My Annual miso making !

(日本語は下の方に少し…。）

This is the third year blogging about Miso making. Miso making are best in the winter. In Japan it’s the coldest during Feb so Feb will be an ideal month to make miso. The cool temp makes the fermentation slow, therefore the fermentation start slow but steady and as it reaches the hot summer, the flavor of the miso becomes much richer and should be ready in 6 ~ 12 month. For my case, to avoid mold (actually you cannot avoid mold though….) I repack my miso in a smaller plastic container and store them in the fridge after around 6 month of fermentation in room temp (remember, for a good flavor miso, the miso have to ferment through the hot summer. )

Miso 2023 Recipe

Ingredients:

• Pre-cooked soybean 1kg
• Raw Koji (rice malt)　1kg ( If using dry Koji, you will need 730g + 270cc of warm water (60°C)mix it together and will make the resemblance if 1kg of raw Koji.)
• Sea salt 450g
• liquid from boiling the soybean 200cc (to adjust the softness of the miso mixture.)

How to:

• Wash the soybean and soak it covered with water overnight. This means the soybean must be soaked in at least 8 hours. I soaked mine for 12 hours and make sure the soy beans triple its size. (This process seems simple but yet very important. The soybean have to be fully soaked for it to be boiled in to a soft plump pieces.)
• Boil the soybean. In a large soup pot, place the drained soybean and add water to cover the soybean and turn on the heat high. Once the water starts to boil, reduce the heat to low and let it cook for around 4 hours. (Skim off any lye forming.)
• While boiling the soybean, prepare the Koji / salt mixture. (If you are using a dry Koji, prepare the Koji as mentioned in the ingredients section above.) Place Koji (1kg) and salt (400g) in a large bowl (50g of the salt will be used later.) and mix it by rubbing it against your two palms until the Koji / salt mixture are evenly distributed.
• Check if the soybean are soft and cooked by pressing soybean between your thumb and pinky finger. If you can mash the soybean with these two finger easily, the soybean are ready for mashing.
• Drain the soybeans but be sure to keep at least 200cc of its boiling liquid. Put the soybean in a food processor while it is still hot and mash it up into pulps. Put the soybean pulps in a large bowl and while it is still hot, apply the Koji / salt mixture and mix it well. While you are mixing, there should be enough moisture to form it in to a ball. If the mixture feels dry or flaky, add some soybean liquid (the water you kept before you drained the soybean.) and adjust the moisture of the mix. It shouldn’t be too mushy that it clings to your hand or too soft to form it into a ball or too dry that it keeps falling apart.
• After mixing the soybean paste and Koji / salt mixture together, roll them into a baseball size ball in you palm and pile them in the bowl. As you roll, toss it back and forth in your palm to release extra air out of the miso balls.
• After rolling all in to a miso ball, you need to place it in a large bucket that will fit all of these balls. The bucket needs to be sanitized with white alcohol (35% or above). Sprinkle some salt into the bottom of the bucket.
• Throw the miso balls into the bucket one by one. By throwing it in the bucket, the miso ball sticks tightly to the bucket which lower the risk of getting air in the bottom of the bucket which reduce the risk of getting mold in the bottom of the bucket. Once you threw in and filled in half of the the miso ball, you can fill in the rest of the miso ball by pressing it into the bowl and make sure to remove all the space in between the miso balls.
• Once all the miso balls are set in the bucket, flatten the top and sprinkle 50g of salt to seal the top. Cover the top with the plastic wrap, place a disk (it can be a plate) and put some weight on top of it, cover it with a lid and put a plastic bag to cover the bucket and set it in a cool dark place in your house.
• Check the miso once a month for mold. If you find it, scoop it out with a spoon, and let it ferment till it’s ready to use. I usually start using it in 6-8 month but it’s really good after aging for 3yrs. (So when buying a good miso try the ones which had been aged for at least 3yrs. Organic miso are usually aged more than 3yrs so checking the organic section will make the search easier.

3 Month later…

These are 2 different batches of miso. This year I placed a thin gauze instead of a plastic wrap. If worked fine, but I will still recommend plastic wrap for the first timer. As you can see in the picture, you can see the miso liquid rising to the top. Once this liquid covers the surface of the miso, you can feel safe because the liquid will act as a lid to protect the miso from mold. If it still mold, it’s still OK. You can always scoop the mold out with a spoon so never panic. (The white mold are OK to leave it on, but do discard the dark black or green ones.) The liquid will darken while the miso ferments and will eventually turns into soy sauce. (Yes, thats how soy sauce was discovered. BTW, these kind of soy sauce are called Tamari Shoyu.)

This is the miso I made last year.