I had a beautiful bag of black rice, I cooked it. And inoculated with white koji spores. Was so so so prettty like a little princess.

I halfed the batch and planned to make some sour amazake…. but i failed. I chose a wrong vessel so the surface was too big and the liquid evaporated too much (of course i fell asleep so i left the amazake 5 hours more in the chamber!!! this is my stupidity). Anyways, some rice was ’emerged out of the liquid’ and got contaminated with unknown white mold on top.

I did not give up straight away – was trying to turn into shio koji by adding 5% salt (and more water) and started to pray. Unfortunately i did have a thin layer of white mold on top the next day so i finally let it go (down the loo.) I learnt the lesson! — the size and shape of the fermenting vessel is more than important! (also avoid to fall asleep meanwhile hahaha).

But with the other half of the koji rice i started my koji cottage cheese project.

Mixed my freshly made blackrice koji with some cottage cheese from the farmers market and added some salt to keep it safe.

I am aware of the higher fat contant and the possibility of becoming rancid if the fermentation happens too fast – my book suggested a fridge-temperature fermentation for about 2 months. Well luckily i have a great little ‘cave’ hidden under our garage so i ve decided to be Maverick and leave it out but on a constant 16-18 degrees. Fingers cross it will turn into my fingerlicking purple parmezan’.

Im half way now – and the smell of the ferment is already mind blowing. Checking time to time and see all the little bubbles appearing in the mix. My plan is to ferment for a month time then hang in some muslin to turn into a cheese ball and dry out for a more ‘cheese-like’ texture. Im so excited — almost like my niece when sees a SnowWhite Barbie Doll in a toystore window. Salivation.

more coming soon….