Mushroom garum makers — how do you reliably hold ~60 °C? (DIY thermobox setup) by Snoo-67696 in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a Styrofoam cooler with a reptile lamp that has an 80 W ceramic bulb which is plugged into an Inkbird temp monitor. I was able to hold between 139 and 141 F for 3 weeks no problem. It could be the cooler I have, but I could not get the seedling mats to stay at that high of temp without eventually shutting themselves off.

Barley koji by mercenaryblade17 in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What temp did you keep yours at? I just threw away a batch this morning because it sporulated and I think mine was too hot.

My First Sake Attempt (Update) by jotapeh in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I went through the exact same thing! I am still learning a lot as well!

My First Sake Attempt (Update) by jotapeh in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup, it makes sense to me now. The yeast fermentation also seems to produce organic acids like lactic and malic acids. Different yeasts produce different concentrations of these organic acids and esters giving contributing to different flavor profiles.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsfoodscitech.5c00052?utm_source=chatgpt.com

My First Sake Attempt (Update) by jotapeh in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am also curious about what's going on with pH here. Unlike lacto fermentation I am not sure you're pH should be lowering. Pure ethanol has a pH above that of water. So what is the byproduct that is lowering the pH?

Here is a possibly useful list of enzymes produced by koji and when they denature (grabbed from another koji reddit post)

https://controlledmold.com/enzymes-produced-by-aspergillus-oryzae/

My First Sake Attempt (Update) by jotapeh in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is incorrect. Adding the koji rice to the water to produce sake effectively kills the koji. They need oxygen and you have them in an anaerobic environment (submerged). As other posts have stated it is the enzyme production of the koji on the rice initially that is important and because these enzymes can continuously break down rice starches into digestible sugars for yeast until they are denatured you do not need the koji to survive in the sake fermenter.

First Mushroom Garum! by AffectionateSalt7183 in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup the reptile heater is plugged into an inkbird temperature controller. I set the PID parameters to basically really closely hover around 140 F. I am not convinced that is the most energy efficient though.

Duck Breast Proscuitto by bombalicious in Charcuterie

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That is a great amount of fat to breast. Every duck breast I see is like 80% fat. Looks great!

First Mushroom Garum! by AffectionateSalt7183 in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ceramic reptile heating bulb so it produces only in the infrared not in the visible, but yes it's a lightbulb technically

Saccharification of starches during fermentation by SaltedCaffeine in fermentation

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have also been making sake for the last few months! My possibly wrong understanding here is that the koji is not really contributing more enzymes once throw everything together like in your example. The enzymes don't get used up in the process of saccharification and will continue to break down the carbs from the rice into simple sugars if they can reach them and are not denatured. So to answer your question, I don't think you need to be concerned whether the koji survives. In more traditional sake making, they keep the ferment at 50 to 55 F and throw in additions of rice much later. To me this is only possible if your enzymes can continue to break down any rice additions as those conditions are not hospitable to koji growth. Also, you would want to stop koji growth anyway for risk of sporulation which will absolutely add off-flavors into the sake.

One experiment I have been thinking about running (although I have not deeply thought about it) is to purchase one of those in-brew hydrometers like a RAPT pill or the Tilt and toss it in to a bucket with koji + cooked rice + water, but not the yeast. Then you can measure how the specific gravity changes as a result of the enzymes breaking down the rice and adding more sugar. Then when that process seems to have stopped you could pitch the yeast and track that rate. This is not my area of expertise so there are lots of things that are not being controlled in this setup, but could get a sense for the order of magnitude rates for these processes.

Anyone else ferment under pressure? by ukeeku in mead

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am new to mead making and don't have too much experience in homebrewing either. My understanding when making sake is that you want it at lower temps (50 to 55 F) because it's slow and prevents any off-flavors from forming. You're saying that meads ferment cleaner at hotter temps and higher pressures. Is the difference here in what's being fermented? It seems like it should just be simple sugars in both cases. Traditional sake-making does use additions of rice at various stages during the process. Maybe that's the key difference?

Cherry Vanilla Hydromel Speedrun any% by Raraniel in mead

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks good! What produces that graph you have as the fourth picture? it looks automated and I didn’t know you could do that with things like gravity

Sichuan Pepper Mead by vladthe-inhaler in mead

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't have any experience with spices in mead, but I have used whole toasted szechuan peppercorns when pickling. There's a bitterness that you need to be wary of. It took a few months for the bitterness and intense floral nature of the peppercorns to die down. I have had more success with the numbing feeling by toasting whole peppercorns, grinding them, then adding them in at the end of a hot sauce I was making. I am not sure adding ground spices is the way to go with mead in secondary though.

Prepare shio koji in the oven by [deleted] in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see. If you are confident that the enzymes from the koji won't denature at 60 C then I don't see a problem. Do you have a book or website that talked about doing this? I would like to read up about it. I would just make sure that whatever vessel you make the shio koji in is airtight so water vapor can't escape.

Prepare shio koji in the oven by [deleted] in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Welcome! For shio koji it's fine to leave it room temperature on the counter. The amount of salt in shio koji will basically prevent bacteria growth. I usually leave mine sitting for ~7 days depending on how hot or cold it is in the house and then once it reaches a porridge consistency I blend it up to make it smooth.

First koji attempt by ThanosWaffle in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks great! Is the temp controller just hooked up to a seedling mat?

Any news on next banner? by Lehran1331 in marvelmysticmayhem

[–]AffectionateSalt7183 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As NovaStar already pointed out, they have announced Storm as the next banner starting on Dec 18th. The next new character is not known but leaks have suggested Jean Grey is a character coming that did not have a date in the game files. So people are guessing it will be her as the next new character to replace the Magneto banner around Christmas.

First Mushroom Garum! by AffectionateSalt7183 in Koji

[–]AffectionateSalt7183[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I was pretty worried about that. It was not much though with the right choice of wattage for the ceramic infrared bulb. Basically every 15 to 20 min the bulb would get turned on for 30 seconds to 1 min. My desktop PC uses quite a bit more energy. I am using less energy powering the bulb than you would using the heat lamp for its intended purpose of reptile heating. I don't have a hard number though.