Fermentation Days: live culture and making of Yogurt, fruit wine and homemade EM

Lately, somehow I got so fascinated by fermentation again.  A few years ago I had several jars of various fermenting fruits and EM occupying kitchen counter, but this time the jars got bigger occupying more space.  This time I am more particular about how much of what ingredients to use and writing them all down.

Yogurt is an easy one.  Milk and a spoonful of yogurt from previous batch. mix and keep it warm for a few days.

Natto is a fermented soy beans.  Quite easy too.
Soak soybeans over night.  Pressure cook soybeans until tender.  Prepare natto culture by mixing store bought natto (5-10 beans will do) with hot water and stir it.  It should feel a bit slimy.  Natto culture is very hard to kill by heating it.  It only goes into producing more spores.
Just pour the natto culture juice over the cooked beans and thoroughly mix it.
Keep it somewhere warm.  It likes warm like our body temperature so you can wrap around your belly too.

I generally incubate them on top of my rice cooker or hot water dispenser by zojirushi set "stay warm" and just drape a towel over to keep warmth.  It stays between 95-100F.
http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-ZCC10-Cooker-Warmer-Premium/dp/B00007J5U7
http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-CD-LCC30-3-0-Liter-Electric-Dispensing/dp/B00009K3TE/ref=pd_sbs_k_5

Fruit fermentation is easy.  Just throw in some ripe fruits into a jar and that's it.  If sugar content of the fruits is not high enough, add some brown sugar.  If fermentation does not go smoothly, you can also mush fruits.  Generally juice start to ooze out and natural yeast on the fruits ferment the liquid into wine.

Guava grows wild here and easily harvested large quantity for guava wine.

Just try with different fruits and see what works.  I once had papaya peels chopped up in a jar with brown sugar stored for over a year totally forgotten, but when I opened it, it was still smelling good after good fermentation.

and at last but not the least, EM, which stand for Effective Microorganisms.  EM is a collection of beneficial microorganisms that are found in natural environment.  They are cultured and bottled for multitude of uses.

EM can be used in making bokashi in agriculture or cleaning contaminated site, remediation, even for human health.  We need one that's for intaking for internal use, but some people say that their health conditions especially of their digestive system improved.

How to make it at home with out original solution?  Mix Yogurt, beer, natto, molasses and water and any other good fermented foods.  I'll talk about it another time for more detailed recipe.

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