by Lauradinosaur on Fri May 14, 2010 12:01 pm
So i don't know what you can do if you can't get hold of the culture. Like i said before, i used already fermented black beans that i found in a shop that didn't have preservatives in them. If you can't find that then i don't know what to do.
You're basically back to where i was before i tried that. i couldn't find any information on which culture to use or what it was or where to get it at all.
I don't know where abouts you are in india, but when i was there i saw a lot of chinese restaurants and people. so there must be a chinese supermarket somewhere!
As for your other questions: i used black soy beans. they are different to soy beans (in that they are black instead of white) and black beans (in that they are soy beans not turtle beans).
after cooking i mixed some of the shop bought ones with the freshly boiled ones (200g:1kg) and addded lots of salt, ginger and garlic until i thought that it smelt good.
the culture for me came from the shop bought beans that had no preservatives in them and weren't pasturised so that they still had the culture in them.
i don't know about using soy sauce. i don't get why this would help, am i missing the point of your question? :) if you mean to get the culture, then no i suspect that as you say, it will have preservatives in it. if you mean for taste, then do it when you use them to make sauce.
as for how long, i just kept tasting them, until they tasted right and i was sure that they weren't fatal! when you have mixed the cooked beans, shop beans, ginger, garlic and salt together, i made sure that there was water covering them and left them in a glass jar with a plate on top. you can see bubbles form and watch them ferment.
the reason i tried this method was from reading anecdotal accounts of people making them and just leaving beans to sit in the sun. from this i figured that the beans will provide the conditions for the right bacteria to grow themselves, and i added shop bought ones just to give it a bit of a kick start. if you can't find fermented black beans in india, why not give it a go without, and see if they make it on their own?
okay, sorry for the length.
hope this makes some sense. good luck!