Cookaholics Bulletin Board

So I got some Shio Koji (which I keep calling "Shio Kaiju" in my head) in at the farmers' market, a live culture. This is a fermented rice thing; you spread it as a lumpy paste to marinate vegetables or fish. I tried it on some coho salmon tonight and it was quite good; I plan to make that again.

However, since it's a live culture of rice, salt and water, it seems to me that I ought to be able to keep it going just by adding leftover rice to it. Anybody know anything about this?

Heck, do we have any fermentation geeks in the house in general?

I have Katz's Wild Fermentation, but the only thing he ways about koji is a brief description of what it is and how to use it to make miso. The Art of Fermentation is much more thorough, but I don't have that one. Shio koji (according to la internet) is koji that has been mixed with water and lots of salt and left to ferment for a week or two. I suppose you could try adding rice, salt, and water to your leftovers and see if it works, but instructions to make it from regular old koji seem pretty common and the stuff is supposed to last quite a while in the fridge.

A friend of mine has Art of Fermentation, she's going to look it up for me.

I've done Chinese fermented rice - Jiu Niang - and Thai fermented rice - Khao Mak - both of which used glutinous rice. I remember that the ideal temp given for the Thai version was 90-95°; much warmer, it ferments too fast, and the flavor isn't quite right, with more alcohol, while much cooler and it doesn't ferment fast enough. Both of these were used in sweet dishes, at least that's what I made. The wine balls these use supposedly have the same culture as koji, but others added as well, so I think they ferment faster.

You could probably keep this going, as with a sourdough culture, but, as with sourdough, unless it is used frequently, you'll probably have to "refresh" it. Maybe try freezing some, and see if it remains active after a month or so, or spread some out thin and let it dry, grind it up, and see if you can make your own culture?

Dave, JB,

The Art of Fermentation says that koji is a complicated process; I can't just add more rice to it. It has some kind of wet/dry cycle it requires.