Trying to follow US recipes for making miso can be annoying, to say the least, as the non-metric

units used are so confusing. When are Americans going to join the rest of the world and use a
rational system of measurement? Anyway, I have been making miso for a while now and thought I
would share my hard-won calculations for miso making using metric. This is far and away the most
difficult part of miso making doing the maths!!
So here is a table. The key figure is the last column this is the volume (in litres) of the container,
which dictates everything else: too little and it can be difficult to keep air out, too much and you
waste it. The trick is to calculate volumes back for all the different ingredients. The volumes I use
are based on those heavy stoneware jars which are so easy and cheap to pick up in the UK. There is
always a wild card though, as matching weights and volumes is distinctly variable how squashed
are your soy beans, how squishy your koji etc.
Note re. below, all these, bar the last one (only just made) taste just great, apart from 22/11/13,
which seemed too salty (consigned to making radish pickle) although the salt figure is actually too
Source of
recipe
Aoyagi &
29/10/13 Shiru
Shurtleff
03/11/13 Sendai
GEM
22/11/13 Mugi
GEM
29/11/13 Mugi
GEM
?/7/14
Shinshu
GEM
27/07/14 Amakuchi Mugi GEM
Aoyagi &
Shurtleff
10/08/14 Sendai
15/02/15 Sendai
GEM

Date made Type of miso

Cooked soya Koji dry Koji fresh ml

beans g
g
or g
Salt g
390
700
750
700
571
414

500

546
1748

Soya cooking
liquid ml

TOTAL L

600 ml
1200
600 ml
394g
843g

52
151
130
128
161
118

225
200
460
200
?
?

1.2
1.2
2.3
1.2
1.2
1.2

300g
850g

154
280

388
435

1.5
2.3

low so something might well have gone wrong here.

Keep in touch on noelk57@gmail.com if you want to discuss.