Larger batches

I have a customer wanting to buy considerably larger amounts of miso, but I want to remain a small kitchen hobby outfit. I don’t want to start a business enterprize with all that entails, and besides I’m getting old and should be scaling down. I think I may have come up with a solution.

I teach this willing costomer how to make her own koji and miso and help her get going. In the mean time I start making larger batches to help fill out the learning time.

Considering the normal fermentation time of 2 years, we have that much time to get her on her own.

I’ve already started to make more koji on the same level but more continuously. And yesterday I made a larger batch of rice miso – 1.5 times the standard recipe.

Next week I’ll try 2 times the standard recipe.

Happy New Year

The hectic holidays are calming down! The seasonal activities like studying seed catalogs, carpentry, skiing and such, as well as koji and miso making are back on the agenda.

First out is a standard rice miso.

With a little jar of experimental thyme tamari. That is – the remaining miso mix with added water and dryed thyme.

Last koji

I’ve made all my rice, barley and rye into koji now. Here’s the last batch ready to dry.

But it’s a bit early! It’s not time to start planting seeds for the garden yet either, so I think I’ll buy more barley and continue to make koji for this fall.

Barley koji harvest

The first batch of barley koji this year is good.

Many more to go.

Barley koji

I was out to the organic farm yesterday and got the barley and rye for making koji.

Ingvar has his own mill for making different kinds of flour.

He can husk the barley and slightly polish it – the rye too.

The first batch is rinsed and soaking already.

Rye miso

I only had 750 grams of rye koji left from last springs production, so I measured out 750 grams of soybeans to cook and 345 grams seasalt to mix in.

I have one more batch of rice to turn into koji, then I’ll have to order some barley and rye for more koji making.

Cleaniness

I usually don’t clean the containers between the koji batches, but after 4 or 5 times the bacteria and yeast start to take over, and the koji is not as good.

I rinse and brush them out, then soak them in hot tap water, then brush them again.

Then I put them in the oven and bake/sterilize them for a couple of hours.

That should do it for another 5 batches.

So cleanliness is mot terribly important. The ambient bacteria, yeast and mold all around us can, in fact, add to the fermentation process. But every once in a while, a good cleaning and sterilization is a good idea and get you off to a new clean start.

Full days job

Today was set up for a full day of fermentation preparation. It started this morning with the last cultivation of the fourth batch of koji. Soon to be done, I put a new load of rice to soak for the next koji batch.

Last night I boiled a kilo of soybeans for a new batch of miso, ready to grind and mix with koji and salt.

Making another 2 year rice miso.

I bought cabbage yesterday to make more sauerkraut.

Then to end the day a new batch of koji.

This was not a typical day tho. Usually I have a lot of other stuff to do, as well as being a bit more lazy.

Special miso

This week we make some special miso. A regular barley miso with herbs and a 2 year rice miso using small black soybeans (a heritage variety from what I understand).

The beans were boiled the usual 4 hours and left overnight, then ground and mixed with rice koji and salt as per my standard recipe.

Then packed and put away for fermentation.

The jars on the right are the barley herb miso, on the left is the small black soybean miso.

Koji done

The first batch is done and ready for drying, while the next batch is inoculated and ready to put in the chamber.