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Soy and legumes from Japan — Iwate

Iwate rice miso (Tōhoku Pacific-side karakuchi miso)岩手の米味噌

Iwate rice miso is a salty grain miso of the Tōhoku Pacific coast. Steamed, crushed soybeans are mixed with whole-grain rice koji, salt and a little yeast-seeded water, started cool, turned once and ripened warm for about half a year. The koji ratio was 7 wari in the past and is 10 wari, equal weights of rice and soybeans, in most Iwate miso today.

Fully documentedSoy and legumes6.1 months

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe 10-wari koji batch of a 2024 trial at the Iwate Industrial Research Institute; a 7-wari batch used 9.8 kg beans, 4.1 kg koji, 2.2 kg salt and 1.2 kg seed water.
Steamed, crushed soybeans8.8 kg[IWATE-2024]
Rice koji5.2 kgGrown on polished rice with the Benitsubaki strain[IWATE-2024]
Salt2.2 kgOrdinary coarse salt[IWATE-2024]
Seed water1.4 kgA salt-tolerant yeast culture diluted six times with tap water[IWATE-2024]
Starterrice koji (koji mould; the trial report does not name the species); the 2024 trial also added seed water with the salt-tolerant yeast Zygosaccharomyces rouxii RM-3

Total time across the recorded steps: 6.1 months

Start
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What changes: Washed rice soaks overnight and steams for an hour

Step 1 of 6
Soak and steam the rice
Time
1 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds
Zygosaccharomyces rouxii
Yeasts

Output: steamed rice, cooled.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Iwate rice miso is a salty grain miso of the Tōhoku Pacific coast. Steamed, crushed soybeans are mixed with whole-grain rice koji, salt and a little yeast-seeded water, started cool, turned once and ripened warm for about half a year. The koji ratio was 7 wari in the past and is 10 wari, equal weights of rice and soybeans, in most Iwate miso today. Made in 6 steps over 6.1 months. The longest step, warm ripening, takes 5 months (Hatakeyama M 2024) and runs at 30 °C (Hatakeyama M 2024). Salt is 11.4–11.9 % (Hatakeyama M 2024). Koji mould and Zygosaccharomyces rouxii RM-3 do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step5 monthsReported[IWATE-2024]Warm ripening
Temperature30 °CReported[IWATE-2024]Warm ripening
Salt11.4–11.9 %Measured[IWATE-2024]Mix with soybeans, salt and seed water and pack

What makes this one different

Iwate miso keeps whole koji grains and now uses a high 10-wari koji ratio for a salty rice miso. The Aichi type table gives salty red rice miso, made across Tōhoku, a koji ratio of 5–10, 11–13 % salt and 3–12 months of ripening [aichi-itc].

Related ferments

Variants

  • Miso-dama home miso (northern Iwate)Beans boiled in late March, minced and shaped into balls of about 3 gō, hung from the ceiling on straw to dry; when white mould shows in the cracks in late April, the balls are washed, soaked overnight, crushed and packed with salt and koji, or with no koji [Murai1975].
  • Old Morioka home misoSoybean 1 shō, koji 5–7 gō and salt 3 gō, about soybean 10 to koji 37–53 % and salt 11–12 %. Home miso was kept 3–5 years against famine and was thought unfit to eat before 3 years [Murai1975].

Safety

The Aichi sheet says salty (karakuchi) miso, at about 12 % salt, has enough salt to stop unwanted microbes, which lets it ripen for a long time [aichi-itc]. The finished Iwate trial misos, analysed after 6 months of ripening, held about 11–12 % salt [IWATE-2024].

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The old Nanbu domain grew soybeans as a cash crop and for horse feed. A 1950s survey of Iwate home miso found salt from 11 to 22 % and water from 47 to 62 %, showing very different methods [Murai1975]. The 2024 trial notes that 7-wari koji miso was once common on the Tōhoku Pacific side and that 10-wari is now the Iwate mainstream [IWATE-2024].

  1. [IWATE-2024] Hatakeyama M., Hirano T. 2024, 麹菌紅椿を用いた味噌の製造試験 (miso trials with the koji strain Benitsubaki), Iwate Industrial Research Institute report 27:53–55gov
  2. [Murai1975] Murai S., Hakozaki H., Miyata Y. 1975, 岩手 (Iwate, on its climate, miso and soybeans), J. Brew. Soc. Japan 70(8):569–572, doi:10.6013/jbrewsocjapan1915.70.569paper
  3. [aichi-itc] Itō M., 日本の伝統的発酵調味料である味噌について (On miso), Aichi Center for Industry and Science Technology, Food News No. 16, p. 3; type table adapted from みそ技術ハンドブックgov