Koji question

Big goal for next year is to learn to work with koji. I want to make miso, soy sauce, rice wine, etc. Who has worked with koji and what can you tell me? It seems like all I need to do is buy the starter once then keep growing it out, like kefir, kombucha, sour dough or wine yeast.

GEM website has some good information about koji.  As do the books by sandor katzz.

Unlike a, SCOBY, yeast, or bacteria starter like you mentioned,  koji is a mould and seems to taste best if it can go through the life cycle rather than a continuous starter.   It can be kept dormant at the spore stage.

It's pretty easy to work with, but can get sour if it doesn't have the right temperature or humidity.   I'm not a fan of our long ferment miso but my Japanese friends love it as it tastes like expensive artisan-made miso.  Shorter ferments of under 3 months are more my style.

These days I mostly buy the koji rice instead of inoculating it myself as it works out cheaper.   But it's sake koji rice so really best for shiro koji and amazuki.  

Sorry,  this spellchecker doesn't work with japanese.

r ranson wrote:GEM website has some good information about koji.  As do the books by sandor katzz.

Unlike a, SCOBY, yeast, or bacteria starter like you mentioned,  koji is a mould and seems to taste best if it can go through the life cycle rather than a continuous starter.   It can be kept dormant at the spore stage.

It's pretty easy to work with, but can get sour if it doesn't have the right temperature or humidity.   I'm not a fan of our long ferment miso but my Japanese friends love it as it tastes like expensive artisan-made miso.  Shorter ferments of under 3 months are more my style.

These days I mostly buy the koji rice instead of inoculating it myself as it works out cheaper.   But it's sake koji rice so really best for shiro koji and amazuki.  

Sorry,  this spellchecker doesn't work with japanese.

No problem - I know the terms fairly well.  I've read Sandor's books but will need to go back through them.  I didn't know you could make miso in only 3 months... VERY interesting!  So, could I keep a batch of rice wine going and just use some to start each successive ferment?

White miso can be fermented in just a few weeks depending on the conditions and variety of koji.  I love it!

When I was playing with koji, we got our starts from GEM.  They had a lot of good info on how to keep it going