Another amino post, this time koji/soy. Not a super glamorous pic I'm afraid! My first time attempting a koji culture for ages, and while it started off fine, it started sporulating quite quickly, within 36 hrs. See the green colour in the third pic. This happens for a variety of reasons, but in this case it was either too dry or too hot.
Garum time! Well, not strictly garum as the method is very different. They were traditionally made around the Roman empire as a by-product of the fishing industry where fish guts were added to vats with salt and left to digest themselves for months until all that was left was a liquid full of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Nowadays Asian fish sauce is the nearest equivalent, though we have Worcestershire sauce, something quite similar. Both are packed with aminos and salt.