Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Soy and legumes from Japan — Seto Inland Sea coast

Setouchi barley miso (light-coloured barley miso, Seto Inland Sea)瀬戸内麦味噌

Setouchi barley miso is a light-coloured miso of the Seto Inland Sea coast, made with a high proportion of barley koji. It has the smell and sweetness of barley. Studies of Ehime products measured about 9 % salt, and makers reported barley koji at 2 to 10 times the soybeans and a ripening of only a few weeks.

DocumentedSoy and legumes15 days – 30 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo recipe amounts found; the Ehime institute reports koji ratios and the salt of the finished miso, not weights.
Soybeans
Barley kojiUsed at a high ratio to the soybeans[TSC-2017][ehime2019]
Salt
Starterbarley koji

Total time across the recorded steps: 15 days – 30 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countMoulds

What changes: Mould spreads over the barley, more thickly the longer the koji is grown

Step 1 of 3
Grow the barley koji
Time
24 h – 2.2 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds

Output: barley koji.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
faint hyphae on the grain after 24–28 h; thick hyphae after 46–52 h
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

koji mould grows over the barley; shorter koji times keep the miso paler

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

Setouchi barley miso is a light-coloured miso of the Seto Inland Sea coast, made with a high proportion of barley koji. It has the smell and sweetness of barley. Studies of Ehime products measured about 9 % salt, and makers reported barley koji at 2 to 10 times the soybeans and a ripening of only a few weeks. Made in 3 steps over 15 days – 30 days. The longest step, ripen briefly, takes 14–28 days (Morimoto S 2019). Salt is 9.1–9.3 % (Morimoto S 2015).

Key numbers
Main step14–28 daysReported[ehime2019]Ripen briefly
Salt9.1–9.3 %Measured[ehime2015][ehime2019]Mix barley koji, soybeans and salt and pack

What makes this one different

Its barley koji runs well above the 8–25 koji ratio typical of barley miso in general, and Ehime makers ship it after only a few weeks, so it stays pale and sweet. It is unlike the white sweet rice miso of the rest of Kagawa.

Related ferments

Variants

  • West Kagawa (Seisan) barley misoMade in west Kagawa, where naked barley is widely grown, while the rest of Kagawa makes white sweet rice miso with about 5 % salt.

History and sources

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

  1. [TSC-2017] Tokyo Seiei College, 日本各地のいろいろな味噌 (student nutrition sheet), 2017web
  2. [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
  3. [JA-WIKI-讃岐味噌] Japanese Wikipedia, 讃岐味噌 (West Kagawa barley miso)wiki
  4. [ehime2015] Morimoto S., Fujita M., Miyaoka S. 2015, えひめの麦みその特徴 (Characteristics of Ehime barley miso), Ehime Prefectural Institute of Industrial Technology Research Report No. 53, pp. 21–23paper
  5. [ehime2019] Morimoto S., Sakai M. 2019, えひめの麦みそ機能性向上に関する研究 (Improving the functionality of Ehime barley miso), Ehime Prefectural Institute of Industrial Technology Research Report No. 57, pp. 29–32paper