Harvesting the wine is essentially separating the lees and the wine in the most effective ways. Since this is only a small volume and DIY at home, most effective way may not be the easiest or most productive way. But it works:Scoop the top floating bunch out first and set aside; pour out the more liquid portion into the sieve. You can lift up the sieve and swirl/gyrating it slowly to drain out the wine quicker. And no, you must not leave it alone to drain by itself because the lees are very dense and gummy, and will block the sieve. By...

Here are the basic utensils you'd need: a big/deep pot, a sieve, a big pale, and 1 or 2 dispensers. - The pot is to both collect the wine and also to boil it. (more later)- The sieve is, naturally, to filter off the lees from the wine. I prefer this metal bowl type over any kind of cloth/plastic types.- The pale is to collect running water to cool down the wine after pastuering/heating it.- And last but not least, the dispensers. You could leave the wine in the same deep pot and scoop out the wine later, but I find dispensers...

Finally - 30 days later.Smell good - sweet and strong, a bit of spice and a lot of kick!

The rice mesh are now much softer, compressed, and still floating. Give it a one last good stir again to loosen them up for better and more even fermentation. I scoop out a small portion to sample, yes, again. The wine is now stronger, a little spicy, and still very sweet. I think the alcohol content is probably around 3-5% level at this stage... but already got Kick!! Nice! See you in 2 weeks time!

The wine is now pinkish red because of the red yeast rice powder and the glutinous rice dissolved into milky white powdery residue as the results of fermentation. At this stage, it taste more like sweet cocktail than strong spirits. And it smell really good - full fragrance of the glutinous rice and a tint of fruity sweetness. Cheers / YamSeng!!!