Mastodawn

Ganga Mar 1

Cont....

This was a kit miso that I used for my first time making miso.

It is darker than the jar I "harvested" from it in December, and is more mellow in taste, and more pastey - fewer bean bits and skins. This is all expected from the longer fermentation in our hot weather, and is quite lovely.

But both the one I harvested early and the rest I did today are very salty compared to store bought misos. So I checked against Shockey's recipes and the salt percentage is way higher than hers for the combined weight of koji and beans, even for her misos that are fermented for 24 months.

It's still very good - I have been using the early harvested one for ages. I'll now be more aware of salt levels when using it so I don't add too much additional salt (if any).

I am not sure why they'd use this level of salt, maybe to keep the fermentation slow and avoid problems. I am sure going to check some other recipes I have saved to compare.

Let me know your thoughts.

#Fermenting @Fermentation #Miso #FromTheFermentationBench #Food #FromTheKitchenBench

#Miso #Ferment #FromTheFermentationBench #FromTheKitchenBench #Food

Ganga Mar 1

Cont .....

A little more information..... apparently, traditionally Japanese miso varieties are salty. Modern misos, especially outside of Japan, are using a lower salt percentage eg Noma and Shockey. Even so, this kit seems to have a very high percentage for a white miso - although I found another kit online with exactly the same ratio. This is really good info: https://thejapanesefoodlab.com/miso-science/#salt-content

I probably could have fermented it for a year, but the instructions said 6 months.

I have one more source I want to check for info, a very traditional miso book, but I guess my learning from this is that salt levels are very flexible, as are koji/beans ratio, and time can be adjusted according to the amounts of other ingredients.

Nothing is every fixed in fermentation 😆

The Science of Miso – The Japanese Food Lab

Pollinators Mar 2

@LifeTimeCooking Thank you for sharing your miso fermentation. Figuring out the salt content to use will take some notes. We were going to start from a chickpea recipe in the Kirsten Shockey recipes. Our fermentation temperature is going to be around 20 Celsius. #fermentation, #miso.

@Pollinators I had some miso soup this morning made half and half with the miso from yesterday and the earlier harvested one. It was very delicious and slightly sweet, which I had not detected in the earlier miso.

The salt levels reminded me that first experiments in a new area should be viewed as throw away ones, just in case (like my first veggie ferments). This time, the results are very usable, even good, but they did raise some questions for me - this is what I want from a first experiment. I learnt a lot while I was looking for answers.

One of the surprising things from yesterday's miso is that it is not as textural as the early harvested one - less skins and bean bits. In my reading I found out that these come to the top of the fermenting miso and so it is best stirred well before harvesting.

I sent you the link to get The Book of Miso in case you don't have it. I've been reading its section on making miso. Incredibly enlightening. He used higher temps than Katz and makes me feel much more comfortable in this are.

#Food

@LifeTimeCooking @Pollinators after weeks of reading and working out a method, I finally took the plunge and started my first miso! I‘m aiming for 12-24 months, using 14% salt. (Though quite a bit of that sits on top and will have to be scraped off, if I understand correctly). #fermentation #miso

@LifeTimeCooking @Pollinators I hard a hard time working out what to use as a weight, because there isn’t much room in the jar left. My usual 80mm Weck glass lids aren’t heavy enough so I got myself a nicely formed piece of iron bar from a local metal workshop 😜. It’s in a double plastic bag so that should be safe. But I’m wondering now if it isn’t too heavy. I‘ve got 1.7kg of Miso, and the total weight is nearly 3kg. Is that too much? I.e. can it sink in, over time?

#Food #Fermentation #Miso

@kimchiconcept @Pollinators I used a large ziplock bag filled with salt as a weight. This is handy so that the weight is consistent over the area of the miso. There are guidelines for how much weight to use for the weight of miso. Too heavy and you are forcing too much tamari out of the miso. Too light and the miso will erupt, creating air pockets.

Have a look online to find some guidelines. It can depend on fermentation time, type of miso and size of container. You can watch the progress and increase or decrease the weight as required.

kimchiconcept

@LifeTimeCooking @Pollinators thanks! Salt sounds good, I’ll go with that then. That’s from the same Shurtleff/Aoyagi book, right? It’s the first time someone talks about too much weight.

@kimchiconcept @Pollinators Yes, that's the one.

It's good to go back to the source.

@kimchiconcept @Pollinators They also list things that can be used as weights, including (clean, sterilised) stones!

@LifeTimeCooking @Pollinators with stones, I’m a little wary, because there are many types, I don’t know anything about that, but I read somewhere (in the context of lacto-fermentation) that the acid can leach out heavy metals or other substances you don’t want to have in food. Until now I managed to stick to glass or ceramic.

@kimchiconcept @Pollinators Good point.