The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Koji anyone?

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

Koji anyone?

Has anyone ever made bread with koji mold?

It sounds amazing. The author claimed THIS BREAD using a Forkish recipe they modified tasted of cheddar cheese!

Source for and information about KOJI

Here on the site:

Aspergillus Oryzae: Overnight Oats

Amazake

Rice Porridge Sourdough

Additional References:

Making Sakadane

Making Milk Bread

Econprof's picture
Econprof

Did a loaf with koji rice that looks really good:

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/65332/koji-rice-porridge-sourdough

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

Of the difference in procedure and flavor profile from what you did and what was done in my first link?

Econprof's picture
Econprof

Wasn’t me who made it. I just remembered seeing a post about koji in bread. But it does seem like the koji contributed an interesting texture in both cases.

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

"Immediately upon pulling the koji-loaf, one could smell a cheesy-like crust (think: those chedder cheese buns you can buy at grocery stores), and even taste cheesy notes later."

I included a link where the mold can be purchased, they carry two varieties, I think the white one is the one they used for bread in the other link. This is on my list after the Buckwheat and an a-amylase experiment I have in mind.

Benito's picture
Benito

Hi Ron, you may know that I have done some things involving koji.  I became interested in koji when someone suggested that I make my own miso.  After I found a source of koji rice in Toronto, more than a year ago, I started my first batch of miso.  I’ve now made three batches.  Early on I added miso to my sourdough breads.  

More recently I’ve made amazake using the koji rice.  I have added amazake like one would add a porridge to bread.  I also made a corn amazake with polenta and the koji rice to add to bread.  Related to koji rice but not directly using koji rice I’ve also made a sake kasu leavened bread.  Sake kasu is the lees left over from making sake.

I haven’t had the experience of smelling anything cheese like with anything I’ve made with koji rice.  That includes shio koji, both sweet and sour amazake and shoyu koji.

I’ve recently found a place that sells koji barley, but I haven’t purchased that to try making miso from yet.

Ultimately it would be awesome to learn to make koji rice itself, but living in an apartment I just don’t have the space.

I look forward to hearing about your use of koji rice.

I think the ultimate bread to make would use the power of the Aspergillus oryzae to leaven bread, that would be sakadane raised bread.  I haven’t yet done this as one needs a very good supply of koji rice as essentially you’re building a starter/levain using only koji rice.  Here are a couple of links with some information https://youtu.be/sEUokdUqE2M and a recipe https://youtu.be/xNMecBbEkLI

Benny

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

The link I provided to the modernist pantry supplies the spores to inoculate grains. That is on my list. I plan to buy the spores later thiso month. Your experiences working with the innoculated rice is interesting, I love miso! I think the cheese flavors are the result of direct innoculation of the dough with the mold spores.

Ahead of that is the Buckwheat (Just received my grains) and a few other things.

 

 

Benito's picture
Benito

Well I really look forward to your experience with koji spores and inoculating things with aspergillus oryzae!  There are so many foods that you can inoculate and make more delicious.  Have a look at the book Koji Alchemy if you haven’t yet.  Loads of information on making koji rice and other things.  If I had the space I’d be making my own koji rice.

Benny

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

I will. When I have my spores I will post. hopefully we will hear from others who have experience with this ancient novel mold.

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

1 Gram of Shirayuri Koji Spores (aspergillus oryzae) is enough to innoculate 1 KG of rice/pearled barley (or just about any other grain) 10g costs $12.99, and 200g costs $99. anything that light isn't expensive to ship since it could easily be put in a first-class envelope. That would be about $5/10oz (plus maybe a dollar for shipping 2 stamps?) I'm going to be ordering in a few weeks if anyone would like to piggyback on my order PM me and I'll order the 200g. Otherwise, I'll just do the 10-gram package which is good for about 20 lbs of grains.

Abe's picture
Abe

I buy this brand. Tastes like sweet rice pudding yet it has no added sugar. I wonder if the cultures are still live. 

Back in 2017 I made a 123 sourdough with Amazake. Turned out very nice indeed. 

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

I found this interesting:

Additionally, although not considered bakery yeasts, fungal proteases derived from Aspergillus oryzae and A. nigerhave been used in conjunction with sourdough lactobacilli to initiate primary hydrolysis of wheat proteins. Ultimately, these enzymes could detoxify wheat flour.

Additional resources from here at TFL

https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66793/aspergillus-oryzae-overnight-oats-bread-koji-miso-sakadane