What are you fermenting today?

[dragonlaurel]

...a red miso, a sweet miso, miso soup, coconut chutney, capers, Japanese Nuka Bran Pickles...

But wait, there's more!!

Wild fermentation sounds great How do you make miso? It's one of my comfort foods. Got my gut working again after one of the worst stomach bugs ever. I like keeping it around.

 

[big brown horse]

Book says...

Though miso is classically made with soybeans, it can be made with any legume or combination of legumes. I've made miso using chickpeas, lima beans, black turtle beans, split peas, lentils, black eyed peas, kidney beans, adzuki beans and more. The distinctive color and flavor of each bean carries over into the miso it produces. Use what is abundantly available to you, and be bold in your fermentation experimentation!

Red Miso

Time frame: 1 year or more

Equipment:
Ceramic crock or food grade plastic bucket, at least one gallon/4 liter capacity

Lid that fits snugly inside (plate or hard wood disk)
Heavy weight (scrubbed and boiled rock)
Cloth or plastic (to cover the crock and keep dust and flies out)

Ingredients (for one gallon or 4 liters)
4 cups/1 liter dried beans
1 cup/250 milliliters sea salt, plus 1/4 cup/60 milliliters more for the crock
2 tablespoons/30 milliliters live unpasteurized mature miso
5 cups/1.25 liters koji (about 1 3/4 pounds/850 grams)*

Process:
1. Soak beans over night and cook until soft. Take care not to burn the beans especially if you are using soybeans, which take a long while to cook.
2. Place a colander over a pot and drain beans, saving bean cooking liquid.
3. Take 2 cups of the bean cooking liquid and dissolve 1 cup of salt in it to make a strong brine. stir until the salt is completely dissolved. Set the brine aside to cool.
4. Mash beans to desired smoothness, using whatever tools available. Leave the beans fairly chunky.
5. Check the temp of the brine. (Just stick a clean finger in and once it is comfortable it is ready.) Once it is comfortable to the touch, take about 1 cup of it and mash the mature miso into it. Then return the miso mash to the brine, add the koji. Finally , add this mix to the mashed beans and mix until the texture is uniform. If it seems thicker than miso you've had, add some more bean cooking liquid or water to desired consistency. This is your miso; the remaining steps involve packaging it for its long fermentation.

6. Salt the bottom and side surfaces of your fermenting vessel with wet fingers dipped in sea salt. The ides is to have higher salt content at the edges to protect the miso from unwanted wild organisms.
7. Pack the miso tightly into the crock, taking care to expel air pockets. Smooth the top and sprinkle a layer of salt over it. Don't be timid about salting the tp. You'll scrape away the top layer and discard when you dig out the miso.
8. Cover with a lid. A hardwood disk cut to exactly the size and shape of your crock is ideal, but I usually use the biggest plate I can find that fits inside your crock. Rest a heavy weight on the lid. (Same as sauerkraut.) Finally place the outer cover on the whole thing to keep dust and flies out. Tie or tape the cover over the crock.
9. Label clearly with indelible markers. Store in a cellar, barn, or other unheated environment
10. Wait. Try some the fall or winter after the first summer of fermentation. This is called one year miso. The years are counted as the summers, periods of most active fermentation, that have passed. Repack it carefully, salting the new top layer. Then try it a year later or even a year after that. The flavor of miso will mellow and develop over time. I tried some nine year old miso recently and it was sublime, like a well-aged wine.
11. A note on decanting: When you open a crock of miso that has been fermenting for a couple of years, the top layer may be quite ugly and off-putting. Skim it off, throw it in the compost and trust that below the surface the miso will be gorgeous and smell and taste great. I usually dig out a whole 5 gallon of miso at once. I pack the miso into throughly clean glass jars. If the tops are metal, I use a layer of wax paper between the jar and the lid, as miso causes metal to corrode. I store the jars in the basement. Since fermentation continues, the jars build up pressure, which needs to be periodically released by opening the jars. Occasionally, mold will form on the surface of a jar of miso. As with the crock, scrape it away and enjoy what remains beneath it. To avoid these inconveniences, you can store miso in the fridge.




*Koji is grain, most often rice, inoculated with spores of Aspergillus oryzae, a mold that starts the miso fermentation. Can be found @ the South River Miso Company and G.E.M. Cultures

 

[sylvie]

Hey, how about tempeh?

 

[big brown horse]

Tempeh from Wild Fermentation
Timeframe: 2 days

Special Equipment:
Grain grinder
Clean towels
Zip-lock bags (3 large ones) or a baking tray and aluminum foil

Ingredients (for about 3 lbs/1.5 kilograms of tempeh):
2 cups soybeans
2 T vinegar
1 t tempeh spore

Process:
1. Crack the soybeans in a grain mill, coarsely so that every bean is broken but in just a few large pieces. This makes the hulls fall off the beans when they are cooked, and gives more surface areas for the spore to grow on. Removing the hulls is the critical part. In the absence of a grain grinder, you can soak the beans overnight then kneed them with your hands to loosen the hulls before cooking them the rest of the way.
2. Boil beans, without salt, until they are just barely soft enough to eat. For soy beans, 1-1 hours should do it. Do not cook them as soft as you would want them to be for eating. The fermentation will continue to soften the beans. As you cook and stir the soybeans, their hulls will rise to the surface of the pot in a foamy froth. Skim off the froth with the hulls and discard.
3. As the beans boil, take a few zip-lock bags and poke holes in them with a fork every couple of inches. The bags provide a form for the tempeh to fill, and the holes ensure good air circulation, which is necessary for the spore to thrive. You can reuse the bags by cleaning them after use, drying them thoroughly and storing them in a special place. Alternatively, you can form tempeh in a baking tray with a lip of at least inch, then cover it with foil with fork holes punched every couple of inches.
4. When the beans are ready, strain them and spread them, or a portion of them at a time, on a clean towel. Use the towel to dry them. The most common problem with tempeh is excess moisture, which yields a foul, inedible product. Swaddle and pat the cooked soybeans until most of the surface moisture has been absorbed into the towel. Use a second towel if necessary.
5. Place the cooked and dried soybeans in a bowl. Make sure they are no warmer than body temperature. Add the vinegar and mix. Add the spore and mix well so the spore is evenly distributed around the soybeans. The acidity of the vinegar gives the spore a competitive edge over bacteria that are present in the air.
6. Spoon the mix into the bags with the holes, spreading it evenly, sealing the bags and placing them on oven racks or wherever they will incubate. Like wise, if you are using a baking pan spread the mixture evenly and cover with foil with holes.
7. Incubate at about 85 to 90 degrees for about 24 hours. No dramatic changes occur during the first half of the fermentation period. I like to start the process in the afternoon, let it spend the night unattended, then watch the exciting drama of the later period. What happens is that hairy white mold begins to form I all the space between the soybeans. It begins to generate heat, as well, so keep an eye on the temp and adjust the incubation space as necessary. The mold gradually thickens until it forms a cohesive mat holding the beans together. The tempeh should have a pleasant, earthy odor, like button mushrooms. The process generally takes 20-30 hours, considerably longer at cooler temperatures. Once it has large patches of gray or black it is ready.
8. Remove the tempeh from your incubator and from its forms. Allow it to cool to room temp before refrigerating, then refrigerate without stacking. IF you stack tempeh before it is cool, the mold will continue to grow and generate heat, even in the refrigerator.9. Tempeh is generally not eaten raw. Saut slices of it plain to discover its unique flavor.

 

[reinbeau]

Free, from all that I've heard, miso and tempeh don't have the horrid qualities to them that the other soy products do because of the fermentation. I've heard that from multiple sources, so I'm going with it. I have a thyroid that can be seriously affected by soy, but if I stick to those two I don't have a problem. Everything in moderation here, though, neither miso or tempeh will ever be a regular in my diet - but I love them both.

 

[sylvie]

Tempeh from Wild Fermentation
Timeframe: 2 days

Special Equipment:
Grain grinder
Clean towels
Zip-lock bags (3 large ones) or a baking tray and aluminum foil

Ingredients (for about 3 lbs/1.5 kilograms of tempeh):
2 cups soybeans
2 T vinegar
1 t tempeh spore

Process:
1. Crack the soybeans in a grain mill, coarsely so that every bean is broken but in just a few large pieces. This makes the hulls fall off the beans when they are cooked, and gives more surface areas for the spore to grow on. Removing the hulls is the critical part. In the absence of a grain grinder, you can soak the beans overnight then kneed them with your hands to loosen the hulls before cooking them the rest of the way.
2. Boil beans, without salt, until they are just barely soft enough to eat. For soy beans, 1-1 hours should do it. Do not cook them as soft as you would want them to be for eating. The fermentation will continue to soften the beans. As you cook and stir the soybeans, their hulls will rise to the surface of the pot in a foamy froth. Skim off the froth with the hulls and discard.
3. As the beans boil, take a few zip-lock bags and poke holes in them with a fork every couple of inches. The bags provide a form for the tempeh to fill, and the holes ensure good air circulation, which is necessary for the spore to thrive. You can reuse the bags by cleaning them after use, drying them thoroughly and storing them in a special place. Alternatively, you can form tempeh in a baking tray with a lip of at least inch, then cover it with foil with fork holes punched every couple of inches.
4. When the beans are ready, strain them and spread them, or a portion of them at a time, on a clean towel. Use the towel to dry them. The most common problem with tempeh is excess moisture, which yields a foul, inedible product. Swaddle and pat the cooked soybeans until most of the surface moisture has been absorbed into the towel. Use a second towel if necessary.
5. Place the cooked and dried soybeans in a bowl. Make sure they are no warmer than body temperature. Add the vinegar and mix. Add the spore and mix well so the spore is evenly distributed around the soybeans. The acidity of the vinegar gives the spore a competitive edge over bacteria that are present in the air.
6. Spoon the mix into the bags with the holes, spreading it evenly, sealing the bags and placing them on oven racks or wherever they will incubate. Like wise, if you are using a baking pan spread the mixture evenly and cover with foil with holes.
7. Incubate at about 85 to 90 degrees for about 24 hours. No dramatic changes occur during the first half of the fermentation period. I like to start the process in the afternoon, let it spend the night unattended, then watch the exciting drama of the later period. What happens is that hairy white mold begins to form I all the space between the soybeans. It begins to generate heat, as well, so keep an eye on the temp and adjust the incubation space as necessary. The mold gradually thickens until it forms a cohesive mat holding the beans together. The tempeh should have a pleasant, earthy odor, like button mushrooms. The process generally takes 20-30 hours, considerably longer at cooler temperatures. Once it has large patches of gray or black it is ready.
8. Remove the tempeh from your incubator and from its forms. Allow it to cool to room temp before refrigerating, then refrigerate without stacking. IF you stack tempeh before it is cool, the mold will continue to grow and generate heat, even in the refrigerator.9. Tempeh is generally not eaten raw. Saut slices of it plain to discover its unique flavor.

Thank you BBH! This is better info than I have found so far!!
I guess I could simply substitute great northern and black beans for the soy. Still unsure whether I can inoculate using a purchased soy tempeh. It looks like mushroom mycelium threading throughout. If I let it fruit then I would have spores, unless they treated it against fruiting like they do potatoes/sprouts. Thinking aloud at this point.

 

[freemotion]

Free, from all that I've heard, miso and tempeh don't have the horrid qualities to them that the other soy products do because of the fermentation. I've heard that from multiple sources, so I'm going with it. I have a thyroid that can be seriously affected by soy, but if I stick to those two I don't have a problem. Everything in moderation here, though, neither miso or tempeh will ever be a regular in my diet - but I love them both.

Fermenting will make the nutrients more bioavailable and neutralize the antinutrients and make it more digestible....less gas and cramps and such. But it does not neutralize the hormone-disrupting effects of soy, so should only be used on occasion and in condiment amounts. I'll try to find a quote later for you, unless Wifezilla uses her crazy nerd skilz and gets to it first....hint-hint!

 

[dragonlaurel]

Bigbrownhorse- Thank you. The good stuff is expensive and this will make a big batch. It is much better instructions than I saw before. I'll have to go thrift shopping to see what I can use for a crock. Might even find something to try making tempeh too.

 

[big brown horse]

Glad my book could help. I think I am going to try my hand at miso (sweet version) using other dried beans, not soy.

G.E.M. Cultures
www.gemcultures.com for kefir grains, koji, kombucha mothers, sourdough starters, tempeh starter and many others. This family-run business is the best all-around source for fermentation cultures in the United States.

South River Miso Company
www.southrivermiso.com for koji

The Tempeh Lab
e-mail: thfarm@usit.net for Tempeh starter

 

[freemotion]

Can't wait to receive my copy!!!

I just took a sniff of my horseradish mustard....I no longer have hair inside my nose. Of course, I had to call dh over so his nostrils could be singed bald, too! I will jar that and the regular mustard up tonight, in small, managable jars.

I made a triple batch of artisan bread with freshly-ground wheat and some whey and it is rising on the counter in a large glass crock I got at Target. I think it is 2.5 gallons. I will roll that dough out in a few days and freeze it for instant pizza crusts. We ordered a pizza last night and boy, I make great pizza! That pizza came from our formerly favorite place, and it was so boring compared to homemade.

I have been peeling garlic in front of my favorite show, So You Think You Can Dance, and dh is taping tonight's episode....gotta do chores first. I flew through the pints of minced garlic that I made earlier this year. I am peeling 20 heads of organic garlic and draining some kefir for more whey!