Three koji making attempts summary

I tried to make koji three times in the last month.  Here are a few things that I learned.

1. Keeping moisture right is more important than keeping temperature warm. 
2. I should not worry too much about temperature being too cold. I just need to wait longer. Higher temperature, on the other hand, is a sure way to killing oryzae.
3. Once I see white mould coming out ("blossoming" or "budding" as it is traditionally called-- rather beautiful, isn't it?) I should mix koji and rice very well.
4. Then I should really, really keep it alone. In my first attempt, I kept mixing it too much. The books said that I should mix koji well as they start to produce heat themselves, but in a small scale operation of one enameled pot, my koji didn't really become that hot. Also we are talking about growing koji in winter without a particular attempt to keep heating on.
5. And I should leave it alone.
6. And leave it alone.

I also picked up tips here and there.

1. If my koji is patchy just like my last attempt, I shouldn't worry too much. It is not perfect, but it still is a koji. I need to give it more time to do its job. i.e. longer maturation time for miso, for example.
2. Well made koji should NOT taste sweet.
3. Smell and judge if your attempt is right, but if in doubt, make amazake.

My next goal is to try and make my koji good enough on its own to be the next batch's "mother".

photo from flickr: fo.ol

Miso facts

Traditional miso making in Nagoya posted by randomidea.

There is an old saying that bought miso leaves one's safe empty (味噌買う家は倉建たぬ). It means that anyone who is careless and extravagant enough to buy miso rather than making it at home is sure to have financial problems. I am making miso and also have plenty financial cares. How does that work?

Of course, the saying is an old one. Miso making is more of a hobby nowadays. It is probably as common as home brewing in the UK and its adherents have a similar missionary zeal. Home miso makers are absolutely passionate about their products and often try to make people taste them. The phrase "temae-miso　手前味噌" (home made miso) now has a secondary meaning praising oneself. (Oh, I'm sorry, but I am being a bit of a home brewer here, but please look at my new web design")

But there was once a time when temae-miso was the norm. That means there is great regional variety because people had to use whatever was available to them. There is rice koji miso, just like the one I have tried to make, but also barley koji miso, soy bean koji miso, millet koji miso, chick pea miso, adzuki miso etc. etc. People are experimenting mung beans, lentils and others. The variety is endless.

Soy is the dominant type.

Even with your standard combination of rice koji, salt and soy beans, there can be a lot of variety. Red miso have higher salt contents. They take longer to mature (typically, over a year), have stronger tastes, and don't go off easily. The longer miso matures, the darker its colour grows.

White miso have more koji. They are sweeter, quicker to mature and you need to take more care of its storage as it is less salty and tends to go off more easily.

When I lived in Tokyo, I used to buy "awase miso"--a blend of both red and white, with red's character and white's milder taste.  I was happy enough with the Japanese co-op's standard miso, but my sisters, who are more health conscious, ordered their miso from proper miso makers rather than buying a pack at a supermarket.

Properly matured miso made from good ingredients has more character and therefore more satisfying with smaller portions. If you want to limit your sodium intake, it is a good idea to invest in miso with flavour. I find that what I am hankering after is not the salt per se, but the rich and complex symphony of taste and flavour that a fermented bean paste offers.

Just like booze, commercialisation tends to kill off some of the varieties that are more difficult to mass produce. Making miso in the home offers an opportunity to revive old varieties and experiment with the new combinations.

 Photo Flickr Creative Common Randomidea

Making soy miso

Now that I have something looking like passable koji, I decided to embark on miso making!

It is a wonderfully versatile seasoning/condiment and vital to Japanese food. Though Japanese ingredients have started to be more popular in British supermarkets, they  rarely go as far as miso. I need some!

The standard recipe is pretty simple:

 dried soy:koji:salt (2:2:1)

But, as I am starting to find out, nothing is ever simple. There are countless variations. More koji means you will have a shorter maturation time, sweeter miso, but you need to be careful not to let it go off. I know barley and some pulse based koji can make really wonderfully rich miso, but I used my white rice koji for this one because, well, it's the only type I have.

Method

I soaked soy beans overnight and boiled them in a pressure cooker. It took about 25 minutes to make them so soft that I could squash them with my fingers easily. The pressure cooker did help. Without one, you could easily be spend 5 hours before reaching the right softness.

Once cooked, I drained the beans. Keep some of the water---it is full of soy goodness and you use it in order to adjust softness of miso.

While cooking the beans, I mixed salt and koji well--- this is called Shiokiri-koji.

My book told me to mash the cooked beans using a mortar and pestle. I used a food processor. The end result was like hummus (was tempted to mix in lemon and garlic!)

I mixed the paste with the Shiokiri koji (koji-salt mixture) very very well.  My seven-year-old insisted on 'helping' at this stage. It tasted like increadibly salty hummus.

The books said I should keep it in a barrel or a container and make sure that there is no air. Apparently air is the biggest cause of failed miso making, allowing unwanted mould to grow.

My problem: no container of exactly the size for the amount of paste I made.  But why not a ziplock? (Or an Ikea approximation of one?) My theory is that the ziplock might also make it easier to spot and squeeze out air pockets in the thick paste that might go unnoticed in a traditional pot. We'll see if I am right.

Now, I just have to wait 6-9 months until it matures and I will have miso! The most versatile of seasonings/ condiments. I could even mix it with a bit of tomato ketchup to make a quick pizza sauce. Used in moderation, its nutty, cheesy flavor adds depth into most bland tomato sauces. But that is only one of a myriad of uses.

Amazake

Amazake is most often associated with winter in modern Japanese people's mind. It is a sweet drink made from koji and rice. Just like malted drinks like Horlicks are associated with cold winter nights, amazake, with its comforting sweetness has a distinct place in every Japanese child's holiday experiences. It is what you drink in winter vacation. It is what you drink on 3rd of March, for girls' festival.

Historically, amazake was a summer drink. It gave quick energy fix for those who got exhausted in Japanese harsh and enervating summer. When someone seemed to be very sick, people used to make amazake (though that is far before my time).They say it was pretty much used like a drip in those days.

I still remember my childhood new year's eve visits to our local Shinto shrines. It was always dry, windy, and biting cold. As a child I was excited to stay awake until midnight. There was a bonfire and a big cauldron full of amazake. Everyone was offered a sip, though I remember my grandfather politely requesting "the one which is clearer" (i.e. sake, proper alcoholic stuff, rather than sweet non-alcoholic amazake)

The enzyme from koji ( Aspergillus oryzae ) breaks down starch in rice porridge.  It develops very distinct koji flavour and strong sweetness. When sugar was scarce, amazake was one of those rare treats children had.

But it meant a lot more for farmers.

Home brewing is illegal in Japan. I will talk about it later, but let it suffice here to say that there was a time before the Second World War when being found out brewing your own alcohol meant hefty fine. And let me add that the farmers (including my grandfather) never really had a lot of money to buy sake, but a lot of rice at hand.

"Well, you know, people make Doburoku (unrefined, often moonshine, sake) in early March, really." I remember him saying that when he was still alive. And it was always 'people', never 'we' or 'I'.
Why is that? I asked.

"Well, you know, everyone makes amazake for their daughters in March, right? Some of those amazake might start fermenting quite naturally without anyone doing anything to it, right? Or at least people can say that if they got caught, right?"

It always makes me smile to think of those hearty farmers looking at policemen with feigned  astonishment. "Oh, dear, did our amazake go alcoholic?! What a waste! Wouldn't you agree?"

Coping with Failure 2

The last post was about my third attempt at making koji. Now, what happened to my second failure?

Before talking about my second koji,　here is what I tried to do with my second attempt.

First, I tried to use my little rice cooker rather than steaming my rice. Following Mr Yamada's recipe, I thought I would be able to prepare dry enough rice by using less water in a rice cooker. Then, instead of wrapping the rice in a clean tea towel, I have directly put it into a plastic container and wrapped the container with towel to keep it warm. My first attempt failed as there was not enough moisture, so this time, I went for a lot of moisture in a full swing.

The result was koji mixed rice too soggy to become a proper dried koji. If anything, it smelled and tasted like very condensed amazake, slightly sour.

After 3 days of gazing and marveling at this,  I decided to mix the whole thing with hot water and keep it warm overnight. The result was amazake alright, which also means that my clumsy attempt at koji making did not, at least, develop wrong sort of mould on my rice.  The books tell me if I am not sure if my koji is alright, take some and make amazake. If I can make sweet amazake, without strange smell or taste, I have something edible there.

OK. I do have amazake alright. Now the question is if I would put any yeast in this hot, sweet concoction.

It is not at all like the refinement of proper sake, but I do taste something akin to junmai sake (pure rice sake) in this failure no.2 amazake.

36 hours later

With much trepidation, I opened my pot. Koji has grown well--- at least in parts. I could see in some parts, the rice grains are covered by velvety white fur. In other parts, they are white, but still retained some opaque texture. The rice seemed to be mostly stuck together and in one place, overgrown koji was beginning to turn yellow-- when that happens, it will become unsuitable for making sake, though suitable for miso paste. While it is still 'young' with white fur, koji is full of amylase and thus has more power to change starch into sweetness. When koji turns yellow, it starts to have more protease , thus acquiring the smell not desirable in sake but ability to change protein into  what we recognise as 'nice taste'.
As I used brown rice koji, the result had a little brown rice here and there.

Now, I am ready to try what Yoichi Yamada had taught us in his How to Make Doburoku a la Champagne in your Kitchen (in Japanese).

I cooked 3 cups of rice with water for 2 cups of rice as he suggested. When the rice was ready, I added a liter of chilled boiled tap water, which brought down the temperature.　I boiled tap water as chlorine is supposed to interfere with fermentation.

Then I mixed 200g of my own home made koji.

After adding some wine yeast, I wondered--- I am supposed to give some lactic acid bacteria so that harmful bacteria would not grow in my brew. That's what the book says but I don't have any.

Well, in goes two table spoon full of ASDA's Greek yogurt.

Now it's sealed again in my pot. Should ferment at least for 4-5 days in current climate, I guess.

The rest of the Koji are stored in my Tupperware. I am hoping to mature it a bit more and make miso paste.

24 hours later

This is a photo from the first attempt 24 hours later.
Some grains started to have white bits. So far, not much difference.

Third attempt

I soaked rice in water overnight. Drained it for about an hour.  Steamed it for an hour. Mixed it with 100g Genmai Koji (Brown Rice Koji).

This time, I will be using enamelled cast iron casserole. From the past experiences, I have taken a clean tea towel and dampened it with water, rung the excess water off and put it microwave to sterilise. This will be wrapping the koji rice giving it moisture required (I hope). I have put a hot water bottle below the pot and wrapped the whole thing in linen sheets.

Kitchen koji making

I want to make koji in my own little kitchen. Books talk about making incubators, koji boxes, or even koji making rooms. But none of that. At least at this stage of my life, everything has to be done within limited means. I have to be able to make koji as if I make my jars of jam.

Making things at home shouldn't have to be difficult. Even while I was a full time working mother in Tokyo I made British style bacon ( or approximation of it) at home.
And women do seem to make koji everywhere. I found Japanese women making koji in Greece, in Germany as well as, of course, in Japan. But what interest me the most are women making koji in Europe. They are working in similar environment to my own. While Japanese women talk about kotatsu, they talk about how to use bread proofing oven.

Coping with failure

Chucked the whole thing into rum in the hope of making mirin.

First failure

My first attempt -- failure. Put it on top of the oven-- not inside, as I thought that it would be warmer there. Think it was too hot and too dry.

Koji attempt no.1

Saturday night. I washed 3 cups of rice very, very well. Put it in a big bowl of water.
Sunday morning. Sieved the rice. Went to church.

When I came back, steamed rice for an hour, cooled it to 35c , mixed it with 100g of brown rice koji. After much consideration, I wrapped it up in a dry tea towel and put the whole thing into my thermal cooker to keep temperature right.

3 hours later, I checked the temperature. Too cold! I put just a bit of 40c water at the bottom of the outer pot.

Methods of Koji-making

There are two major ways to make koji. One is from commercially produced koji spores (Tanekoji). The other is from koji itself--- this is called tomo-koji (友麹　or 共麹）method. You buy the first packet of koji, mix it with steamed rice and if you managed to make a good batch of koji, keep some for the next batch.

A quick search on the internet told me that tomo-koji is easier to make at home, though over the time, it can be more unstable. First introduced to the modern housewives by the author Hiroko Hayashi, it seems to be a darling method of health conscious housewives all over Japan ( and abroad).

Juzo Nagata, a writer from a former koji making family, explains in his book how many different types of koji are there, but unfortunately, I don't have much choice here in the UK.

I found a pack of Genmai Koji (brown rice koji) on sale at a macrobiotics shop.  The Home Brew Shop also sells Koji-kin. For my first ever koji making attempt, I decided to go for Genmai Koji packet, i.e. I will try tomo-koji method. I will mix some from the packet to steamed white rice.

What is koji? (And why make it at home?)

Koji, (Aspergillus oryzae) is a type of mould that is used in making many Japanese foods. It is used in making soy sauce, miso paste, sake. It changes starch into sugar and uses protein to create savoury "umami" tastes.

The word "mould" conjures up images of something disgusting for some people--something that looks horrid and could even be toxic.

But, of course, there are moulds that transform food in positive ways. This is true in Western cuisine as well as Japanese. Who would want to get rid of the mould from a mature Stilton?

In a recent Guardian article about Japanese food, Charlie Brooker described another mould prepared food, Katsuobushi, as follows.

In summary: it's a dry, mouldy fish that has been sitting around for months. [...] desiccated mould-encrusted tuna. That's the source. Sorry to break that to you.

You might as well describe Stilton as mouldy curdled milk sitting around for months.

Anyway, back to koji. Because we are dealing with something that is alive, it can be tricky to make. You need to get the temperature and humidity absolutely right and there are craftspeople who devote their whole  lives to getting the process right.

This blog is about making it at home. It is born of necessity. I am a Japanese woman living in the Yorkshire dales and I don't have access to the ingredients I would be able to buy in Japan. I expect plenty of failure, but there is a little voice encouraging me as I set out to make my own koji: "Didn't women make miso at home for ages? Did they ALWAYS buy koji from shops? And hey? Didn't you let plenty of food go mouldy in your student days, anyway? In a sort of blundering sort of way, you must be an expert."

As G.K. Chesterton once put it, if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly.