A Helpful Tip for Vaisnavas About Japanese Miso Broth
Posted August 12, 2008
Here's a helpful tip for those devotees who drink Japanese miso broth, and tips for how to cook it in such a way that is appropriate for Vaisnavas.
Miso broth keep at warm temperature for 6 or 7 hours actually starts to produce alcohol! Similar to apple juice at room temperature, and so on. However, miso broth at just under boiling, 95 degrees C, can go for 6 or 7 hours without producing any alcohol at all. Just something to remember any time you make miso broth in the future. Important to bring the water to a full boil, 100 degrees C, before you add the miso and then don't leave it sitting at too low a temperature for too long. Once its been steamed or boiled, though, the fermentation process is stopped and so the process of creating alcohol no longer occurs. Steamed miso broth can then sit at room temperature for a longer time, but will eventually start to go rotten, although it doesn't produce alcohol any longer. I never discovered this before, because my coffee urn had a fixed temperature thermostat at just under boiling -- I never left it sitting for a long time without first boiling it.
The explanation for this is obvious. The boiling point of alcohol is less than the boiling point of water. Therefore, when you heat the miso broth, the alcohol starts to steam off before the water does. As long as you first cook the miso at just under boiling, then there will be no alcohol ever. Once the miso is boiled, it seems that the fermentation stops, and so no more alcohol will ever get produced.