r/Koji

Its been almost 72 hours now and I have gotten only a thin coating of Koji on the rice. I'm thinking maybe I could have steamed it for longer, when I cooked it at first it seemed just slightly al dente but I tried a few hours ago and it was pretty hard, so now I'm wondering if the Koji is unable to penetrate the rice fully. I've been letting it keep going and am seeing a slow progress but I don't want what I have to start sporulating. My question is if I pull it now will it be usable and what can I do differently next time for a thicker coat?

This is my second attempt. I used steamed soybeans, bulgar, and farro. The first time I used a proofing box and I’m pretty sure it was just too hot. It got weird. This time it’s just a baking sheet on some toy blocks in water, put that inside a giant plastic bin, lid on top, towel on that, and then I shoved it next to my hot water heater. I’m new to this. How do I know when to stop the growth?

Using this for a cocktail infusion when it’s all said and done. Experimenting by adding Koji to the beans while they ferment.

Currently growing koji following the recipe from noma's book. It's been 42 hours at 30° and 75% humidity. The smell is very fruity and typical of Koji. I'm seeing greeny, yellowish spots forming should I stop or not? In the noma's book they say the 40th to the 48th hours are the more important as their is more enzymes created so I'm quite confused, I don't want it to sporulate tho.

Thanks for your advices dear fermenters

Hello, I've made 1:1 Koji grown on pearl barley, sourdough, 10% poppy seeds, 4% salt amino paste.

It's 3 weeks old, tastes amazing, tomorrow I'll eat baked cabbage with it.

How would you guys use it?

Hello, i posted in the past to get suggestions. Now is nearly 3 months in the various processes. Mushroom "garum" is done and smell beautifully. Already bottled and waste put to dry to make powder. Today i checked and this is the stage of miso, soy sauce and i forgot to take a video of the beef garum before closing the box back again. On the wall of the miso the formation is salt! And i have to say very tasty salt at that.

The temperature of the chamber is 55° C stable. I have to say it drastically push the soy and miso to maturation.

1/2 - Soy/spelt miso

3 - soy/spelt soy sauce

4- dry chips of mushroom garum waste

5 - bottled mushroom garum (4 weeks ferm)

A layer of light brown liquid has formed on top of my miso - is this normal? Initially I thought it might be my weight that had leaked (plastic bag of water), but I checked and it is fully sealed. Thanks!

I started this red miso (my first miso!) in November, 1000g cooked soybeans with 220g salt, not including the salt put on top. When I most recently inspected it, I saw a few concerning things. Near the top, on the edges, there are some white streaks/filaments/crystals/schmutz. You can see I have a ton of salt on top, and things seem pretty dry (no tamari, or at least the tamari has dried up or crystalized), so I would be surprised if this is mold.

But then when I look deeper down, I also see these occasional white spots, sometimes in the tiny tiny air pockets along the glass, sometimes solidly within the miso with no air nearby. Is this somehow mold growing deep within? Or is it salt crystals or some other feature forming? Am I boned? Can the miso be saved and if it can't, what did I do wrong?

More spore to adore I’ve got two lb of rice just COATED with aspergillus sojae Kin

So im about 1 week into using this recipe from https://thethingswellmake.com/how-to-make-soy-sauce-homemade-shoyu/ and it says it can be helpful to ferment outside in the sun. The shoyu recipes in the noma book say to ferment a little under room temp, with a breathable lid for air escape.

Any thoughts? I plan on moving it outside in jars with airlocks, I currently have Inside in a bucket with plastic wrap in contact with the surface to lessen risk of mold and cheeseclothe covering the top. Im wondering if this sounds ok as im seeing contradictory information

Thanks

Hey !

First time making garum and using koji at all.

It's been about 8 weeks in the process, as you can see it didn't developp as much as I expected, to my despair. It didn't change color in any way, still "liquidy", smell is a bit mushroomy but in a good sense i guess.
Also I recently found out some mold patches at the top, today I removed them, stirred the slur and sprinkled some salt at the top. I pretty much followed the recipe of Johnny Kyunghwo, so I did not stir or touch it whatsoever. Should I ?

So should I throw it away bc of mold or bc of "non-efficiency" ? Or should I just wait more ?

Thanks for the tips ! (Sorry if my english is not perfect)

Found this miso from 2024. Is it mold on top so that I should toss it? Or scrape it down and try it?

I started this Shitake mushroom garum a week ago with mushrooms, shio koji, oats and 20% salt but it hadn’t really done much at room temperature other than darken at the top, release a few drops of liquid and start to form tiny gas pockets.

So i decided more heat was needed and put the whole jar in a ziplock bag and moved it into the greenhouse outside where my chillis grow. It’s at least 30C in there today, maybe more and within hours those gas pockets have doubled or tripled in size so it would seem to be responding. Fingers crossed.