MAKE
Start with a
classic miso.
Pick rice or barley miso, choose your koji ratio and batch size, and the recipe falls into place. Everything you need is in one list.
Make a classic miso (in Japanese)→01 FERMENTATION INTELLIGENCE
Ferment it.
With Hackoh.
Plan the batch, watch it change, and eat it at its best.
A whole fermentation, held in your phone.
OBSERVATION FERMENTINGDeveloping
Spring White Miso
Pale · sweetComing along nicely.
Maturity34%
EarlyDevelopingMatureAlmost there
Tasting windowReady to eat
PackedDone
Temp.24.0°C
RegionKanto
Day18
Koji ratio10
BIOLOGY × CULTURE × COMPUTATION
FERMENTATION INTELLIGENCE
A small intelligence,
sitting beside the ferment.
Hakkoh-chan connects your data and your senses, and keeps you company while you make.
Watching the changes together.
Temperature, days, photographs, aroma. From your everyday notes, Hakkoh-chan works out where the ferment stands — and instead of declaring a verdict, quietly hands you a way to see it.
Between numbers and the senses.
There is texture that calculation cannot capture, and change that the senses alone will miss. Hakkoh-chan stands in between, linking what you notice to what is known about fermentation.
Growing alongside you.
Hakkoh-chan is still learning too. Batch by batch, conversation by conversation, it is growing into a guide you can rely on.
02WHAT IS HACKOH?
Make it. Grow it. Taste it.
Hackoh treats fermentation not as a fond old tradition, but as a living bioculture of the present — something you can observe, understand and design. Hackoh is made by Mitsuura Jozo, a miso and soy sauce brewery in Yamaguchi, Japan.
Read about Hackoh (in Japanese) →Start with a
MAKE
Bring a regional
miso into your kitchen.
Shinshu, Sendai, Saikyo, Setouchi. Use the ratios that grew up in each part of Japan as your starting point.
Choose a regional miso (in Japanese)→
MAKE
Build a flavour
no one has tasted yet.
Combine proteins and koji freely, and design a fermented seasoning that exists nowhere else.
Start a Hackoh craft (in Japanese)→Cultivate
Keep notes, and live alongside the ferment.
Temperature, days, photographs, aroma, texture. Ordinary observations, gathered one by one, with Hakkoh-chan beside you and no reason to rush.
Keep a log in the app (in Japanese)→Taste
Find your moment, and eat it well.
Young and bright, or deep and matured — both are ripe. The data points the way, but the last call is made by your own tongue.
Learn how to taste it (in Japanese)→03LEARN FERMENTATION
Learning to ferment.
Before you make anything, and all through the waiting. From the plainest question — what is fermentation, really? — down to molecules and numbers. Start wherever you like. These pages are written in Japanese.
LEARN 00 — SECRETS
The Secrets of Fermentation
“So what is fermentation?” Mugi and Hakkoh-chan pack a miso, wait half a year, and open the tub. Three minutes an episode. If the science feels heavy, start here.
Read with Mugi (in Japanese) →LEARN 01 — BASICSFermentation Basics
From knowing nothing about fermentation to packing one miso with confidence. Six chapters, meant to be read in order.
Read the basics (in Japanese) →LEARN 02 — DEEPERDown the Fermentation Rabbit Hole
Enzyme kinetics, shifting microbial casts, aroma molecules, designing for safety. Fermentation seen once more, through molecules and numbers.
Go deeper (in Japanese) →LEARN 03 — WIDERHow Far Fermentation Reaches
How one principle split into regional styles across Japan, took other shapes around the world, and how far back it all goes.
See how far it goes (in Japanese) →LEARN 04 — GLOSSARYFermentation Glossary
Look up the words of koji, enzymes and fermentation. Over 500 entries, for whenever a term stops you mid-sentence.
Look a word up (in Japanese) →HACKOH APP / FERMENTATION COMPANION
The ferment keeps going
long after you pack the tub.
Before you make it, while you wait, and when you finally eat it. Hackoh is an app for enjoying the whole stretch of fermentation time.
More about the app →COMING SOON — the app is still in preparation. iPhone and Android planned.
01DESIGN
Design a batch from the flavour you want.
Choose the style and the amount, and the app lays out the koji, soybean and salt. Even on a first attempt, the batch is yours.
→02OBSERVE
Turn small changes into a daily record.
Photographs, aroma, colour, taste, the temperature of the room. The more you keep, the clearer your own household’s fermentation becomes.
→03FORECAST
Make the waiting part of the pleasure.
From your fermentation data, the app projects how maturity is progressing, and looks with you for the moment your favourite flavour arrives.
→04TALK
When in doubt, ask Hakkoh-chan.
Worried about the colour on the surface, or a smell you did not expect? Hakkoh-chan looks at your photos and your history, right there beside the ferment.
→
FERMENTATION IS ALIVE.
Let’s ferment.
Start making on the web →The app is still in preparation. Until then, the making and learning pages on the web are open — they are written in Japanese.About the app (in Japanese) →