Just an update -- I finally got around to running my "rice" wash. As I said above I did the beer traditionally. I only made a small test batch using 5 lbs of rice and two bags of chinese yeast balls. Ended up with a half gallon of rice wine/beer. it took weeks (i think it was about 6 and I still had a good bunch of rice left over in the wash) I ran it twice, a stripping run and again a separation run. I ended up with ALOT of methanol. My stripping run gave me about 24 ounces at about 60%abv.. I took out 6 ounces in heads and ended up with about 16 ounces of hearts in my second run and landed at about 82%abv via my mini pot test still - making roughly 32 ounces at 40%. It has an almost thick tongue feel and a slight taste of licorice. I have no idea where to go with it at this point but its really interesting in flavor. It may be worth expanding in the future.
This was no grinding at all - cooked via a pressure cooker (but boiled would work just as well) and dumped into a sanatized bucket. Yeast balls were crushed and sprinkled over the top. Thats it.....
-Scott