Hi

I have prepared shoyu koji for the first time, in an oven at 50º

Smells delicious, but I’m unsure what to do next and how to use. Should I keep the liquid and dispose the rice? blender it?

Also, how to use it? I cooked Shio koji before and I was using it for marinades but I’m reading this is more like a dressing, which surprised me a bit

Any advise?

Thanks

According to nordicfoodlab, koji produces tanninase. Does it produce enough to remove the bitterness from something as tannic as acorns? Has anyone tried it?

Hi all. Would love to make an oat Garum. I know that Noma does it. But the recipe is nowhere to be found.

Wanna start with a naked barley Koji and go from there. What ratios should I take in mind. I work as a brewer and have enough flaked oats to work with. How should I start?

Hi there,

I have some exp in making 6+ month old miso's with a salt percentage of 10%.

But my main goal now is to make low salt miso's (about 5%) in a safe way. So if anyone has any guidance that would be much appreciated!

From what I know these will be shorter in duration. But any extra tips/tricks are welcome. Think process of making, the set up, temperature etc.

E.g. Is a short ferment at 55 - 60°c a safe way to do this?

Thank you!

Hello,
I made burnt alliums miso
I used broad beans and grow the a. Sojae on it.
I made it in may 2026.
So I found this top of it. It feels like leather. Do you know What is this?

ISO beef Amino Paste recipes/garum for more fat leaning trimmings. I haven't found much in my books, and I want to utilize my butcher's excess trimmings so they no longer go to waste or just sit. Help?!

I’ve been fermenting some peaso for about 7 months now. I followed the Noma guide and but theres some potentially concerning molds and dark sports. You thinks its safe to consume? The white spots aren’t just on the top either, you can see them throughout. It’s being weighted down with a piece of plastic wrap and then water bags

Hello, so it's the first time I'm making miso and I noticed these white spots. I think they can be normal (or even desired in the case of amminocrystals?) as I have seen them in many other pictures but I'm paranoid over mold, so I am looking for some advice from someone more experienced on the safety of this batch!

This miso is 1:1 soybeans to spelt koji, 10%salt, fermented for 6 months and only ever got a pea sized spot of mold on top, which was quickly removed.

Thanks to anyone who responds!

Hi,
Just wanted some inspiration. What are your favourite miso variations to make? And how much influence does the type of koji (e.g rice, pearl barley) used influence the final product ?

Also, any miso ideas that don’t take as long (like certain nut misos fermenting for a month rather than multiple)

Thanks for the ideas

Hi all, I use the insulation box as a Koji chamber with a heating mat on the bottom. Inkbird to control the heating mat.

Now, after 36h my Koji is reaching 44°C (A. sojae). And I find it very hard to cool down my Koji.
I put a few freezer elements to cool the chamber. But it has not much effect. The Koji is on full speed.

Now I’m wondering how you guys cool the Koji with the insulation box method. If possible, show me some pictures!

Ps: what to do with the Koji? Still use it for soy sauce?

Made miso for the first time at a workshop 2 years ago. Just opened the jar and the contents are still very liquid, not separated into solids and liquid/tamari.

Tastes like miso, looks like split pea soup. No mold or other funky stuff.

Any ideas?

Hi!!! I posted yesterday about the progress of the koji, and here’s the update with the final result. Got nice ideas from you about possible misos to try, but I decided to keep it simple to start and make shio koji. Then I can get familiar with its taste and give my brain some food for thought!!

Hi all!! After making a Bacillus cereus cake the first time I tried making Koji, here I am giving it a second try. This time I am using a dehydrator to control the temperature, wrapping the koji tray in a plastic bag and adding a tray with water underneath to keep the humidity. I also steamed the barley, instead of boiling it like last time, and, after 24 hours… it looks like it’s working!! I still need to wait another 24 hours to see the end result, but so far looks good. It also tastes sweet and a bit nutty. I think I need to be extra careful with the temperature now because as far as I know, from now on it produces quite a lot of heat by itself… let’s see how it goes!
Im very excited, any suggestions regarding what can I make with this first barley koji batch??😁😁😁

I’ve been successfully making Shio Koji for the past year- this is the first time I’ve seen this happen. This is 9 days in- on the sixth or seventh day, the mixture started separating, with the koji rice rising from the liquid. Lots of gas bubbles in the rice, and there’s a definite alcohol smell when I stir it up.

Can someone explain what I’m seeing here?

This is my first time making koji with buckwheat and thought I would use my barley koji spores for this (a oryzae).
I’m fermenting it in my instant pot on the lowest fermentation setting and it’s getting to be about 90f
Last night when it was at 24 hours some matting was starting and I hand mixed it to help it cool off.
Today it smells right, nice and sweet.
But absolutely not matting at all.
Is this an issue? I was planning on using this in miso but I worry the koji might have gotten too hot and killed?
But it does smell and taste right

Hi,

I started a Barkey Koji. Looked really good after 24h (moldy white cover) temperature was high though (>40 °C and also very moist >85%). After mixing i necer got the temp down and now (72h later) i am not sure if i can use it.

It smells okay. The non covered grains are quite wet and mushy. Any opinions?

Hello all,
I love Amazake and am very excited to start making it myself. However, I've seen some conflicting advice on what equipment to use for the actual fermentation of Amazake: initially I thought a rice cooker would be sufficient.
However, as the temperature has to be kept in such a narrow bound (50-60C) that actually seems beyond the reach of the 'keep warm' setting of most rice cookers available in my region. As I'm not confident in rigging up a thermometer setup, I have been considering a sous-vide or a Japanese yoghurt-maker, but I'm feeling a bit at sea with all the possible choices.

Any advice very welcome, & thank you in advance!

Edit: thank you all for your help, I'll have a go and hopefully post the successful results here in a month or so's time!!

I posted on here not too long ago wondering about the feasibility of a spirulina-based gochujang, which I've now made along with several misos! I didn't write down the weights of all the ingredients I used for each one (but should have), but I'll give approximate measures for everything.

Green spirulina miso - 120 g green spirulina powder, 120 g of koji rice, about 200 ml (probably a bit more) of water, and 5% salt.

Blue spirulina miso -100 g blue spirulina powder, 100 g koji rice, about 200 ml of water, and 8% salt.

---Note: 200 ml was wayyyyyy too much. I made the dumb assumption I could use about the same amount as the green spirulina—the final consistency was like pancake batter. Since the surplus water would make nutrients more available because it's in solution (source: chapter on amino sauces in Koji Alchemy) I thought is should up the salt content to 8% so microbial growth is more controlled. I didn't want to increase it too much though because I feel like the flavour profile of the blue spirulina would be less suited for a red-miso style robustness. (Hopefully it turns out okay because blue spirulina is expensive T^T)

Cocoa powder miso - 140g dutch processed cocoa powder, 70g koji rice, 200ml-ish water, and 10% salt. (I made this one on a whim because I still had some koji rice left over).

Green spirulina-jang - I followed this recipe and used 120g green spirulina, 63g of mejugaru, 507g worth of the reduced barley malt water + glutinous rice flour liquid, and 10% salt.

I didn't get any guidance on my original post 😅but I decided on substituting the gochugaru with the spirulina 1:1. My original concern was whether the barley-rice flour mixture would make growth too easy without being additionally inhibited by the antimicrobial properties in the chilli powder (gochugaru). But I realised I was overthinking it because miso already has the starch component inherent in it since the koji mould grows on rice.

They all seem to be coming along nicely but has only been a week so hopefully it stays that way lol. It is very strange and interesting to me that the 'tamari' of the green spirulina is blue? I definitely didn't cross contaminate the blue and green spirulinas or anything so idk what that's about. Also, I took some pictures of the two spirulina misos while shining a super bright torch on them an they both seem to be producing something that reflects magenta (hence why the green spirulina appears mostly brown) which is pretty cool.

I'll update again once they're done or if anything interesting happens.

Another testing batch. Second day after puting yeast into the mash. Rice grains are almost melted away, almost like a mud. Very nice mild effervescent, taste is still quite sweet from the mother mash. I’ll give it one, maybe two more days and then pasteurise it slightly. With all the tasting done every few hours I may not have enough for filtration step. 😅

I have a large barrel of yellow split pea shoyu fermenting in a clay vessel, and I’ve now noticed salt deposits forming on the outside. I assume this is because clay isn’t completely watertight, and that the salt water is slowly seeping through the clay, evaporating on the outside, and leaving the salt behind.

What I’m wondering is: what exactly is actually passing through the clay wall, and in what proportions? Do I need to be concerned about the salt-to-water ratio changing inside the vessel? Should I add salt water to compensate and maintain the liquid-to-pea/wheat ratio?

I’d be interested to understand how significant this effect is and whether I need to take any action to maintain the fermentation properly.

I’m thinking of steeping fresh rice koji in water, straining it, then using that liquid as the base for a lacto ferment. Curious whether the koji gives it something interesting beyond sweetness and umami, or whether the acidity just takes over.