This is my first time. I'm a little unsure about the spores so we'll see, but if it fucks up we're lucky enough to have a good local supplier. This incubation chamber (made of garbage!!) was a secret Santa gift from my coworker @splat. Free, low-cost gift idea if you have a bean freak in your life, possibly one of the coolest presents I have ever received.
I hope this works though! I've always found tempeh to be relatively really expensive in Canada, despite the fact that there are companies that produce it IN Montreal. The spores aren't suuuper cheap either but I think it could possibly be worth it, especially if the homemade tempeh is extra tasty, which I've heard it is.
@peoplelikedogs ok this is so awesome I have seen it done before but it's empowering to see someone else take it on! I need to set up a contraption for this and make some too
@liaizon yeah! i have been wanting to do it ever since i got a copy of wild fermentation when i was 19, so like.... 15 years in the making haha. i was always really intimidated by the whole incubation chamber setup, and it helped a lot just being gifted this one, but in new orleans i'm pretty sure you could definitely just do it at room temp in the summer.
@liaizon@peoplelikedogs a not obvious awesome thing about tempeh is that the collaboration with the fungus results in humans getting more nutrients from the soy because the fungus digests some things that our gut usually cant, and the outputs of the fungus metabolism are great inputs to ours
I fried up a lil slice plain and it was very tasty! Great success. I missed shelling a few of the beans and would maybe cook them a tinnnny bit longer next time, but otherwise this is by far the easiest and most instant-gratification fermentation project I've ever done. I'm marinating some slices for TLT sandwiches later and froze most of it.
I really like doing napkin math so I did a cost breakdown and found out that per-batch, it is VERY cost effective to make it at home vs buying it (not to mention the possibility of experimenting with other beans and grains, which I'm really stoked about)
Spores: From Mycoboutique it's $35 for 50g which is the larger economy-sized package. You need about 4g of spores for 500g of dried soybeans, so ~$2.80 per batch.
Soybeans: At Bulk Barn prices they're $.27/100g, so that's $1.35 for 500g
So for one batch which starts with 500g dried soybeans and yields approximatedly 750g finished tempeh, that's $4.15 in raw materials (not including 30mL of white vinegar).
Comparitively, Noble Bean (local tempeh empire, which I learned is the largest tempeh maker in North America?? ) runs about $6 for a 240g brick these days. So that's $18 for roughly the same amount as I made at home for ~$4.15. Definitely worth it.
Also shoutout Javanese ppl for inventing tempeh!!! Been trying to read up on the history while working on all this and it's definitely hard to find stuff that isn't from a total colonialist and/or gross western "healthfood" perspective, but it does seem like there's some movement both in Indonesia and more broadly to encourage tempeh consumption and home production because of it's such a low cost and tasty protein. If anyone knows of any good english or french language anticolonial tempeh history I'm def interested.
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