Category Archives: Fermentation

Belize, Fermentation, Food, Saving Money

(Summer!) Miso Madness III.

March 25, 2015 Munchkin

It continues to be hot, dusty and windy…in Sardinia we would say that we are afflicted with scirocco, that wind that comes from the Sahara and North Africa…it feels very similar and makes one feel terribly miserable. Yes, you guessed it, headache is back today.

However, my life is not only bearable but actually exciting…the Spirit of Aspergillus has taken residence in the carefully prepared rice and the next twenty-four hours will lead to our desired goal…rice koji!

It is always nice to open the bundles and inhale the fruity, mushroomy bouquet of a successful inoculation.

The rice grains are covered with a white, cottony growth and you can feel the “live” heat (like having a cat on your lap) emanating from the rice. Everything needs to be transferred into bags as it will overheat and spoil if kept in a bundle.

Time to flatten it all up, stick a temperature probe in and wait another twenty-four hours.

Keep an eye on the temperature…the bags make it easy to spread everything out if cooling is necessary (especially since I’m doing this in “summer” and you’re not supposed to ;-p).

This link takes you to the more detailed instructions I’ve written in making rice koji in the Bored-in-Belize Library if you ever want to do this yourself: Making Rice Koji.

Since we already know that we will be making some shinshu miso from this batch of rice koji, we’ve started the preparation of the beans: cleaning, washing and soaking overnight. We use black beans and not soy beans because a) they (soy) are harder to find and b) we are making Belize/Central American shinshu miso and we want to remain culturally appropriate.

More tomorrow…

Belize, Fermentation, Food, Saving Money

Miso Madness II.

March 24, 2015 Munchkin

Cor blimey it’s a scorcher today! I suddenly feel very relieved that I am on restricted duties. The sun is blazing down, the earth is developing big cracks and the ducks, who normally can’t be bothered to walk the two hundred metres to the pond actually went for a dip to cool off and clean up.

Hard core miso purists will probably look at this post and scoff at me for trying to make miso in “summer,” so to speak (dry season here is like summer), since you are supposed to make it in winter because …….. (fill in blank with the usual stuff that poncy, purist, fundamentalists say when they are trying to put you down and show how much smarter they are than you but I digress…). So, anyway, this is day two of Miso Madness (made in the summer, ha, ha, ha!):

Yesterday’s rice was soaked, drained and steamed.

Overnight-soaked rice being drained thoroughly.

Then the cooked rice had to be spread out and cooled before inoculating with the right Aspergillus mold.

The most pleasurable part of the process is making the final bundle to incubate the rice and get one step closer to rice koji.

Tune in tomorrow for the next stage in making rice koji…

Belize, Fermentation, Food, Saving Money

Gnome and Miso Madness!

March 23, 2015 Munchkin

It is day three of the enforced ban on heavy work. Very bad headache yesterday (Tumulkin Day) but fortunately today there have been no problems…just a gnawing inner feeling that the brush really, really does need to be cleared since it is perfect dry season weather for it. Munchkin won’t budge and won’t even allow an elixir tasting to happen (The irony of life: when I want to sit around and do F-all, she can’t wait for me to work…when I’m dying to get off my butt and do something, I’m not allowed…).

So, I’ve permitted myself to be overwhelmed by Miso Madness: I just realized that the test gallon we made is only going to last 28 days!!! That means we have to make at least three pig-tail buckets a year in order to eat miso every day. The frenzy that this knowledge engendered inside my gnomish heart (the Munchkin’s too but she won’t admit it!) got us into town at 0800 on a non-town day to purchase 50 pounds of rice and 50 pounds of black beans…to find out that the Chinese wholesaler was still closed!! We ended up going to Quality Chicken instead and thankfully they were open…BZ$72.50 for 50 pounds of black beans and BZ$44.00 for 50 pounds of rice later, our happy humanoids were rushing home (BTW no diesel in town today)…

We’re going to start with some shinshu miso first and that means making rice koji. Time to wash some rice:

Washing.Rice — Washing all the dirt and starch from the rice (Can you see the gnome foot?).

Have to get all the starch off of the rice so it doesn’t get gummy and sticky at steaming time tomorrow when we enter day 2 of making rice koji…

Belize, Farming, Fermentation, Food

Fried Miso and Sweet Potato Cakes.

March 21, 2015 Munchkin

What a perfect combination! We have been harvesting sweet potatoes on the farm; a combination of pinks, reds and whites and we have been grating and drying most of them; great time to sun-dry because it is so hot and dry in Belize right now.

If you have read the last post, you will know that we now have our very own home-made miso, ready to eat. We are so pleased because it has such a great taste plus, I am sure it has gathered some of own house yeasts so with time, it will a Belizean strain miso! It is only 9 months and it tastes sooo good; it will definitely be worth making more. Gnome and I have already discussed the urgent procurement of many 5 gallon buckets.

So, here is my recipe of the day:

The miso helps to round off the flavour, giving a unique floral fruitiness to the whole taste experience.

Check out Miso and Sweet Potato Cakes in Belize Wild Recipes.

We will be making Miso soup tonight, of course!!

Belize, Fermentation

Toucans and Making Miso.

March 21, 2015 Munchkin

I’ve been banned from doing any real work today (using heavy machinery to clear brush) since I’ve been afflicted with horrible sinus headaches and a substantial load of snot and mucus (probably from smoking too many cigars…naughty, naughty!). I’ve tried to cooperate with my doctor’s prescription but being an obsessive compulsive git makes this sort of thing difficult…

Anyway, the results of my “light duties” include the following:

I finally managed to take a couple of shots of one of the toucans that come every morning around 0530-0600 and hang about on our Cotton Tree (Ceiba Tree) while we have our morning hot beverage. Check it out, I actually succeeded in taking not one but yes, two reasonable photographs!!

See, I can take photographs!! Two in less than a minute. Eat your heart out!!

Getting excited about miso, koji and fermentation again. With the help of Munchkin, we took out our three jars of experimental miso and bucket of soy sauce for a quick look-see:

This is what real (commercial) miso looks like.

You can see that our miso needs another six months at least before getting that smooth even texture. Our miso was made with rice koji and the ubiquitous Belizean Red Kidney Bean. It is still young but has a lovely floral, fruitiness that imparts a wonderful umami-ness to food.

The next jar we tried was our Chocolate miso: Rice koji and cacao nibs. Definitely needs another year to do its thing. We’re hoping it will turn out like a vintage hacho miso.

Noni miso is the next lot. I have to say this technically didn’t start off to be miso. It was an attempt to use rice koji to “malt” some rice to then ferment into a rice wine/beer; I didn’t like the way it was going though so, I mixed it all up with some noni fruit and seeds instead. Again, this would benefit from at least another year. Great umami-ness in this one as well that marries very well with the noni-ness. I predict that it will be a favourite.

Finally, the soy sauce…which doesn’t have any soy beans in it but rather black beans, fully fermented craboo (you can tell we are becoming Belizean), peach palm fruit and balam (and the necessary koji, of course). Yup, you guessed, needs another year and more frequent stirring. Came up with the idea to use a paint stirrer to really get everything agitated:

And here is the bucket:

Non-soy sauce after paint stirring accomplished. You can see the orange bits of craboo and balam in it.

We really need that Mallard reaction (no ducks are to be harmed in the process, I promise!!) to start happening in order to be taken seriously as a real non-soy sauce.

Oh yes, I also wrote a post after a long hiatus from the keyboard.

Anybody out there want a photograph of what is coming out of my sinuses?!?!?Munchkin not happy with that last statement.

PS: I didn’t take the miso photographs!! ;-P

Belize, Farming, Fermentation, Food

Beer Tasting With Friends and Pumpkins.

March 9, 2015 Munchkin

Our friends, Erin and Jim came to visit our farm today and did an impromptu maize beer tasting. It is interesting to see other people’s perspectives and they thought that it was a pleasant tasting sour beer, much akin to “Lambic” with the taste of fermented apples. We were very pleased to hear that it was compared to a well-known traditional beer! We now wish that we didn’t gave away so many bottles of the beer earlier on when we thought that it was a failure. We live and learn…we will hoard every single drop next time…that is the Scottish coming out in me!

On another note, we are harvesting pumpkins so, we will mostly be eating pumpkins. Aaaahhhh, what a gloriously uncomplicated life we live!

Belize, Fermentation

A Maize Beer Tasting.

March 7, 2015 Munchkin

Gnome brewed a New Year’s Eve Maize Beer and tonight we have decided to do a formal tasting:

Colour is dark amber and very effervescent; small sized bubbles with excessive fizz. Clear with good head.

Smells like the first whiff when you open up a can of sweetcorn. Also, reminiscent of fermenting apples and it definitely smells sour.

With the first sip, there is an immediate sweetness then a sourness; it is foamy like champagne. It tastes like a sour beer; unusual tasting and not your typical beer-like taste.

We squeezed the juice of a fresh lemon into it to see if this would improve the taste; we found that it gave it an overall smoother and well-rounded taste. It helped to balance the sweet and sour components. More drinkable with lemon juice.

It feels like it needs a fruity taste to round off the sourness..like pineapple, peach or strawberry. Next time, Gnome will add fruit to the maize beer.

This beer was in fact tasted unofficially at Day 7 and it was a disappointment at this stage as it tasted sour and “vomit-like.” With age, it seems to have mellowed out and even although it has a sharp sourness, it has become palatable and drinkable. We can see that it would benefit from waiting a full 12 months before consuming.

Overall, we are very pleased with this tasting because we did not feel that it was up to our drinking standards at an early stage but there has been considerable improvement over time.

Belize, Fermentation

A Mead Tasting.

March 6, 2015 Munchkin

About 3 weeks ago, Gnome bottled some mead. We have had a few sneak tastes since then as part of our ongoing “studies” but here is our official tasting:

Colour is golden yellow and effervescent; medium sized bubbles with good fizz. Clear.

Smells like a lager.

The first sip is thirst-quenching when served at a cold temperature: it gives that “Aaaahhh” quality. It is mild tasting with floral and fruity under-tones. It still tastes young and would be at its optimum in 3 to 6 months time. It foams in the mouth and tastes like lager; however, the fizz tastes like champagne. The bubbles hit your belly at the same time as the alcohol-feeling rushes to your head, giving you a satisfying tingling feeling all-over. The bubbles warm up the belly very well. In short, this beer behaves like a champagne.

Bravo to Gnome!! I really, really love it!! So much so, I want them all to my self.

Just as an aside, we would like to welcome our friends Erin and Jim who have come to re-visit Toledo for a few days. It was lovely to get in touch again and catch up!

Belize, Fermentation, Medical Related, Our Products, Soap

Jackass Bitters Oil and Bottling Mead.

February 13, 2015 Munchkin

Hello Everyone! It is really funny weather today; first it was sunny and now its all windy and grey. It can really affect your mood sometimes so we have tried to keep busy today in order to keep out of trouble!

I have a new product called Bitters Oil which is made from Jackass Bitters and Neem. It is an effective treatment for cold sores and wounds of all kinds. Jackass Bitters is used traditionally in this country to aid in the natural healing of ulcers and neem is known for its anti-septic properties.

I have started selling a few bottles in the local pharmacy in Punta Gorda (Vance Vernon Pharmacy). The making of this product originally started with a personal request and since it has been working so effectively for this individual, I have decided to make it available to the public. A big Thank-you to Miss Joyce for using and supporting the Bitters Oil!

Meanwhile, Gnome is keeping busy by bottling Mead:

Out of a 5 gallon bucket, he ended up getting 57 bottles. Yay…we are going to get bubbly Mead!

And, he has been making soap:

And with a bit of Gnome Magic, beautiful soap was made:

Have a Good Evening!!

Amusing, Belize, Fermentation, Medical Related, Our Products, Soap

Rorscharch Soap Test and Gnome Messing Around.

January 22, 2015 Munchkin

The Rorschach Test is an Inkblot test created by a Swiss Psychologist called Hermann Rorscharch. This test involves the psychological analysis of a subject’s perception of inkblot images.

We have transferred this same concept into our soaps since the swirls and blotches can form distinct images. Have a look at the following picture…I see mirror images of a toucan. What do you think…have I just got “Belize” in the brain!!

What do you see in the next Rorscharch Soap? How many birds do you see?!

On a different note, I just wanted to tell you that Gnome hasn’t got round to writing anything this week because he has been messing around with well, gnome stuff.

Here are some pictures; maybe he will explain them to you at some point.

As I write this, he is still messing around! And by the way, that was my nice lilac pillow case!

Gnome now refuses to explain what he is doing!!

Casa Mascia Apothecary

Category Archives: Fermentation

(Summer!) Miso Madness III.

Miso Madness II.

Gnome and Miso Madness!

Fried Miso and Sweet Potato Cakes.

Toucans and Making Miso.

Beer Tasting With Friends and Pumpkins.

A Maize Beer Tasting.

A Mead Tasting.

Everything Handmade in Belize.