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Re: Cultured Probiotics - kefir, kombucha, lacto-ferments...

Since the weather has cooled down, I've been experimenting with kefir in another way, based on a Japanese website where they said kefir could be prepared warm like amazake
Wikipedia wrote:Amazake (甘酒, [amazake]) is a traditional sweet, low- or non-alcohol (depending on recipes) Japanese drink made from fermented rice. Amazake dates from the Kofun period, and it is mentioned in the Nihon Shoki. It is part of the family of traditional Japanese foods made using koji and the koji mold Aspergillus oryzae (麹 kōji) that includes miso, soy sauce, and sake.[1][2]

There are several recipes for amazake that have been used for hundreds of years. By a popular recipe, kōji is added to cooled whole grain rice causing enzymes to break down the carbohydrates into simpler unrefined sugars. As the mixture incubates, sweetness develops naturally.[3] By another popular recipe, sake kasu is simply mixed with water, but usually sugar is added.

Amazake can be used as a dessert, snack, natural sweetening agent, baby food, salad dressing or smoothie. The traditional drink (prepared by combining amazake and water, heated to a simmer, and often topped with a pinch of finely grated ginger) was popular with street vendors, and it is still served at inns, teahouses,[4] and at festivals.
Since the Myoga flowerbuds are pushing out of the ground like so many garden gnomes, I used one in today's concoction -- 1/2 cup Thin kefir/whey coarsely strained with a tea strainer (as opposed to coffee filter), 1/2 cup blackberry cordial, one finely sliced Myoga, top off with 1/2 cup hot water.

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I found another kefir combo I like — 3 parts kefir, 1 part unfiltered apple cider, then maple syrup to taste. Let sit at room temp for about 30 minutes before drinking.

If you have live kefir culture, they love this combo and will bubble up and try to overflow, so leave plenty of headroom in your glass.

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Gary350
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You need to read about intestine bacteria technology. This is something a doctor did a lot of research on but it never caught on for some reason. The doctor noticed 1 identical twin can have stomach problems while the other twin does not. He noticed 1 twin can be skinny while the other twin can be over weight. The doctor did tests and learned each twin had different bacteria in their intestines. It turns out the bacteria you have in your intestines determines how healthy you are. The doctor experimented and learned if he killed the bad bacteria and replaced it with good bacteria health problems went away. I had this information saved on my old computer but it crashed. I have not been able to find it again. I have done Google search for Intestine bacteria technology and a lot of variations of that and still can not find it. It has to be there just need to use the correct search words.

A friend of mine in NC has been making something that sounds like what your all doing. He buys crushed soy beans, yogurt, and whole milk. He adds some yogurt to 100 degree milk yogurt is the source of good bacteria then he adds some crushed soy beans. When the mix starts to get thicker he strains out the soy bean hulls. He can drink it like this or wait the whole gallon of milk will become thick like yogurt it contains a lot of protein from the soy beans. I tried it, it did not work for me I'm not sure what I did wrong?

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The familiar Yogurt contains different kind of probiotic culture than kefir. They need to be cultured in steady warm temperature. I have trouble culturing Yogurt because I don’t have the right kind of environment for this — you Can get “Yogurt makers” but many people use gas oven with pilot light on which is supposed to be just about right. They are sometimes referred to as thermophilic.

There are other less familiar strains of yogurt culture that can be cultured in cooler temperature. I want to try that. One That caught my interest turned out to be a sort of a Yogurt/cheese hybrid and uses rennet in addition to yogurt culture to thicke/set.

I like kefir because they can be cultured in cool temperature. In fact they grow too fast at mid 70’s °F or above. I don’t have enough ready supply of good milk to keep them growing, straining, and adding fresh milk. I got used to keeping them growing slowly in the refrigerator during the summer/warm months, but I’m thinking of letting them culture on the counter again since it has gotten colder.

Your friend’s soy yogurt is an interesting idea. But it’s possible the culture is especially adapted to grow in soy. You may need to ask for a small starter culture — 1/4 to 1/2 cup is usually all that’s needed.

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Short Mountain Cultures is 18 miles from me. You can stop there and buy what you want or orders by phone or email orders. Clink on there link to see what they sell.

https://shortmountaincultures.com/

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Made ‘amazake’ today from 1 cup of organic brown rice and a 200g package of koji. I decided to stop the culture after only 4 hours since I was having trouble maintaining the required temperature range — too hot — and after several tastings — probably drank about 1 cup — DD’s and I agreed that it was already plenty sweet! :D It’s intriguing since it requires no added sugar — all converted from the starch I believe.

Image

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while and had purchased the Koji on Amazon (they were shipped from Japan)

Image

I’m adding a couple of links Re; concept and terminology, BUT the recipe I used is not from these links... and I tweaked it. :>
What Is Koji? - Preserve & Pickle
https://preserveandpickle.com/what-is-koji/

The term Koji refers to grains, usually rice, that has been inoculated with a fungus called Aspergillus oryzae.
Amazake (Fermented Japanese Rice Drink) 甘酒 • Just One Cookbook
https://www.justonecookbook.com/amazake/

What’s Amazake?

Amazake (pronounced ah-mah-ZAH-kay) is literally “sweet” (甘) “sake” (酒). It is a creamy, thick, fermented rice drink with a rich, sweet flavor, served either chilled or warm/hot.
>> I think the word should actually be “cultured” not “fermented <<

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It turns out my family doesn’t like what I consider the ultimate form of Amazake — about 1/3 to 1/2 cup, warmed to a little warmer than body temperature then served with amount of freshly grated ginger that was scooped up on tip of a chopstick. Good thing I saved some non-ginger portion (in the larger jar). Looks like the smaller jar is all for me (I’m giving my parents the other small jar) :wink:

I have one more 200g block of Mayako Rice Koji left. What I’d like to try with it is make more rice koji with it so I can make more amazake and maybe experiment with other recipes, too — kind of like this:
Koji Propagation: 6 Steps (with Pictures)
https://www.instructables.com/id/Koji-Propagation/

Koji is a mold, scientific name of Aspergillus oryzae. This mold is inoculated into rice, and then let to mold over.

Once you have a solid block of infected rice, while it is still white, you can then either use it immediately or refrigerate as is to keep it fresh for a few weeks, or even dry it, then freeze it in containers to keep it fresh for nearly a year! it's been used to make Sake, Miso, and Soy Sauce for hundreds of years. And it's also known to be a great marinate ingredient for all sorts of foods.

while it is possible to buy koji, then mix it with prepared rice to get more koji from your original purchased source, my suggested method and the one we will be walking thru together here is starting from Koji-kin, powdered spores of Aspergillus oryzae
Although starting with koji-kin (spore) is the best way, another source has instructions for starting with 50g of Miyako Rice Koji per 3 rice cups of uncooked rice. That means I have 4 chances to perfect my techniques. Apparently, since you are starting from offspring substrate and not original spores, you cannot indefinitely start from the resulting rice koji you have made — They lose vitality in subsequent generations. (this is similar concept to bokashi) Also, one source mentioned that starter rice koji (not the resulting rice koji) could turn black and ruin the appearance of resulting amazake — I guess I will find out.

At first I thought Miyako is the one I need for making amazake because it has the popularly agreed good sweet flavor for making delicious amazake, further reading has me thinking that the “long strand white” which is the characteristic equated with the Miyako Rice Koji comes from the lower culturing temperature, not necessarily the strain. It is also white until they “bloom” — start generating spores, then they turn green. While this is not harmful, the blooming/spore producing stage changes the flavor — maybe more suitable for miso and soy sauce? But I do wonder if I let them bloom and produce spores, would I not then obtain the koji-kin? But it might be a question of maintaining purity under strictly controlled conditions, and preventing contamination, like with mushroom cultivation.

So if this is the case, I might be try other sources, especially koji-kin for sake-making, since amazake is basically the pre-cursor — you culture with koji-kin to the peak of sweetness, then introduce the sake yeast to convert the enzymes and sugars made by koji into alcohol.

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More Amazake, slightly modified.

Carafe was full to the top when I made this:
Image

I started this night before last, using 1 rice-cup shortgrain brown sweet rice. Normal porridge water level for 1 rice-cup white rice is slightly more than 3 rice-cups normal sushi rice level, and based on some mental calculations involving the brown rice water level, I settled on 4 rice-cups brown rice water level. Added a pinch of salt, which is supposed to help break down the brown rice better and make it cook fluffier/more digestible.

After the rice cooker declared the porridge was done, I poured it all into the blender pitcher, then poured out most of the liquid. Then pulsing and then slowly increasing the speed and gradually adding back the liquid, thoroughly liquified it. If I was making rice milk, this would be the stage when I would strain out the bran, add sugar, sea salt, and sunflower or sufflower oil.

Instead, I poured it back into the rice cooker inner pot, checked that it had cooled to below 60°C, added some of it to about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the previous batch of amazake (the one I had already flavored with a little sea salt and grated ginger), then stirred this into the pot. The idea was to see if a small amount of the previous batch could be used as starter for the next batch like yogurt.

In the mean time, I had been searching for the answer to maintaining the requisite 50~60°C incubation temperature. This led me to surfing various Japanese websites and blogs — of course they have a lot more options and sources for rice koji, including koji speciality shops, one dedicated to organic ingredients ...sigh.

But I did find out that the Iseso Miyako Rice Koji which I had bought on Amazon is the most popular brand that is readily available in Japan.... and in fact, Iseso also sells rice koji made with organic rice.

And I came across a blog entry that said her Zojirushi rice cooker maintained 60°C in “go to sleep” mode. (What the heck? Do I have anything like that on my approximately 1 decade older model?)

Luckily she posted a photo of the Japanese control panel, and it had the model number right on it. After more searching in the Zojirushi America website, where none of the models offered had the same number and none of the product photos were clear enough to read the control panels, I found a similar model and a pdf instruction manual.

It turned out that “extended keep warm” function on my rice cooker — which I had tried to obtain more info about earlier but had to give up because all the product descriptions and manuals only said, it keeps the rice at “ideal temperature for serving” without specifying what that temperature was (Besides which, it would not turn on when I tried to use it, and I though the function had become disabled on my old machine) — is the same as that “go to sleep” mode. I also found out that this function does not operate when Brown Rice or Porridge is selected. Ah ha!

Well, after trial and error, because if the last cooking selection had been Brown Rice or Porridge, the selector remembers and stays on that setting and therefore will not initiate the “extended keep warm” — alarmed “bip-bip-bip-bip!!” Instead of smartly chirping “beep! beep!” — I was able to get it to accept the “extended keep warm” by setting it and starting it to cook regular sushi rice, then immediately hitting cancel, then pressing “keep warm”, WAITING FOR A MUNUTE OR TWO, then pressing “extended keep warm”.

Since the blog mentioned that some models push up to 65~70°C which would kill the koji, I used a dampened heavy flour sack towel to cover the inner pot and — another trick I noted in one of the blogs — using the rice cooker handle to keep the lid halfway open. I set things up this time so the instant read thermometer probe is left in the pot, and display could be easily read by just pressing a button to turn it back on. And for the most part, it maintained 57°C. I re-moistened the towel and stirred the contents when the temperature rose to 60-62°C.

10 hours later, in the morning, I decided it had developed some sweetness but weak — not sufficient starter? — and decided to add 25g of the other 200g of Myako Rice Koji and give it another 10 hours.

After the total of 20 hours incubation, I put the contents through the blender again, then strained into the storage carafe. Then warmed up a small amount — maybe 1/2 cup of rice milk and poured that into the blender pitcher to rinse down the sides, then added rice bran and rinsed the strainer into it, blended then strained into the crafe, thus recapturing some of the incubated sticky residue from the blender pitcher and the rice bran.

The resulting “pseudo Amazake” in the carafe was waterier than the first batch and last night when I tasted it still-warm, it didn’t seem very sweet, though the sweetness was there. I really wasn’t sure if it didn’t taste much more than slightly sweet brown rice milk.

But surprisingly, when I tasted it this morning after overnight in the refrigerator (it had separated into a layer of light yellowish liquid at top which I stirred back together), it was refreshingly and strongly sweet... but maybe a bit more “cultured” in the background aroma... to be honest, with my mold sensitivity, I could detect a “faint” mold origin — possibly it had entered the next “blooming stage” from the excessive incubation which if totaled for the original Amazake koji would be 4 hours plus the 20 hours, and if it counts, the slight warming I gave it. I tried it warmed as well as cold, and I kind of think I like it better cold in this case because I detected the mold-ness more when warmed. This might also be the problem hinted with using the previous batch Amazake as starter.

It could also be that for me adding grated ginger is a requirement and I’m used to the ginger negating this background flavor — I will have to try that next time I have some.

I think I will also try making another batch with same amount of shortgrain brown sweet rice, water and kosher salt, and this time using only the 25g Miyako rice koji and only 10-15 hours (one blogger said it took 15 hours incubation in winter time, and less than 5 hours in summer time).

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Amazake — One more update on these batches, then I probably won’t post until I try something new —

I finished the last of the first batch and compared with the last batch. Both warmed to just before steam rising (warm not hot), approximately 4 oz, with about a mung bean sized dollop of freshly grated ginger.

- 1st full 200g rice koji, 4 hr incubation at high-end temp recipe ... thick — at least heavy cream or kefir/drinking yogurt in viscosity — and intensely sweet. Delicious.
- last previous batch starter + 25g rice koji, 20 hrs total mid-range temp recipe ... whole milk to 2% milk viscosity, and strongly sweet. No hint of the mold even as aftertaste and very tasty.

Both were very good and I would like to make them again.

Additional notes:

- first batch had been made with cooking water from boiling a package of brown rice pasta — somewhat thickened by starch. I think the rice koji ate and converted all of that starch into sugar as well, so this might have contributed to the extreme sweetness which most brown rice amazake recipes and instructions say would be missing compared to amazake made with white rice and especially compared with white Mochi rice. I regularly eat brown rice, so I found the familiar complex flavor naturally delicious, but people who are used to white rice may have detected earthy quality not present (I would say lacking) in white rice.

- with the last batch, I mentioned the clear yellowish liquid layer I noticed had separated at top by next morning in the fridge, that I had mixed in, then drank. I want to note that there was barely any yellowish clear liquid at the top of the amazake next morning, and subsequent tastings have not been as notably hint of mold, and the clear liquid has disappeared altogether today. — my suspicion is that the clear liquid had been a by-product of the older fully matured koji-kin (the spore color is green-tea color). I’m Wondering if any koji spore that had bloomed had managed to become incorporated and had been slowly growing even in the chill of the refrigerator. Living culture amazake is supposed to be good for 5-7 days in the fridge, but should be consumed within that time because the koji continues to grow and in the cold temperature, will develop sourdough-like quality.

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Apple, Do you ever make Kimchi? I am going to try some, using an excess of bok choy I have in hydro. Not the usual brassica used, but I see a lot of recipes online, so not totally unusual. I also have a bunch of another brassica - mizuna - but I'm not sure that those fine leaves would work well in it. Recipes are all pretty much the same, except for the additional vegetables - carrots, daikon, cucumbers, onions, etc. The bok choy is salted, sits 3-4 hrs, rinsed and drained, then mixed with the other veggies, and seasoning paste, and fermented. Any suggestions would be appreciated, if you, or anyone else has experience with this.

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I’ve tried making them a few times before — both Chinese cabbage and Korean daikon. Last one was pretty good. I used salted fermented shrimp in that one which was recommended. I thought I was going to make more so I bought a larger jar, which was a mistake if only because the thing smelled intense and was super salty. I really couldn’t use it for anything else, and the plastic “jar” met with an accident when it fell out of the fridge and the lid cracked open. Oomph! That took some cleaning! LOL

A long time ago, Korean lady told me her family’s secret ingredient was salted fermented squid....

I’m not up for it right now, but will have to rotate it back in at some point.... I was thinking of using just dried shrimp next time.

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I was thinking dried shrimp, as well, since I have that. Don't remember seeing the squid, but I guess I was never looking for it.

I have a half gallon wide mouthed mason jar I'm going to use, and a lid with one of those fermentation valves on it.

I tried a daikon kimchi one time, but the weirdest thing happened: when I opened it, and cautiously sniffed at the brine (the way this one started) the next day, after about 10 hours the stuff smelled like chlorine bleach! It got even stronger, after a few hours - like swimming pool chlorine - so I dumped it, and never tried it again. Never had this happen, before or since, when pickling anything.

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Looking forward to progress reports! :()

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I did this with some bok choy and mizuna, since that is what I had to trim from my hydro garden, and I've seen a number of brassicas used for kimchi. Anybody here have any experience with this? I cut everything up, instead of leaving large chunks, since that is what is usually done with it when it is used. As usual, what looked like a lot, reduced to very little, after salting. That jar I filled only 3/4 of the way is a liter jar, to give you an idea how this reduced. The weight of the greens was 572 g., with one peeled and seeded cucumber, cut into sticks and one carrot, in julienne. I used 3 tb kosher salt, 3 cloves garlic, 1 1/2' peeled ginger, about 1/4 c hot pepper flakes, once they were chopped up, 3 tb dried shrimp, soaked, and 1 tb fish sauce.

Image12 qt bowl full of bok choy and mizuna by pepperhead212, on Flickr


ImageChopped up bok choy and mizuna with salt. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

ImageAfter salting for 1 hour. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Amazing how much this reduces!
ImageAfter salting 3 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

ImageDrained, salted vegetables. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

ImageSpice mix for kimchi - hot peppers, garlic, ginger, dried shrimp, fish sauce by pepperhead212, on Flickr

ImageMixed spices and vegetables for kimchi. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

ImageKimchi, ready to ferment, with pressure release valve. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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applestar wrote:Made ‘amazake’ today from 1 cup of organic brown rice and a 200g package of koji. I decided to stop the culture after only 4 hours since I was having trouble maintaining the required temperature range — too hot — and after several tastings — probably drank about 1 cup — DD’s and I agreed that it was already plenty sweet! :D It’s intriguing since it requires no added sugar — all converted from the starch I believe.
I am interested in something that turns starch to sugar? I want to make sugar from 200 lbs of corn. When I make wine from fruit & berries it needs extra sugar. Natural sugar in grapes, blackberries, peaches, is low it only produces 6% to 7% alcohol in wine. Sugar from corn could bring sugar up to make 11% alcohol. Miles Lab sells an enzyme to convert starch in corn to sugar but price is crazy expensive $100 for 1 teaspoon, grocery store sugar is cheaper and I already have 200 lbs of free corn.

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You made me curious — I tried to find out how corn syrup is made and I found this.
Don’t know if this will help you any, but it was interesting:
:arrow: https://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Corn-Syrup.html


....at first I tried to find out if Aspergillus oryzae could also be used with corn, but what came up were some articles and websites selling the koji kin as natural growth booster/soil conditioner for various crops including corn. I might go back and read about this more.

—-

...oooh this is really interesting — they have been experimenting with culturing koji on other grains (but not corn, sorry) ...they seem to have settled on pearled barley, and they mention other Aspergillus species as well as other cultural practices and discuss similarity with malt.

Koji – history and process
https://nordicfoodlab.org/blog/2013/8/ko ... nd-process

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@pepperhead212, your kimchi looks like it will be delicious! I can’t believe how much that huge bowl of greens shrunk though :shock:

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My kefir is currently on the “strong” side since I was out of milk for a while and the poor things got starved. The secondary fermented kefir is overfermented and nobody else will touch it. Silver lining? I was able to use it in place of blue cheese dressing for my buffalo wings today. (But that gives you an idea of how “strong” it’s getting :roll: )

I have to diligently cycle the grains with fresh milk to sweeten it again. Hopefully, the microbial balance has not been completely destroyed, but I’ve done this before a couple of times, and it came back those last times.

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That kimchi is probably fermented enough. I went to suck the air out (I have one of those Galahome lid kits, to vacuum seal the jars, but let the gas escape) of the jar for the third time (first time, I was just noticing the aroma before re-vacuuming it, the second time there was still some negative pressure) and very little sucked out, but it was potent, what did come out! This was just over 2 weeks, which is about normal, from what I read. I'll put it in the fridge, and figure out what I'll do with it later.

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Last week, I was processing blackberries like a madwoman, and decided to try combining some of the sweetened blackberry juice with kefir whey in a tightly closing beverage bottle. 2 days later, it was still “raw” and had somewhat “funky” odor from the kefir that IMHO ruined the blackberry flavor (kefir is not quite like yogurt due to the yeast and has more of a sourdough-like ambience — great for baked goods, though BTW). Each time I tried tasting some, I added more blackberry juice, but DH buried my bottle in the back of the fridge for the last several days.

Today, with most of the leftovers consumed over the weekend, I was able to extricate it, and when I opened the bottle, it released effervescence from the trapped carbonation(?)/gasses, and, poured over ice, it is a lovely, delicious, beverage with a sharp tangy (but pleasant) aftertaste.

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Subject: Cultured Probiotics - kefir, kombucha, lacto-ferments...
applestar wrote:Made ‘amazake’ today...
...I bought a 1kg bag of koji — making some amazake using the basic recipe with 200g of koji — should be done tomorrow morning around 6am using the “keep warm” setting of the rice cooker to incubate. I’m planning to see if I can use this batch to enhance a home made rice milk recipe into one that can take place of my favorite commercial rice milk. I almost made one that was close, but something was missing.

...also mixed up the ingredients to culture Shio Koji (salted koji) I’m almost out of the commercial Shio Koji in this squeeze container — I bought it at local H-mart for about $6 ...maybe $7. Since I bought the bag of koji for a little less than $25 and this recipe uses 200g + 60g salt (I used sea salt) and 300 ml warm water, I guess it will make about 560g of shio koji for about $5 and change.
Image

...since I’m allergic/sensitive to soy, I’ve been looking for a soy sauce alternative for a long time, and have tried all of the usual substitutions including coconut amino. I like using Koji for most recipes that use soysauce, and use something else to make up for the color if necessary, and for adding a deeper somewhat nutty/smoky overtone.

ETA — ‘ Shio Koji Seasoning’ = ‘Salted Rice Malt’

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Addendum — if and when this rice cooker dies, I’m replacing it with multi-function insta pot. In the mean time, I found out how to get the "extended warm" function on it to work — there are several other limitations on turning it on, but I think I got it figured out.


My current other option is my new-er toaster oven. It has 3 new features the old one didn’t have — "keep warm", "bread dough proofing" and "dehydrating". They each utilize various temperature ranges that were not available before. I recently found out I could use the "dehydrating" function to prep simmered milk by holding the milk to 180°F for 30 minutes, then adding the yogurt starter and using the "proofing" function to incubate at 105 to 115°F (yogurt turned out great! — nice and thick, which the 180°F treatment is supposed to accomplish). For Amazake-making, "Dehydrating" can be set to 60°C/140°C which is not available (Too high) for "proofing". I can turn the convection fan on or off, or put a baking pan of water on the lower rack to adjust humidity.

- I’m going to try culturing some koji rice — cultured rice — using the bread proofing function
- I’ll try using the toaster oven to make Amazake next time, too. (This batch turned out great, however :D )

...sous-vide unit which would be optimum for precisely maintaining lower temperatures is on my kitchen gadget/appliance wishlist... ;)

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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

- I tried some of the Amazake on ice cream — I read that that tastes good, and they were right! My favorite way to drink it is still warmed up with a dash of fresh ginger juice added though.

- I warmed up the new recipe rice milk in the cappucino/latte milk frother attachment of the new-er keurig (it’s a metal pitcher with a magnetic stirrer wheel inside that sits in a heating element well). It didn’t “froth/foam” as such, but this hot rice milk in coffee tasted really good with extra depth to flavor that the store bought milk doesn’t have. Also, since one of my tweaks to the recipe is to heat the strained milk until the rice starch thickens, then dilute the almost pudding like mixture to desired drinking consistency, it has that “thickened” milk•half&half like quality — usually, you see this effect in commercial non-dairy milks thanks to xanthan or guar gum, etc. ingredient.

(I have heard that soy milk froths/foams beautifully but other non-dairy milks might froth a bit but not as high)

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applestar
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

I had given up on buying milk for some months and was afraid the kefir grains might have starved, but I have just recently started slowly bringing them back to activity with regular supply of fresh milk — look at how much the silicone lid is ballooning up (I ‘burp’ it every time I open the fridge)Image

imafan26
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Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I learned more about probiotics when I started researching fermenting. I had heard the term before, but I really did not know what it was about.

I commend you for making your own. I did decide to try to add a few more probiotics to my diet to see if it would help with some of my digestive issues. I am too lazy to do it myself and it is hard to control in a warm climate. I thought about saurkraut, but I settled on kim chee which is easy for me to get and I know how to use it. Keffir and kamboucha are new to me. I can eat a little bit of yogurt and cheese, but I am still very lactose intolerant so the dairy ferments are not very good for me.



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