I haven't tried making amazake yet. From what I understand you need white koi for that and I haven't found any at my near by grocery stores yet.
Also good to know that its just koji growing. I had a feeling thats all it was but I wanted second opinions. As for smelling, it doesn't really smell. I guess a little nutty scent coming from it but nothin different from miso I buy at stores.
Benji miso is a longer miso that uses benji koji (aka red yeast rice) instead of normal white koji. This is my first miso experiment and benji koi was all they had at stores near me. I am looking forward to tasting it in June. Also good to know my chunky miso isn't too odd lol. Chickpea miso sounds super yummy and I also dig the idea of using three different style textures. I left my rice whole too and only mildly mashed mine (very mild). The left over mix was made into three dilutions mixed with cooking liquid for the soybeans and is fermenting into soy sauce.
