Soybean fermentation

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Workshop manual is shared here

This hands on workshop functions as an introductory into soybean fermentation. We will prepare together soybeans or other legumes (most likely chickpeas), talking a bit about steaming versus cooking. Then we will do the inoculation of the beans with the microbial culture and the subsequent harvesting and aging. Your ferment should be ready for preparation and eating on the Day 3. We will do tempeh cultured by Rhizopus oligosporus which is nice and easy opening for beginners. We may try also nattō, which for some is absolutely amazing ferment (and some hates it to the bone) and it is very hard and expensive to come across in Europe.

The diversity of the ferments which can be prepared from soybeans (and other legumes) is truly amazing, depending on the cultures/microbes being used and conditions/techniques applied. In this workshop we will go through the basic steps which will secure proper preparation of the chickpeas/soybeans as a substrate for the microbes to inoculate it with. Optimal fermentation conditions will be discussed and devices making it easy to establish them suggested (Experimental Incubator for example). We will be also harvesting/preparing the previously made tempeh and hopefully nattō and as usually tasting samples of the final products. The results of this workshop should be ready for tasting on Day 3 (48 hours of fermentation at 25-30°C is sufficient for tempeh, 24-48 hours at 42°C for nattō). We are going to provide the participants with adequate starter cultures for their experiments, at least for few first batches, you should however get your own starter for later experiments, more info below.

This workshop is based on donation at your will no one turned away for lack of funds. If you can afford to donate, please do, during the years I have found out that if people donate during the workshop around €10 in average per person, things go well for me and I can cover most of the expenses so I can keep coming to the events.

For the last several years or so we are using starter from Topcultures company based in Belgium. It works very well and it is for good price, for €20-30 you will have enough to play for a year or so I would say. However as mentioned above, part of the "package" is small dosage of the starter for you for few to several first batches.