When I was growing up in Korea, it was pretty common to see people making their own soy sauce including my mom, who used to have 3 barrels of soy sauce that lasted us about 10 years.   I used to wonder why it took so long to make soy sauce but it lasts a lifetime once you make it.

Soy sauce can be created along with fermented soy bean paste, which is another by-product while making soy sauce.

Soy sauce has scientifically been proven to help prevent Cancer and other diseases(One of the Top 10 antioxidants on Earth today).

Now, Korean soy sauce is pretty much same as Japanese soy sauce or Chinese soy sauce as far as taste goes but if you make your own soy sauce, it will be much fresher and every barrel will have a unique taste you cannot buy at your grocery market.

Well, I have always been fond of how long it takes to make soy sauce, a long fermenting process that can be comparable to making fine red wine.

Anyways, here’s how you can make Korean style soy sauce, I’ve translated one of the HOWTO soy sauce pages to English:

1. Choose the Beans

You need to find the right beans from a good organic source and make sure they are all fresh and throw away any “bad” beans in the batch.

2. Soak and Saturate Beans

You need to soak the beans in water for about 12 hours.

3. Boil the Beans in How Water

Once the beans are well saturated, heat the water until it boils.  Keep boiling the beans until they turn to a yellowish color.  You should expect to boil around 3 hours and make sure the beans are so soft if you touch it, they will easily break into pieces.

4. Smash Beans

Once boiling is done and beans are soft, you can get rid of the hot water and put it in a big pot while it’s still hot.  You can smash it now.  Of course, all this helps if you use authentic Korean stoneware as shown in below pics:

(Step 2-4 in old style Korean cookware Image Credit)

5. Make a Shape

One they are all smashed up nicely, you can make a rectangular shape with it somewhat like this pic:

(Step 5-6 Image Credit)

6. Hang It!

Now you have them in rectangular pieces, you need to hang it somewhere where there’s a lot of sunlight.  These rectangular pieces might get some fungus pieces, if that happens, try to let some wind cool to keep it drier.  Fungus isn’t too big a problem, you can always cut that piece out when they dry.

Once the rectangular soy blocks are dry, put them in a box in the shade.

7. Making Soy Sauce

Once the rectangular soy blocks are completely dry (and clean off any fungus on the surface), put the blocks inside a big Stoneware jar (here’s an example of how big) and fill it with water and salt.  Also put about 5 red Korean chilli peppers,

For the first few days, leave the jar lid open to sunlight.

8. Making Soy Bean Paste.

After 1-2 months, take the soy bean blocks out and and put it in another jar.  (After 5 months or so, the soy bean blocks will become soy bean paste)

The leftover water now becomes soy sauce.

Usually, Koreans will start making soy sauce in the winter as fermentation is best during winter and will be ready to eat in Spring.  You will probably do best to make soy sauce in your home if where you live has 4 seasons.  But if you in sunny state California like me, you can always fake the fermentation in a Kimchee fridge.  Of course, Kimchee is also best when fermented in such “cold” manner during snowing winters.

Well, there you have it, that’s how you make Korean soy sauce (sorta, my translation isn’t world’s top notch but you probably get a good idea now).

Now everytime you buy soy sauce, you will appreciate the efforts into making it.  Better yet, try making your own!

Translated from Korean Soy Sauce Company

A German mom put her baby on sale at eBay for 1 euro.  Of course, it was just a joke but… remember this, “THERE ARE NO REFUNDS!”

Continue reading ‘German Mom puts her baby on sale at eBay!’

This is a paid review on ReviewMe.

Check out Frontier Labels for your next graphics job, whether that’s preparing a sample for your next client meeting or it’s for your mom-and-pop online store.

It looks like they’ve got a wide range of sizes for your next project that requires labels. I am even thinking of ordering one of their free samples for my websites.

Looks like they have some great pressure sensitive machines. I tell ya, I’ve tried some printing companies and it came out horrible. Frontier Labels allow you to get free samples so it looks like you got nothin’ to lose on that part. It’s a great thing when companies stand behind their products simply by offering samples. Which, I might add, these labels probably get used a lot for another sample.

They also offer Artwork help, which means they are probably not another online mom-and-pop store. This company has been around since 2004, most likely a great company to get your labels done.

Another great feature is their automated Instant Quote, so you can find out how much it’s going to cost you.

Lastly, they do offer 1-day shipping, which would probably most critical in the labels business.

Has anyone tried this company? If so, please leave a comment.

Check out http://www.frontierlabel.com here.

Oh yes, this product has been inspired by yes you have guessed it, remember when you were young and your mom made you spit on a tissue to wipe your face or if she used to just clear the fluid in her mouth, well you’ve got it.

Now this product which I am amusing does not contain anything so nasty as the real momspit, is actually a cleanser but it is supposed to be so natural that is has become eco friendly, of course you couldn’t possibly get anything more eco friendly than what is in the bottle.

Momspit comes in lemon/white tea, fig/green tea and unscented all which sound delightful.

Priced at $9 for a 2 oz can or $18 for a seven oz can.

Source [Baby Gadget]

A lot of Asian cultures still use the moon clock for calculating their birthdays. For whatever reason, our family still cannot figure out my mom’s birthday as it was originally recorded as a Moon day… Well we could figure it out using some moon calculators…

Anyways, check out the moon caclulator here.

Despite the hour hand only roughly modeling the sun’s motion through the zodiac, it turns out that, as a means of obtaining the moon phase, the moon’s phase can still be indicated to an accuracy of better than 1%! This is accomplished by attaching the ‘Moon dial’ graphic disc onto the hour hand. This disc rotates, thereby simulating the way the sun’s movement lengthens the moon’s phase period over it’s orbital period.

Anyway, enough of these crazy meanderings! I’m off now to make a clock which uses a timebase with a division ratio of 3.36 x 10^12. This will create a clock which indicates which geological time epoch you are in!

It’s time for my pills now.

via techlib

Get trio-bike that can do three things!

via gizmodo