kanji (Tamil Nadu fermented rice drink)

Sunda kanji is a sour rice drink of the fishing communities on the Tamil Nadu coast. Parboiled rice is cooked, dried in the shade, mixed with a ground starter powder and four parts of water in a clay pot, and left for three days, then strained through a thin cloth. In the one study that measured it, the pH fell from 6.59 to 3.55 and 3.77 in the two versions.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks3.1 days – 3.2 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceOne laboratory batch (Muthusamy and Manokaran 2022) of 500 g rice, made two ways, with and without sesame oil. Household amounts vary.
Cleaned parboiled rice (puzhungal arisi)500 g[muthusamy2022]
Water for cooking1 part rice to 1.2 parts water[muthusamy2022]
Sesame oil, mixed into half of the cooked rice5 %The local makers the authors asked add it for aroma and taste[muthusamy2022]
Starter powder0.25 %Ground, shade-dried rice, kuthiraivali (described in the paper as horse gram) and siriyanangai leaves; the paper does not say what the 0.25 % is a share of[muthusamy2022]
Water for fermenting1 part rice to 4 parts water[muthusamy2022]
StarterThe starter powder is ground rice, kuthiraivali and siriyanangai leaves, but the paper says it did not work out the mix because it is sold in packets made by third parties.

Total time across the recorded steps: 3.1 days – 3.2 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a grain

What changes: Cleaned rice soaks in water for a few hours

Step 1 of 6
Soak the rice
Time
2–3 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
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

At a glance

Sunda kanji is a sour rice drink of the fishing communities on the Tamil Nadu coast. Parboiled rice is cooked, dried in the shade, mixed with a ground starter powder and four parts of water in a clay pot, and left for three days, then strained through a thin cloth. In the one study that measured it, the pH fell from 6.59 to 3.55 and 3.77 in the two versions. Made in 6 steps over 3.1 days – 3.2 days. The longest step, ferment, then strain through cloth, takes 3 days (Muthusamy T. and Manokaran A.P. 2022). Yeasts, counted at 36107 colonies on day 3 and confirmed as yeast by lactophenol cotton blue staining and microscopy does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3 daysReported[muthusamy2022]Ferment, then strain through cloth
Temperature140 °CReported[muthusamy2022]Cook the rice
AciditypH 3.6–3.8Measured[muthusamy2022]Keep and drink

What makes this one different

Sunda kanji is a thin mash, four parts water to one of cooked rice, set with a ground herb and grain starter powder in a clay pot and strained after about three days, so it is drunk as a sour gruel, with its alcohol reading still rising on day 10, rather than kept as a beer.

Related ferments

Safety

The authors note that a pH this low holds back harmful bacteria such as coliforms and Enterobacteriaceae, citing earlier work, and they judged the drink fit to drink only up to the third day.

History and sources

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

The study's authors say the coastal people of Tamil Nadu long made and kept their own foods, and that sunda kanji was a cheap drink with medicinal value which Tamil people drank, but that most people now drink other drinks instead.

  1. [muthusamy2022] Muthusamy T. and Manokaran A.P. 2022, Drawing and physico-chemical analysis of the traditional drink preparation method of coastal fishermen of Tamil Nadu, Shanlax International Journal of Tamil Research 6(3):145–150, doi:10.34293/tamil.v6i3.4531 (article in Tamil)paper
  2. [WP:Rice wine] Wikipedia, Rice wine, table of regional rice wines, which lists Sunda Kanji as a rice wine from Tamil Nadu (outline only)wiki
  3. [WP:List of Indian drinks] Wikipedia, List of Indian drinks, entry Sunda Kanji, made from rice fermented in earthen or mud pots covered with cloth and sold in Tamil Nadu (outline only)wiki