It's my first attempt at making miso, and I'm getting quite nervous that something may be wrong. It probably isn't, but I would love some reassurance from more experienced miso makers.
So, here's what I mean by surface mould, hopefully the pictures will work.
The mould is all white, smells like amazuke with a bit of bean fart.
Like I said before, it's the sweet miso recipe from The Art of Fermentation, with 1 kilo mixed beans, and 1 kilo koji rice (from the store), and the amount of salt it said in the book. It's two weeks in. I am planing to age it for 4 weeks or whenever I run out of store bought miso.
At the time of mixing, I thought it was on the dry side, but now it has quite a bit of liquid on top, a lot more than I expected.
I scoped off what mould I could and washed the plate and rock well (the rock is always scrubbed with salt and boiled between fermentations to avoid cross contamination. sometimes it's even H2O2 bleached if I'm grumpy at it).
Since it's been two weeks, I thought I would dig in and have a taste. The taste is like beans, and a bit like miso, but with the... I don't know what to describe it, it's like texture-taste of the outside of a rind of a brie that has been in the back of the fridge for far too long - sort of gritty white mould taste, not repulsive, but not yummy either.
(internet willing) here's a photo of what it looks like so far.
I smoothed over the top, replaced the weight, and will try to make a better lid thing for it, but I'm also considering laying soaked kombu (kelp) on top of the miso paste, underneath the lid and weight - I think I read somewhere that this is done sometimes, but I cannot for the life of me find the reference now. Anyone tried this?
so, can anyone reassure me, am I doing this right?
Doing my best to be the change I want to see in the world, one meal at a time.
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Currently Culturing
Kombucha, perry, cider, wine (red and white), mead(s), miso, sourdough, & seasonal veg my garden gives me