About sterilization
In general, the book said you need to sterilize everything before you start fermentation. This always brings my motivation down because I’m quite a lazy person!
In the beginning, I thought this was not necessary because we already live in a clean environment compare to 100 years ago. However, I noticed, that’s not the point!
Now I know how important it is, but I would like to emphasize it differently.
Cleaning is the key to your fermentation
Wash well with running water before use WITHOUT using household chemicals.
This a minimum borderline of cleaning, and this is mostly enough!
Wash well all tools, wipe well with a clean cloth if you can’t wash with running water.
You’ve cleaned the container, but is that enough?
How about the place you are going to make fermentation?
Please also clean the area that you will use.
That being said….CLEAN THE ENTIRE ROOM!
As you may know, every fermentation creates a different taste, which is up to the place, the people, and the environment. In other words, it is up to the kind of microbes that are surrounding there.
Imagine yourself walking through the woods, and you feel the nice fresh air.
That’s the feeling of microbes.
Microbes are everywhere, floating like in a rush-hour train. Not only the outside of your body but also in the inside of your body.
Pretty much EVERYWHERE.
Have you ever heard that the bacteria in your guts controls your mind? Not only your mind, but they also create our organs, they help our function, they control everything in our body INSIDE OUT.
And you can control the microbes to make you feel good, or sad even sick.
How?
How have you been in this quarantine time?
Do you feel depressed or pressured by this closed environment?
Let’s open up the window, Clean your room!
Bring a nice fresh breeze from outside to run through your room.
When your room is filled with good bacteria, you will feel nice and fresh,
Just like standing in the woods.
Knowing fermentation means a lot. Not only learning how to.
The wisdom from ancestors.
People’s habit creates cultures. It becomes an identity.
We are what we eat. We are how we grow.
And we can choose what we want to be.
By the way, how do we differentiate good and bad bacteria?
Do the good bacteria hope our happy life, and bad bacteria want us to suffer?
They just do whatever they’re supposed to do.
Don’t hate the bad bacteria. They also have an important role in our bodies.
The important thing here is….Do not break the balance.
We both need good and bad to make a perfect balance, and believe or not, this world is created to be good. Similar to the way a superhero always wins in the end, justice always wins in the end!
We can see this in our natural healing system in the body as well.
And I don’t wanna forcibly change the balance.
This is how I approach when I do acupuncture, posture training, and teaching fermentation.
How do Miso making fermentations play the role of microbes?
After you completed preparing, lactic bacterial is the first one that comes out to do their job. They kill unwanted bacterias and let the place clean.
Once all the unwanted bacterias are gone, yeast comes out, starts to eat starch, and ‘pees’, which is alcohol!!
Here’s today’s summery
●Cleaning is the #1 concern when it comes to fermentation. So, please wash it with running water or wipe with cloth without household chemicals
●clean the entire room!
●Lactic bacteria is the first ones to play a role – they make everything sour and kill unwanted bacteria
●Yeast eats gulcose and creates alcohol + gas
●Sterilizing solutions: Let’s put everything in a dishwasher with high heat and let the machine do the work!
Try not to look only at the part, but look at the whole. Sterilization is just part of it. Once you’ve cleaned your entire room, you will be pretty much good to go.
I believe this indicates the importance of the things that I wanted to tell you,
more than just teaching ‘how to’
I’ll send another link today (for sure!!) to tell you more about how to make Doburoku.
Let’s make Doburoku together on Friday night!
微生物の酵素で種々の有機物を分解あるいは変化させ，それぞれ特有の最終産物を作り出す現象のことで、最終の物質の名称を取って「…発酵」と呼ばれます。たとえば酵母が糖をアルコールと二酸化炭素にするのをアルコール発酵，乳酸菌が糖を分解して乳酸を生成するのを乳酸発酵と言います。
みその製造では麹菌の酵素（アミラーゼ、プロテアーゼ、リパーゼなど）により、米のでんぷんを糖化しブドウ糖などの甘みに、大豆のたんぱく質を分解してぺプチドやアミノ酸の旨みに、脂質を分解して脂肪酸（香りの元）にします。酵母菌はブドウ糖などをアルコールと二酸化炭素に分解し、アルコールと脂肪酸がエステル結合してみそ特有の香りを作り出します。
続いて分解で生成した物質をさらなる酵素反応（たんぱく分解や糖化など）やメイラード反応（アミノ酸と糖との化学反応）による熟成に進めて、みその特徴である色、香り、味を形成させます。
発酵と熟成のプロセスをよい状態にコントロールすることによりよい品質のみそを造ることができます。