Step 1: Soaking

Soak moderate amount of polished round-grained rice and sticky rice in clear water, and make sure that all the rice grains are soaked in water. If it’s in the Spring or Summer, when the water temperature is above 25 degrees centigrade, you should soak the rice for 3 days. If it’s in the autumn or winter, you should soak the rice for 6 days. Be reminded that you should change the water daily.

Step 2: Washing

Get the rice out of the container (from Step 1) and place it into a Taoji (a traditional Chinese kitchen ware made of thin bamboo strips and often used in China’s southern provinces). Wash the rice with clear water and remove all of its peculiar smells (if any).

Step 3: Grinding

Use a stone mill to grind the rice into powder. When you grind it, you put a moderate amount of water into it, so that the rice powder will be fine and smooth.

Step 4: Squeezing

Put the rice powder into a bag and place the bag under a plank, squeeze it hard and dehydrate the rice powder. A general production standard for this step is that the water content in the rice is less than 45 pct after the squeezing.

Step 5: Mixing

Put some vinasse and white sugar (or brown sugar and shop fat, according to personal preference) in a pot and melt them all. And then, mix them with the rice powder from Step 4, according to a certain ratio. You want to get a starch-like mush after this step.

Step 6: Placing

Put some reed leef or lotus leaf onto a Chuilong (something also made of bamboo and function as a food steamer) nice and neat, and put the rice power from Step 5 on top, make sure that the surface of the rice powder is smooth and flat.

Step 7: Fermentation

Place the many Chuilongs onto a stove and heat it mildly. Keep the temperature at 30 to 40 degrees centigrade for at least 3 hours, so that the microorganisms in the vinasse get a full fermentation. Getting the right temperature is the key to this step. After a nice fermentation, the surface of the rice powder will be smooth and without any flaws.

Step 8: Steaming

Steam the rice powder from Step 7 until it is completed cooked. The Fa Gao should be bright and clean on the surface, white-colored and without any yellow dots.

Step 9: Fresh from oven

Getting the Fa Gao out of the Chuilong and be careful.

Step 10: Cooling

Place the Fa Gao onto a shelf and let it cool down. Keep its surroundings tidy and clean, avoid any bugs or ugly smells.

Step 11: Packing

There are two types of packing: vacuum packing and non-vacuum packing. The package itself should be sterilized and disinfected in the first place. And when you pack the Fa Gao, don't break its surface or edges.

Step 12: Sterilizing

Sterilize the vacuum-packed Fa Gao with temperatures at 115 to 121 degrees centigrade, lasting 10 to 15 minutes. If it's Pasteurization, the temperature should be at 85 to 95 degrees centigrade, and lasting 20 to 30 minutes.

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