Homemade Miso Using a Pressure Cooker
- 2 3/5 kg Fresh rice malt (nama koji)
- 1 3/5 kg Soy beans
- 800 grams Salt
- Rinse the soy beans, and soak them in plenty of water overnight.
- They will swell up to twice their size by the next day.
- Put the soy beans into twice their volume of water in a pressure cooker and bring to a boil.
- Skim off the white scum that rises to the surface.
- Put the perforated metal plate that comes with the pressure cooker on top.
- Lock the lid on and cook under pressure for 10 minutes, then leave to cool down naturally.
- *If you have a small pressure cooker, cook the soy beans in 2 batches.
- This is the fresh rice koji I ordered by mail and used this time.
- There are 2 bags containing 1.3 kg each.
- You can use dried rice koji instead!
- While the soy beans are cooking, mix the koji and salt together.
- Drain the cooking liquid from the cooked soy beans, and hold onto it to use later.
- *If you're cooking the soy beans in several batches, just keep the cooking liquid from the final batch.
- Let the soy beans cool a bit, and put them in a plastic bag.
- They'll be hot so wrap the bag in a towel and press down with your hands to mash them.
- The beans are very soft so this should be easy.
- Add the combined koji and salt from Step 5 to the mashed soy beans and mix well.
- Mix in some of the cooking liquid until the paste is about the consistency of hamburger mixture or about as soft as your earlobe.
- Line a large container or tub with a double layer of plastic bags.
- Roll the paste into apple sized balls (these are called miso balls) and throw them hard into the container.
- Press them in firmly to eliminate any air pockets.
- When all the miso balls have been put into the container, press down hard on the whole mass again while putting your weight into it to remove any air.
- Sprinkle a handful of salt on top evenly.
- (This is to prevent the surface from developing mold.)
- Squeeze the inner plastic bag closed while pushing out any air inside.
- Press a small lid or plate on top, add a weight on top of that and wrap and close the outer plastic bag over all.
- Cover with a lid.
- Wrap the whole container with another plastic bag.
- Leave it in a dark, cool place out of the sun.
- Here's the schedule from this point on:
- Mixing up from the bottom (1st time): Check on the miso after about 2 months to see if it has developed any mold!
- If it has, just remove the parts with the mold.
- Mix the whole thing up from the bottom after removing the moldy parts.
- Mixing up from the bottom (2nd time): Open up the miso 4 months after the first time you mixed it up!
- Mix it up from the bottom again.
- If the miso has matured enough when you mix it up the 2nd time you can start eating it, but it will become more delicious if you let it mature for a while longer.
- I made miso this time on February 3rd, the day of spring (Setsubun no Hi).
- I'm looking forward to how it will turn out.
- April 30th: The first mixing up!
- It's about 3 months after I made the miso.
- I opened the lid slowly since I was afraid it had developed mold.
- Looks so good!
- It's fluffy, and actually starting to smell like miso!
- It hadn't molded at all as I'd feared, and it's turned into miso.
- It's not yet edible at this point, though.
- I mixed it up from the bottom.
- To do this I took the plastic bag out and squeezed the miso over the bag.
- This way my hands are not in direct contact with the miso, so no bacteria gets into it.
- I returned the plastic bag to the container, and levelled out the surface with a wooden spatula.
- I closed up the plastic bags again as described above.
- I left it in a cool, dark place.
- I'll check on it again in September...maybe it will be ready to eat by then...
- End of August: It's matured into a delicious looking miso.
- It's ready to eat at this point.
- The top photo is of the miso at this stage.
fresh rice, salt
Taken from cookpad.com/us/recipes/170376-homemade-miso-using-a-pressure-cooker (may not work)