Can I use bubod for fruit wine making? Hmm… Lets do some analysis.

Here is a simple tapuy making procedure.

1) Boil balatinaw (a variety of red rice) in a large wok until cooked.
2) Cool and arrange in a wooven bamboo tray, bilao.
3) Sprinkle with powdered bubod. Cover with fresh banana leaves and store for three days or until mold growth is observed.
4) Transfer it to earthen jar. Cover. Store for 20 days.
5) Harvest the liquid as tapuy and the fermented rice as lepeg.

The bubod was invented by our ancestors for the sole purpose of making wine out of rice. Perhaps the discovery was accidental. Original tapuy are made of balatinaw red rice. Due to scarcity of this red rice, a short gluntenous rice  is widely used as replacement.

Tapuy making is a two process fermentation. First is the conversion of complex carbohydrates to simple sugars. It is carried out by the mold koji or Aspergillus oryzae. The next step is fermentation of sugar to alcohol. The responsible microorganism for this second step is yeast of Saccharomyces species.

The procedure above directed to add powdered bubod to freshly cooked rice – the first fermentation stage which needs Aspergillus oryzae. No direction to add yeast culture in second stage – storing in earthen jar for 20 days. From this, we can assume that both Aspergillus and Saccharomyces are present in bubod.

Then, bubod can be used in fruit wine making. The yeast will be active while the mold will become dormant. The conditions of wine making is not favorable for mold growth.