Spoonful Suppers

I had such big plans for this week. I was going to start the yellow pea shoyu, the perry vinegar and the bread miso. The world had other plans for me, though. On the 16th, I evacuated from my home because my housemate might have been exposed to covid (she is feeling alright and will hopefully get results back soon). I took with me the bread that was growing mold to become bread miso, my 10 lbs of pears, and the supplies to try my yellow pea shoyu again. I left behind my yellow pea miso, the squid garum, and the Gammel Dansk vinegar to fend for themselves. Me and my ferments are now couch surfing, and they are getting a chance to see the world (mostly just Berkeley and San Francisco). This week has definitely shown me the good, the bad and the ugly sides of fermenting, humbling me along the way.

The good: I made bread miso this week! I bought 5 loaves of sourdough bread from the bakery up the street, and cut them into cubes, which I let sit out to dry a bit before rehydrating them with steam. I then inoculated the de-re-hydrated bread with koji spores. On the second day of the moldy bread experiment, I fled to my boyfriends house. I brought my box of mold, for the second time this week, to my boyfriend’s equally small Berkeley apartment.

I am very lucky that he enjoys food as much as I do because this ferment was fragrant. It smelled yeasty and sweet; a bit like overripe fruit. Once the koji mold was fully developed, I mixed the moldy bread bits with some salt and water and packed it into a jar. In my rush to leave my apartment, I forgot my miso weights, so the miso has developed some air pockets that I am not sure how I will address just yet. For now, it smells and looks delicious and I can’t wait to try it in a few months.

The Bad: On January 7th I bought 10 lbs of pears. Those pears are still not ripe. I intend to use the pears to make perry vinegar, which is basically the apple cider vinegar of pear world. The pears, however are determined to not ripen. Before the seventh, I bought yeast to ferment the pears. I had it shipped to my sisters house in San Francisco because I didn’t think I would be around to sign for it. I went and picked it up from her on the 9th, thinking the pears would ripen in the next few days. When I had to leave my apartment at the last minute, I took the pears and the yeast with me to my boyfriends house. Yesterday, I came to stay with my sister in her second bedroom, and brought the yeast and pears. My sister moved last week, so this is a different apartment than where the yeast was initially delivered. In the past two weeks, the yeast has seen 4 homes and no pears to ferment. I know that fermentation is a practice of patience, but I haven’t even started fermenting the pears yet. They just sit there taunting me, making me lug them back and forth across the bay bridge.

The Ugly: I started my second attempt of shoyu on the 13th, and it was going so much better than the first time I tried it. There was much better spore coverage and the peas were not drying out, it seemed that the mold was growing really well. Maybe a bit too well, though, because the night of the 14th the temperature of the peas and cracked wheat was almost 100 degrees and climbing. At 106 degrees, the mold dies and you have to start over. I was very worried about this happening so I checked on the mold periodically throughout the evening, however, despite my best efforts, the ferment overheated at 9:32pm PST. RIP.

I was more devastated by this than I should be, and decided to take a few days off before attempting the shoyu for the 3rd time. I started my next (and hopefully final) attempt on the 20th. I boiled the peas and cracked the toasted wheat. Then I inoculated them with koji spores and put them in my fermentation chamber. The mold should grow by the 22nd and I can mix it all up with a brine and let it ferment for a few months. Fingers crossed this all goes according to plan, and I don’t kill another batch of peas.

Next week, I’ll hopefully be back in the apartment and be able to start some more projects. For now, I’m just trying to keep everything alive.

Ferments Complete: 5

Ferments in Progress: 5

Ferments to go: 164