Hi Everyone,
I am looking for advice in regard to a couple batches of shoyu and tamari I have brewing.
I’ve made homemade red miso on several occasions using spores from Gem Cultures (I cannot recommend them enough) but this las time, I ordered spores from you to make soy sauce (shoyu) and tamari (basically hatcho miso with more water). The soybean and soybean and wheat kojis seemed to inoculate just fine (I threw out one batch of the tamari koji that seemed slimy due to too high temps) and I made two big batches of shoyu and tamari, adding water and salt as per the recipes from the Book of Miso.
Here is my issue.
There is virtually nothing online that I can find that tells me if my shoyu and tamari is fermenting as it should. I see some signs of fermentation and I am not seeing any mold and/or yeasts forming on top, and I stir regularly. I keep temps at about 85 degrees.
However, the shoyu ferment seems to be just meh OK, underwhelming action going on. I am not seeing a ton of bubbling and it’s been about four weeks. The shoyu doesn’t really smell, just sorta sits there, a little sour smelling but not too strong, but the tamari smells awful when I stir it. Closes smell I can think of is feces. It doesn’t look bad and I see active fermentation, but boy does it smell when I stir it.
Does anyone on this forum have real experience with making homemade shoyu or tamari from scratch? Any successful indicators you can share?
I know how to look for obvious signs of mold and yeasts and there is none, but neither batch is like the batches of miso I have made in the past, and both recipes call for less salt than misos, so I have no idea what to expect.
I know both may take up to 18 months to ripen, so maybe what I am experiencing is normal? Normally I throw away something when it smells off but I know there is a long process from start to finish so I don't want to throw anything out until I can verify something is truly wrong, I’ve seen some miraculous transformations in fermentation and already the tamari doesn't smell as bad as it used to.
Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.
Jason