Month: November 2012

by Ben Reade. by Ben Reade Meju is a traditional Korean fermented soy bean cake which has been dried for around 6 weeks while molds (mostly Aspergillus sp.) and bacteria (commonly Bacillus sp.) break the macromolecular structure down. The resulting brick of fermented beans can then be added to salt-water brine (sometimes along with chili and wood charcoal) and left to ferment in ceramic crocks over long periods of time – the youngest I have tasted is 2 months and the oldest, seven years. Salt rich fermentations of protein (like this one) are excellent for producing umami taste (a passion of NFL). After the allotted fermentation period, the meju and brine will have turned into umami tasting doenjang and ganjang respectively. The removed block of doenjang will be mashed up and used as something similar to Japanese miso leaving the ganjang brine – which might be termed ‘soy sauce’. So in late October, … Read more

by Rosemary Liss. Check out Rosemary’s first post, a slideshow of images from her summer as our artist-in-residence,as well as our first short post on nuka from a few years back. My interest in nukazuke stems from my more general interest in the physical relationships between bodies and food as a life-sustaining force. I was introduced to the nuka duko (or nuka pot) on my very first day working at Hex Ferments, a company that creates kombucha, kimchis and kraut in Baltimore, Maryland. This magical process inspired later artistic projects both visual and comestible. The nuka is a perfect example of a process that was born from utilising waste. Its origin finds roots in the Edo period of Japan when the milling of rice rose in popularity. The by-product of polishing rice is the rich outer membrane also known as bran. By adding a salt brine and other inoculants from … Read more

posted by Josh Evans We’ve been brining all sorts of things for months, experimenting with different concentrations of salt, lengths of pickling, temperature and pressure. It turns out lactic fermentation is hugely versatile, working with all sorts of substrates and under various conditions. Then we started making ‘brine’ with liquids other than just water, and entered a whole new world of fermentation process and complexity of flavour. One of our first trials: Cavalo nero kale in beer brine. We rolled the leaves, packed them tightly with a plate and weight, and poured over a brine of Herslev Bryghus Organic Stout and 2% salt. At first the mixture bubbled gently as we expected. But after not too long we knew we had a new type of beast on our hands. The brine formed an impressive mycoderma – a type of mould (literally ‘fungus skin’) that often forms on fermenting wines and … Read more