Tempeh revisited!

Hopefully I’ve made better tempeh this time than described in the previous post. I’m not sure yet though. It’s just out of the incubator, after taking something like 30 hours instead of the 24 that the Gem Cultures instructions say. I rather think if 24 hours is not always long enough, they should probably mention it, a lot of people would take those instructions more literally than me. Oh well, not to slag off the nice people at Gem.

The whole point of this post is more to show you a picture of my DIY as fuck incubator than anything else. I discovered just how low tech it can be! All over the internet, if you are researching tempeh making, you will see people’s suggestions of using a broken fridge, into which you just have to put a 17.45 watt lightbulb and a thermostat or somesuch nonsense. It always seemed much too hard to me. And I imagine to lots of others too, cos who has broken fridges and thermostats lying around? Well, I did happen to have a cooler lying around, you know, like a picnic box that’s insulated and keeps shit cold. I also have, as most people do…some lamps. Pictcha!

Oh god yes and of course the other bits of high tech equipment that I had are some kind of rack that I found in a bin, and a fridge thermometer that you can buy in a pound shop or kitchen shop or on the internet.

I did an experiment first where I left the lamp on pointing into the box with the thermometer in it for a while, until I was pretty confident about the right position to have the lamp in, how close to the box it should be etc. I would suggest doing the same.

I’m now tempted to try it with NO BOX! Maverick that I am. Because if I’m only doing a block of tempeh the size of your average book, I’m not sure I need much more than a lamp pointing at it…?

So it took about 24 hours for there to be any sign of mycelium, I got a bit worried that I’d done something wrong, but after 30 hours I took it out, all nicely bound with mouldymould, mostly white, with a couple of little black spots. Smelled good, looked furry, just like last time.

I’m now writing post the eating of the tempeh, and I can confirm that this batch was muuuch better than last time.

Things I did differently this time:

I didn’t add vinegar. Somewhere on the internet advised me to do so and I did the first time, this time, not.

I steamed the tempeh in blocks and then soaked it in brine (salt water) over night. I reckon that might help it keep quite a bit longer, as it quite probably kills the spores that would otherwise keep growing and growing until you were left with black slimey beans.

Damn when tempeh is good, it is GOOD!

I still think it’s a bit of a kerfuffle to make, but I’ll definitely make more of it until my culture powder is used up. I’d like to try a version with chickpeas, cos them there are one of my favourite beans, and I could probably even just crack open a can of chickpeas to make it. Eee Zee.