Koji making

[beebee]

Hi,
I just made some koji. Everything went ok, temperatures stayed in range, smelled good and sweet. On the 2nd day the temperatures stayed ok, exept my koji slowy became more and more soggy. It still smelled sweet and very strong. It should be shalky like. can I still use the koji if it is that wet?
also, gem cultures advizes to cover the miso with plastic wrap. Doesn't it need to breath somehow? Any advice?
Thanks, beebee

[Holly]

I too have recently made Koji that turned soggy. I have made it before and it didn't do this, however, the soggy koji smelled the same so I went ahead and started a miso with it.....We shall see. I will share the outcome. Of course that could take a year or so.....

[ralpharnold2]

Holly,

How did this miso turn out?

Any new tips on making Koji?

Thanks!

Ralph in Gladstone, OR

[fermented-foods-live]

Hi, I had the same experience with one batch of soggy koji that didnt keep growing but used it anyway, but I have to ait a year to find out... so if you get this how did yours turn out ???? Everyones waiting to hear :)

[julian_oliver]

Hey!

I'm getting ready to make my first batch of miso and I wanna try making koji for it. But koji is pretty expensive, and I wanna make A LOT of miso. Is there any reason I couldn't buy a fairly small amount of already made koji and use it to inoculate more rice? If this works ok it would be a lot easier than getting the aspergillus oryzae spores from an online store, plus it would make future koji endeavors self sustainable.

Feedback??
-Julian

[Tim Hall]

Depends whether you get dried or fresh koji. I doubt dried koji will still be alive. Fresh koji might start to grow on fresh rice. But the starter cultures from GEM are not expensive, and have always worked well for me. Trying to grow koji from koji seems like it'd be a lot more difficult than using spores.

[julian_oliver]

Haha oh okay I'll go with that then. Thanks!

[Lozax]

How do you make koli please?

[Tim Hall]

The process is a little involved to fully outline here, but essentially you're inoculating cooked/steamed rice (or other starchy substrate) with a particular fungus and incubating it for about 48 hrs.

'Art of Fermentation' may have information on it. 'Book of Miso' has pretty detailed instructions. GEM's cultures come with instructions...taken from Book of Miso.

[nelson]

i need some koji making help. tried last week and final product was sour smelling and had a poorly developed appearance. think it got too hot and/or humid in my cooler. i'm using hot water jars and towels in a cooler for my incubator. using sweet rice and spores from gem and following their instructions. anybody got advice for a more successful 2nd attempt. should i crack my cooler for ventilation? what is ideal humidity? is there a critical time frame to watch the temp? thanks