@Pollinators @LifeTimeCooking reporting back: even the half finished #Koji smelled amazing and tasted sweet. Unlike anything else. But in the end, the first attempt failed. I didn’t prepare the rice the right way, it became really soggy on day two and had to be thrown to the compost. Oh well, live, take notes and learn…

@LifeTimeCooking @Pollinators so! rice is mixed with amazing green spores and is on its way. I have been racking my brains for too long… do I need a rice steamer or can I just steam them in the pot as I know how? (Decided on the latter) What kind of rice? (I settled for supermarket basmati) Do I need a better fermentation chamber? (No) And so on. Too many instructions and in the end i just had to jump in and disregard half of them. Fingers crossed! #fermentation #koji

@LifeTimeCooking @Pollinators omg I’m going to need more large jars

@LifeTimeCooking @Pollinators btw those 2.5 kg really were too much. I had tamari coming up after only two days. So now we know you can have too much weight 🤓

@LifeTimeCooking @Pollinators it‘s probably fine, if it doesn’t get into contact with the stuff… I’m looking at Shurtleff/Aoyagi‘s History of Miso (a free pdf on their site soyinfocenter.com) and its big vats with stones on top 😃

@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.

@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.

@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?

@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