Natto making equipment recommendation required

[WF Newbie]

I would like to start making natto, and need to buy a suitable device to keep the beans fermenting at a consistent temperature. I understand that's at about 100F.

I had a look online at various food dehydrators, but saw that the trays used in these devices were all quite shallow, and consequently wouldn't accomodate food containers holding the beans.

I've seen natto making equipment recommendations in various blogs for "cube dehydrators", but I can't seem to spot any online.

If I type in the word incubator in to ebay, it comes up with devices that deal with eggs. I'm guessing that this wouldn't be suitable?

Would a halogen oven be any good? As the device would need to be in operation for approximately 22-24 hours in order to ferment the beans, I would really want a completely silent one. If it had a fan, it wouldn't be suitable.

Thanks a lot for any suggestions/comments on this topic.
-Robert.

[WF Newbie]

I think I may have found a device that would help me make natto. The product description also mentions that it will work for other fermented products such as kombucha, kefir, and tempeh. It's here:

http://brodandtaylor.com/folding-proofer/superfoods/

It's called a folding proofer, by Brod and Taylor. I might buy it. Good idea / bad idea?

[oceanwild]

I do know how benefits the Natto is. it helps my colleague reduce the shake when she cutting veges.

[Gutted]

I came across this myself again last night while looking for another yoghurt maker. I have also been wanting to make some Natto instead of purchasing Nattokinase but do not have anything suitable to make it in ATM. This device seemed to fit the bill all around although it is more expensive than any other yoghurt maker. Until I saw the power requirements..............200 watts which is about x9 to x10 of any yoghurt maker I have seen which would significantly increase running costs.

The versatility I like, the increased quantities is great, the price is not so great but doable, it's just the large energy usage that worries me.

Did anyone else notice this?

[Tibor]

200 watts is crazy. Granted I built my tempeh incubator but I use a 15W bulb that I usually dim down to keep a constant 88 degrees to make tempeh.Any insulated box with a temperature regulator and a small Incandescent bulb should not use much energy,built or bought.Not a good idea to buy that unit.

[Gutted]

I had been considering making a fermentation chamber but finding the parts was proving difficult. However for that I had in mind something with a glass fronted door such as a beer fridge that use thermoelectric/peltier cooling. I hoped to find a none working one as the thermoelectric cooling elements do have a tendency to break/fail so I hoped to find such an item but finding one at a price I was willing to pay proved very difficult. All the ones listed on eBay are way over priced, many are sold as faulty and yet they are asking silly amounts of money of around 45 to 50% of retail cost. They might make very nice enclosures but not at that type of price.

I don't know whether that 200 W is a maximum power usage running at max temperature of 49C/120F. It probably is because at the minimum temperature of 21C/69.8F that would be around ambient so would require very little heating and virtually no power usage. However the common fermentation temperatures would require a fair bit of heating, although as you say,with insulation that could be cut down quite a bit. I do have an old broken convection/microwave which I could use and it has a glass semi see through door with a metal plate with holes in to block microwave energy which might be able to be removed. I could use that as it no longer works but the chamber is much smaller than I wanted and the microwave parts take up a fair bit of space which would be difficult to eliminate without damaging the case. The microwave parts could be stripped but apart from lightening the case, it won't change the bulk of it. Certainly not as ideally sized as a table top beer fridge in all respects.

I would like a large capacity so I can do large amounts of yoghurt at a time, a wide temperature range of around 20C/68F to high 40's C (46-47C/114.8-116.6F). A humidity regulator might help, maybe just an extraction fan to lower humidity inside the chamber depending upon a sensor. Having a flat upper roof to the chamber might cause condensation to drip into the ferments which I would not want so ideally it would be pitched so any condensation runs away, ideally back into the water tray.

Getting the parts for it is a big hurdle and I could do with a larger yoghurt maker very quickly. This seems such a "maybe one day" kind of idea. Maybe wanting perfection when something simple and cheap might do the job even if it doesn't look so shop perfect.