Miso making days 2017

Thanks to the good stars around, I managed again this year to prepare maybe the "king" of soy products. Starting from scratch of course... from the very basics, here's to you all my miso making days!

First and very important step is to wash over and over your first ingredient: rice, in this case organic white rice, grown in Italy (that's where I'm at right now). So you just keep washing your rice and dumping all the rinse water (this time I watered the garden a lot with it... carrying it by hand!).

Keep doing it until it comes out clear. Then it's time to drain completely your nice clean rice letting it rest hanging for at least an hour.

In the meantime I trimmed an old basket to fit just right in the biggest pot available to do the steaming of the rice. This is a very delicate procedure and needs to be done properly in order to have an even level of cooking when it is just right.

As soon as it's done it's time to add the second ingredient, the koji-kin (in Japanese) the micro-organisms (Aspergillus Oryzae) responsible for the most amazing nutritional benefits of miso, those who transform protein in amino-acids.
Temperature and humidity must be kept under tight control during all the fermentation process, which takes about two days by itself.

Before the fermentation time finished, the next ingredient needs to be soak in water: it's organic soy beans from no-gmo farms in Italy.

In the meantime the fermentation of the koji is almost done... and starts smelling good!

Finally the koji is ready... and soy beans have sucked in enough water to be cooked! Big cooking time starting now...

As a personal meditation impulse, I take out all the soy bean skins that peel off during the cooking: not sure if this needs to done really but I sort of feel that it's better to do it.

Koji is perfectly spread out on the rice and now it's time to mash all the soy beans. It's a good exercise all alone...

The final mixing of the ingredients is about to start now. First the cooked beans spread out in a perfectly clean contained.

Then the koji and the last ingredient are mixed in: I am using sea salt from southern Italy. The fun ending part is about to start: preparing hand-size balls to throw in the container squeezing out all the air... it's fun to do with kids and good friends.

Going on like this... it's all done! The container it's full of miso now.

The reading on the scale is something like 25kg... on my own this year! 

Miso mission completed.