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?

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?

Set up

I’ve got a fermentation cooler with a heating mat, but no humidifier and fan. I lift the corners of my cooler and keep a water tray on top of the heating mat. I’ve used a perforated pan and wrapped the barley in damp tea towels. My hygrometer says it stayed consistently +80%.

Process

- Soaked the pearl barley in water for 7h. Dried weight was 500g and after soaking it was 831g. That’s a gain of +331g (~66%).
- Steamed the barley for 15 min in a cheesecloth. I thought shortening the steaming would be best considered the amount of water it absorbed soaking.
- Spread and cool the barley to 25-30C
- Inoculated the barley with my tea strainer using potato starch + spores (from fermentationculture.eu)
- Put barley in a damp towel and onto the tray.
- Put another damp towel on top to increase humidity
- Sprayed distilled water on the towel every few hours.

Every time I looked at my temperature probe the temperature was pretty consistently 29-32C and so I haven’t stirred this batch at all. The first 24h I did not see much mycelium activity and thought I messed it up.

At 36h it was definitely fuzzy and started matting lightly. The pictures above are at 40h. The smell is incredible it smells sweet and very much like apricots.

EDIT: I think the temperature is rising now, first time it goes past 32C. This is at 41h.

Questions

1. How can I improve my process?
2. Should I keep pushing it a little more to “maximize the enzyme activity”? If so, when do I know when to stop it?
3. Is this ok to use in a miso?

Earlier this year I started my first ever two batches of miso. I wrapped both containers in cling film to limit air exposure, and today removed it to take a look at how both were progressing. Would be very grateful for feedback from experienced miso makers.

The first batch pictured is now 72 days old. Equal quantities of mashed soya beans and koji rice (bought pre-made) with 14% salt. Covered surface with cling film. Looks OK to me, no sign of mold, also no obvious tamari on the top.

The second photo shows the other batch, which is at day 55: chickpeas and koji rice in equal proportions, with 6% salt. As you can see, quite a lot of green mold had formed on the surface, as well as around the exposed parts of the crock. I've scraped off the top layer, cleaned the pot, and sprinkled a layer of salt over the surface.

I've placed fresh cling film over both and sealed them up again. How do they look? Is it normal that it still looks like rice and beans at this stage? And am I OK to follow the usual 'just scrape the mold off' advice or does that look unsalvageable?

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.

Until now I have only made more traditional misos but as it is wild garlic season I wanted to try something else out.

- 600g rice koji
- 300g cannellini beans
- 300g chickpeas
- 100g toasted pine nuts
- 150g wild garlic
- 8% salt

The paste turned out softer than what I wanted but the smell is amazing even before fermenting.

Wow, I'm so excited about this shoyu. Fava beans, farro, kombu seaweed, and porcini mushrooms. I got a whopping 2007mg of glutamate.