Greg and Jon discuss two cooking projects that Greg reserves for summer: levain breads (all-sourdough, with no other added yeast), and fermented rice and/or rice wine. In both projects, temperature is key to the fermentation process. When preparing levain bread, Greg prefers a 73 - 75 degree F kitchen and ingredients whose temperature has been carefully adjusted to create at 78 degree F dough.
Greg's ingredients for rice wine include glutinous rice and a rice wine yeast ball (rice flour embedded with dried microbes, bacteria, fungi and yeast). In the fermentation process, molds from the wine yeast ball break the rice's starches down into sugars, and yeast turns the sugars into alcohol. The mixture is kept at 100 degrees F for 2-5 days, depending on whether your goal is fermented rice - an intermediate step that, according to Greg, is its own reward - or rice wine, in which nearly all the rice has been fermented into wine.
(Broadcast: The Food Guys, 9/7/14)