Flavour characteristics of rice wine fermented with mixed starter by moulds and yeast strains

Summary Mixed starter of pure mould and yeast was designed to circument the problem of flavour characteristics in rice wine. The result underlined that the mixed starter (Q7) made by simultaneous inoculation of Rhizopus oryzae , Saccharomyces cerevisiae , Wickerhamomyces anomalus and Candida glabrata had the highest contents of α‐amylase (8.02 ± 0.96 U/g) and sensory scoring (92.05 ± 2.24), presenting relatively strong flower‐aroma, wine‐aroma, Qu‐aroma and rice‐aroma. Meanwhile, the total concentration of flavour compounds in rice wine (RQ, 125.828 mg L −1 ) obtained from rice fermentation using Q7 were better than the commercially available rice wine (SS, 125.828 mg L −1 ). The E‐nose analysis showed that the flavour components in RQ differed dramatically from SS. The E‐tongue results indicated that the sourness, sweetness and umami aftertaste were greatly higher in RQ, and the bitterness and astringency are lower compared with SS. This study provided a method to improve the flavour and quality of rice wine.