Ideal condition for tempeh making

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Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby newbiez on Wed Sep 18, 2013 8:17 pm

If not mistaken, ideal temperature for tempeh fermentation is 36C/97F or should be within the range of 30C-38C. Does anyone know what is the ideal relative humidity or at least the range it should be? Also, does light affect the growth of the spores?

Thanks
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby Tim Hall on Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:38 pm

I can't recall specifics at the moment, but your temps may be on the high end...there's a difference between the ambient temp and the internal temperature, which will be higher than ambient. Might double check your sources.

I don't know exactly what humidity is ideal, but I kinda doubt you'll be able to provide too much humidity...probably 80-100% relative humidity is ideal, which is obviously really high. Think rainy, balmy tropical islands.

Light - dunno. Probably has an effect on triggering certain enzymes and/or life stages. If anything I'd speculate it might make the culture go to spore faster, and this may also be spectrum dependent. Too much UV exposure to many organisms is well known to cause mutations. Experiments come to mind, but generally darkness seems to work well.
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby Tibor on Thu Sep 19, 2013 10:17 am

Tempeh making works best for me at around 88 F with anything over 91 as raising a red flag. My thermostat range setting is 86-90. The humidity is controlled by the size and quantity of the holes in your cover. When I first started making Tempeh I realized my holes were too big and the environment in my bread pans that I use was too dry. With a little experimenting, I got it right now. The reason I prefer glass bread pans for tempeh making is that I can look and see the moisture level inside as the tempeh develops . Also you need to dissipate the heat in the incubator so there are no hot spots. Direct sunlight would not be good because it would mess with the temperature but I see no need to keep it in the dark.
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby newbiez on Fri Sep 20, 2013 2:26 pm

Did set my temperature range to 30-34C whereas temperature seems constant at 32C. The relative humidity hover around 85-95%. I have a small batch (just for experiments) for over 18 hours, but don't see any white mycelium but sweats in the plastic surface.

- Is it normal? Should I be a bit more patients?
- If not, what did I do wrong (see below)?
- With the average temperature/humidity stated above, how long it takes before I can see the white mycelium?

What I did prior to fermentation process:
1- soak dried soybean for 6 hours
2- de-hull the soybean
3- cook the dehulled soybean until it reaches the boiling point (~25mins)
4- air out the soybean to dry out a bit for an hour or so
5- sprinkle a teaspoon of tempeh starter and mixed them evenly
6- put them in a plastic (3"x3"x1/2") with little punched holes on both sides.

Thanks
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby Tibor on Fri Sep 20, 2013 5:30 pm

newbiez, If you are serious about tempeh making ,I would advise you to get The Book of Tempeh by Shurtleff & Aoyagi.It's out of print but you can easily find one on line used .The book explains how to make tempeh from all kinds of beans and how long to soak and cook them ect. also tons of recipes and info.

You didn't soak it enough, cook it enough and I think you dried it too long. You should start to see white myselium after 12-16 hours and should be done by 22-26 or so hours. there is definitely a learning curve,so be patient. Once you get it down, you will be very happy. Good luck.
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby grumps on Sat Sep 21, 2013 6:31 pm

Take a look at our website. We have been making tempeh for over 30 years now and were in commercial production in Mich. making Betsy's Tempeh for 9 1/2 years. We are currently working on a tempeh incubator that could be used in restaurants or small shops making artisan tempeh for the local community.
makethebesttempeh.org
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby awascholl on Thu Nov 14, 2013 7:56 pm

How much air is necessary to ferment tempeh? I'm building an incubator out of an old fridge, which means it'll get basically zero fresh oxygen. Is this ok, or should I plan to add a hole for air?
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby Tim Hall on Fri Nov 15, 2013 8:26 am

Tempeh likes lots of oxygen and ideally there should be some air exchange. But it's tolerant enough that you can still make it with a closed container - it's just not ideal. Any moldy-fungal culture like tempeh or koji wants a lot of oxygen, or conversely not-too-high concentrations of CO2 building up. They are aerobic organisms not too unlike us.
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby cpb on Wed Nov 20, 2013 12:18 pm

Hi everyone,

I follow this forum for quite a time and try to absorb as much information on tempeh making. (Besides that I also read the "how to make" tempeh part in the book of tempeh).

I decided to give it a start. Got the starter, got soy beans, got a stainless steel tray and started to grow my first tempeh in the water bath. Well it turned out pretty ok (Betsy`s tempeh). However, my wife was not quite happy with me messing around with the "water box", so I decided to start with the "air incubation" (makes also more sense from an energy point of view). And there my problems started.

Lets first phrase the positive things: The box can keep its temperature at 31°C +/- 0.5°C. I used the the plastic bag method (with holes), and put it onto a "grid" into the middle of the incubator (enough ventilation).

The bad things (after couple of tries)
- After 24h no mycelium (smell ok)
- After 36h some light mycelium but a terrible ammonia smell (discarded).

I tried to change some of the preparation parameters (I think 30min pressure cooking is ok). But I think there is something wrong with the "wetness" of the beans.

How do I know they are "right" - I even left them covered on a towel to dry over night. I also added a tablespoon flour (for 250g of dry soybeans) to one batch. Unfortunately no success.

I would be very happy if someone could point me to possible solutions?

Thanks and best regards,
Chris.
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Re: Ideal condition for tempeh making

Postby Tim Hall on Wed Nov 20, 2013 6:55 pm

Ideally you want the legumes fully soaked, then partially cooked, with no residual moisture on the surface. But it sounds to me like you have a problem with the starter...maybe it's weak. Another possibility is the beans, being left out to dry so long, started growing bacteria that inhibited the growth of the tempeh starter.

What you want to aim for is pulling the beans out of the cooking phase (whether boiling or steaming) such that they're hot enough to drive off any residual moisture on their own. Then you want to get them inoculated as quickly as possible (as soon as the beans come down to a suitable temp) to try to outrun the bacteria. Bacteria grows much more quickly than fungi, and if it takes hold first, the starter won't do much, if anything.

Also the flour you added is a good source of contaminating bacteria...which is why it's recommended to "toast" the flour first, to sterilize it. Also you probably don't want to add flour directly to the beans as a means of sopping up extra moisture (not sure if that was your intention). The additional flour is intended to give you more volume with the starter (i.e. flour added to the starter, and not the beans) so the starter can be better distributed through the beans.
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