Over the past year, I’ve started making natto, the sticky, pungent soybean fermentation. The process is extended but fairly simple:
- Soak the beans for twelve or more hours
- Steam it in the Instapot with high pressure for 4 hours
- Inoculate the beans with with a spoonful of older beans
- Incubate it for 24 hours in a toaster oven set on warm (at around 100 degrees Farenheit).
I started with a commercial natto product and have been backslopping it for multiple generations. However, I’ve hit a couple weak batches.
These modern industrial mono-culture products are not considered particularly resilient, so maybe it’s time to start anew. However, I may also have been at fault. After an extended good run, I might have gotten sloppy and pushed my luck, using a smaller inoculating batch or not being vigilant during this process.
Even though my general philosophy has always been to push for “good enough”, there are still limits on how lackadaisical I can treat the process, since natto is not as forgiving as sourdough.
A sour batch (while still edible) invariably feels like a soul crushing disappointment, but I need to remind myself that I learn more from failure. One doesn’t find the limits via easy success. Boundaries are discovered by going awry.