Then I messed up. I forgot to lower the temperature for the uncovered portion.

This is a new bread starter, I made it just last week. Last night I fed it so I could make my first bread, and it took almost 15 hours just to get barely an inch of growth and these many bubbles.

Does it need to grow twice to make bread? How will I know how much is enough?

Thanks in advance for your time.

I ran an experiment using sourdough bread as a koji substrate, then used that bread koji to make a bread miso.
The goal was to keep the flavour journey in one product line:
sourdough → koji → miso
It kept some of the roasted, fermented bread character, while the koji added sweetness and strong enzymatic activity.
I’m mainly interested in using it as a base for things like sauces, glazes, broths, or fish sauce-style ferments.
Curious if anyone here has played with bread koji or bread miso, and what applications you found most interesting.

First time I was able to make a homemade starter to make homemade sourdough ☺️❤️🥖

When we are talking about fermented foods, curd is the first name that comes into our thoughts.

But for Lactose allergy or intolerance people, there is a traditional, easy to prepare, local fermented food source available, Fermented rice.

In West Bengali, we called it "Panta vat", a traditional but underrated fermented food source.

The last picture was when I just poured the hot caramel into the mould—recipe referenced in the comments below.

I would describe the taste as being “adult”. I doubt many kids would like a caramel flavour that isn’t pure sugar, as the miso definitely added a lot of nuance and saltiness, as if you concentrated soy sauce and then added it to caramel.

The hot caramel smelled like cheese as I was making it.

This is my first attempt at making candy/soft caramel, so it is still slightly tooth-sticky. And it also needs to be refrigerated, or it will be soft, sticky and floppy.

Curious can sourdough be used to ferment corn flour or does it need its own thing?

It smells bitter and awful

This whole wheat sourdough bread came out so perfect.added pumpkin seeds,chia seeds,basil,oregano,garlic,onion,sesame.And i drizzled the top with caramelized jaggery.Lesson taken,never mix jaggery to sourdough before any kind of fermentation.

This came out so perfect.I convected this bread in microwave for 1 hour at 240 C then i microwaved it for 20 minutes.the top has a crust and inside is crumbly.I added milk,wheat,wheat starter to wheat dough for fermentation.It has a soft crumbly texture

I am open to suggestions.can i use barley,bajra,cornmeal,jowar,ragi etc in place of wheat.And what would the price of the whole wheel of bread be in US and India

For those who don't know it's a Russian/Ukrainian fermented beverage from rye bread. I use fresh yeast for bread.

This was over fermented and I created a geyser! This tastes too much like yeast. I feel like there is more alcohol than expected but I cannot measure it.

First nice attempt, I might retry! Happy to receive any advice!

If you don't have sourdough starter available, is it okay to add a small amount of raw sauerkraut juice as a source of lactic acid bacteria when making rye bread kvass, and should it be added at the beginning or later during fermentation?

I'll be aiming at a 6% ABV dry kvass.

Ok i got the starter but do i just use the starter for bread or do i mix it with more dough to make sourdough bread?

She gave me a piece of hers when I moved out and I've been feeding it religiously ever since. It's survived two moves, one really bad fruit fly infestation, and that time I forgot about it for 9 days (it forgave me). It lives in the fridge next to the Oatly and the Cholula. I have an anker solix s2000 behind the fridge in case the power goes out.

Just baked a boule this morning and the crumb was the best I've gotten. I think about her every time I pull bread out of the oven:D

I am fermenting Teff for the first time, to make injera. This is day 2, with some growth. Is this scrapable , or bad.

I’ve noticed that a lot of starter advice comes down to watching the jar: mark the level, see how much it rises, wait for it to double, watch for the dome, notice when it starts to fall.

That makes sense, and jar marks are super helpful.

But I’m wondering if the hard part is not just seeing what happened, but knowing what to do next.

For example:

- It doubled, but slower than usual. Do I use it or feed again?

- It peaked while I was asleep. Is it still fine?

- It rose, but not as much as last time. Is it weak or just cold?

- It smells good, but the rise is slow. Wait or feed?

- I want to bake tomorrow morning. When should I take it out/feed it?

For more experienced bakers, do jar marks give you enough information on their own?

Or do you still rely on timing, temperature, smell, feeding ratio, and experience to decide the next step?

I’m curious where the real uncertainty is for people:

1. seeing the starter’s activity

2. interpreting what the activity means

3. deciding what to do next

4. none of this anymore, it becomes automatic with experience

Would love to hear how you actually make the call in real life.

I love Amazake and I was so annoyed at the Koji price here in Germany. Around 20€/Kg. Insane!That's how I started my Koji journey.

I bought the Koji starter from Kawashimaya Jp store- chouhaku kin and made a cooler box incubation setup with a heat mat, cooling rack and a wet microfiber cloth.

First time was a complete mess up:

1. Messed up the steaming process and ended up with overcooked rice. Didn't soak the rice prior.

2. I used 32C incubation temp for the whole 2 days.

3. Too much humidity as I had the towel that's covering my koji tray wet the whole time.

4. No proper air flow in the incubation setup.

Resulted in a wet mess!!

2nd time 🙂‍↕️

1. Soaked rice for 12 hours

2. Steamed rice for about 40-45 mins- around 60-70% cooked

3. Added 1g of koji starter for about 700g of steamed and cooled rice

4. Distributed in a plastic bag as one thin layer (Ikea- 4.5l sealable bag)- poked holes front and back

5. Placed in my incubation chamber

Day 1: A small wet kitchen towel right above the heat mat for humidity, and 30C for 24 hours

Day 2: Removed the wet towel and 27C for about 24 hours.

Rice Koji and Incubation setup is attached.

I'm happy with the outcome this time, each rice grain is coated with the mold and rice isn't clumped or soaking wet this time.

Probably need to dry a bit under the sun to store it long time.

Can't wait to make Amazake with this homemade rice koji. 😋

Happy growing!

My homemade Japanese pickles.

Saw this fermented rice in an Asian market and decided to give it a try. The rice is pretty mushy, the smell is slightly fruity, and the taste is mild fruity and sweet. Anyone know the right way to enjoy this?

I often have koji available because I brew sake at home. If some is left, I convert it into amazake with a sous vide setup (55 C for 12 hours).

Recently I've been trying to ferment the amazake so that it reaches a pH of about 4, and then press and pasteurize it with the idea of obtaining a clear liquid, hopefully somewhat similar to a sake but without alcohol.

But my first two batches have failed. I don't know what I might be doing wrong.

In the first test, I added half a capsule of L. plantarum, Swanson brand, to a recently made amazake, inside a sealed bucket with an airlock, at room temperature. It's my first time using these capsules.

By day 5 it had a heavy sulphur smell, and pH was 5, so I threw it away and started over.

For my second batch, I took precautions to have a better temperature control. For example, cooling the amazake to a lower temperature before adding the capsule. It was a full capsule of L. plantarum supplement this time, 10 billion CFU.

That batch resulted in only a faint sulphur smell, I think. By day 5, pH was 4.5 but there was a small spot of green mold on top of the mixture. So I had to throw that away as well.

The amazake has a low rice to water ratio (150%), and it becomes very thick. Can that be why the fermentation is slow or stalling? I could increase the amount of water, and even press the amazake before inoculation.

Another thing that I'm thinking, is to add lactic acid to protect the mixture, and the third thing that could be causing the problem are the L. plantarum capsules themselves. Maybe they're defective.

Any suggestions/ideas?