Little Attempt – Tapai Ubi Kayu

191 days ago

Well, this is just a little test. I wondered to see whether I should boil the tapioca or steam it. From what I read, if you steam the tapoica, you will get a slightly dry Tapai Ubi Kayu. However if you boil the Tapioca, you might get a very mushy result. So I start this little experiment to see which will be the one I like. Anyway, this is a rush job, you can see the small pieces of the Wine Biscuit which have not been properly pounded into a powder. So sorry about that. But it should work, since all we need is the mould in that Wine Biscuit to start converting the starch in the tapioca to sugar and then for the yeast to convert those sugars into alcohol. At the end it will be Tapai Ubi Kayu! Fermented Tapioca – sweet with a hint of alcohol. The one I had which my mother brought back home the other day was heavenly. I can’t stop thinking of it since the day I ate them. Of course I couldn’t just go to the stall and ask the lady how she did it but there is nothing wrong with experimenting. And my of my readers is sending me some Ragi (thanks!), so I will be doing this for real some time soon.

Who knows, some day Tapai Ubi Kayu might be one of my staple snacks – definitely healthier than the rest of those other fried snacks I have been consuming. And that small amount of alcohol isn’t going to do any harm to you lah.

Tapioca with the wine biscuit. Again, this was a rush job, so I didn’t pound the biscuit properly. You will see some big chunks still in there. As I said, it should not affect the end result of the little experiment.

Another view. The small amount of vapour is because the tapioca is slightly warm. Don’t worry, it is cool enough to touch so it will not kill off the mould or the yeast.

All kept in a bottle. Hope it will turn out okay. The next morning, I started to smell something sweet already, so that is a good sign that the mould is working (converting the starch to sugar). Now it would be the time for the yeast to start fermenting those sugars to alcohol. Hope it will turn out moist the way I like it. Will keep you guys updated soon.

Update 16-11-2011: Not too sure whether I did it right but I did taste the alcohol, so the wine biscuit did its job. However it wasn’t sweet at all. At least I didn’t taste any hint of sweetness in the Tapai. A pool of alcohol was formed on the bottom, so there should be some starch to sugar conversion and alcohol conversion going on. Maybe I need to add a little sugar to it before fermentation. Well, I will be making another attempt once I get the Ragi from one of my readers. Hopefully it will turn out better.

Happenings