The Art of Making Natto: A Journey Through Incubation and Flavor Development

As I stood in my kitchen, staring at the bag of bean sprouts that would become my natto, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. Natto, a traditional Japanese dish made from fermented soybeans, was a staple in many Asian cultures, but it was also infamous for its strong smell and slimy texture. To make natto, one needed to incubate the beans at a precise temperature of around 125 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hotter than what my oven could handle. Undeterred, I decided to use a hot plate and thermostat to regulate the temperature.

I carefully placed the bean sprouts in a container lined with cheesecloth, making sure to keep them moist but not waterlogged. Then, I set up my hot plate and thermometer to maintain a consistent temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit. As I waited for the beans to incubate for 24 hours, I couldn't help but wonder if I was taking on a culinary challenge that would pay off in the end.

After the incubation period, I removed the beans from the container and let them sit at room temperature for a few hours to cool down. Then, I placed them into the refrigerator to slow down the fermentation process. According to some methods, natto should be allowed to ferment for three to five days, during which time the flavors would mellow out and become more complex.

I was eager to taste my homemade natto and see if it lived up to its promise. As I looked at the beans, I noticed that they had developed a beautiful, cobwebby surface – exactly what you want when making natto. To test their quality, I used a technique where I whipped up the beans with a little bit of soy sauce and checked if the strands remained gooey and maintained their texture.

To season my natto, I used a concentrated soup base that came in different forms. A tiny amount goes a long way, as it's extremely concentrated. I added just a couple of drops to whip up my natto, and voilà! It looked just as delicious as the store-bought variety. I was now ready to enjoy my natto with some cooked rice and green onions.

The moment I took that first bite, I knew that all my hard work had paid off. The beans were soft and tender, with a great natto flavor that was slightly bitter and cheesy. A little bit of soy sauce added a nice saltiness, while the green onions provided a crunchy contrast to the smooth texture of the rice and beans. It was love at first bite! I couldn't wait to crack some fresh eggs on top of this dish for an extra oomph.

As I devoured my homemade natto, I felt proud of myself for taking on this culinary challenge. The entire batch of natto weighed almost a pound, and I had spent around three dollars and fifty cents to make it – not bad considering the quality and taste! If you're an autohead (or should I say, nattohead?), I highly recommend giving this recipe a try. It's delicious, fun, and economical. And who knows? You might just find yourself hooked on the creamy, slimy goodness of homemade natto.

A Special Thanks

I would like to extend my gratitude to Not the Dad for sharing his thorough instructions and tips on making natto. His website is filled with helpful resources and advice that I'm sure will benefit anyone interested in trying their hand at this traditional Japanese dish. Additionally, I would like to thank Wix for sponsoring this video. Their website building platform has made it easy for me to create a beautiful and functional website, which helps me share my content with the world. If you're looking for a reliable website builder, be sure to check out Wix.com.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: engreetings my beautiful lovelies its Emmie welcome back today's video is sponsored by Wix a free web building site that allows you to make your own website whether you're an individual or a company Wix has all the tools you need to build yourself a gorgeous site click on the link below and register for a free account and use the Wix website builder to make yourself a beautiful website in five easy steps big thanks to Wix for sponsoring this video already so today I'm going to be making DIY and motto here are my beans that are soaking so let me step back a little bit and talk about natto konato are fermented soybeans that are eaten in Japan and through the fermenting process the beans develop a gooey stretchy cobwebby like texture around them so I was actually inspired to make this years and years and years ago back when I was living in Japan when I saw an old YouTube video of this ol baat jaam this sweet little old lady making natto and she would make it in paper cones and then she wrapped the whole thing in blanket it's a big pile of blankets like a little baby tucked in and allowed the beans to ferment develop those lovely strings so ever since I saw that video I knew I wanted to make not though but I'm just getting right to it now so in my research to find be perfect not so recipe I discovered not though that I'll put his link to his channel and also to his blog down below and he has a very very clear and thorough instructions on how to make homemade natto I'm gonna put a little spin on things because I'm going to be using this and this is an insta pot and if you follow me on social media at all you saw that I went and purchased this recently at Target for this recipe and for some other concoctions because I want to really see what this thing can do apparently an insta pot cooks with pressure so it's a combination slow cooker pressure cooker cooker and so I wanted to see if it would work for this application I'm gonna use it to both cook the beans and to ferment the beans enough yapping let's go ahead and get started so first I got this two pound bag of dried soybeans and then I rinse them in a colander really well and picked out any ones that look perfect and then after washing them I place them into a bowl with lots and lots of water and allowed them to soak so not that that instructs that he likes a long soaking period in the summer time it's slightly shorter anywhere from 12 to 18 hours in the winter time it's gonna be extended gonna be more like 24 hours the beans are ready when you start seeing these little bubbles on top this is the IP duo I bought this at Target for about a hundred dollars now I hear that so it says off and it sings a little song to me remove the lid here's the stainless steel insert everybody wash this replace that back into there so what not so dad does is he has a large capacity pressure cooker and he steams under pressure but the insta pot has a steaming option but that is not under pressure so that would still take hours so I'm going to go ahead and do it under pressure it has a being option right here it has soybeans listed and it says 18 to 20 minutes fill this up in my blue water to cover I'm going to switch it to sealing because I'm going to cooking under pressure and then I'm pushing the bean option high pressure cook it for 20 minutes and then let's just start alright so now it's on and now in 20 minutes we'll see if the beans are ready so I'm back it's been 20 minutes and now let's check on our beans and see if they're cooked I should also say that when they say 20 minutes that is the cooking time that does not include the time it takes for the instant pot to get to pressure I would say that would be an additional 10 minutes or so when the timer went off after 20 minutes I did a manual venting and I allowed this steamed event so I could open this up I should say that it got steam and water everywhere there's a method where you can allow it to naturally decompress and just let the instant pot cool down and then you can do a venting a partial kind of venting I think that's what I would do next time to avoid kind of the steamy boil over thing that I had happened so I'm going to turn this dial - this way and makes that cute little sound and there are the bees let's see if these are cooked the beans are just kind of squish and they do perfect so I'm gonna reserve some of this cooking water take the beans to the sink and drain them and now we're supposed to let these cool down for 20 minutes before we inoculate them with the natto now this is regular natto and this is how it comes it comes usually in three or four styrofoam trays and what we do is we're going to use this as the seed if you haven't seen my how to eat natto video I'll put the link up there and down below and you can see how to prepare natto typically for breakfast and it comes a little seasoning packet a little spicy mustard we're not going to use that pretty take 6 plastic off so this is frozen and typically when you buy this in Japan they're in the refrigerated section and now we're just going to cut this into nine pieces first can take one of those another thing what we want to do is make sure we sterilize the dish in which we're going to ferment the beans in so you can use a bleach method or boiling water method add 1 tablespoon of bleach to your container fill that with water and allow that to soak and do the same for your spoons that you're going to be using and then we're going to rinse that completely to make sure everything's nice and sterile ok so now that the beans have been cooling for about 15 to 20 minutes we are ready now to inoculate it with an octave starter here is my sanitized glass dish now I'm going to add some beans and now I'm going to take my little square of natto and use my sterilised spoon and I'm going to bury this inside here cover the beans up I want to allow the frozen beans to kind of soften up a bit we're also going to add a couple tablespoons of the cooking liquid to this to moisten the beans mix that well make sure that all of the beans get a little bit that binoculars now we're gonna take some plastic wrap stretch it pretty tightly and then take a toothpick and prick the surface this will allow it to breathe but also retain some moisture then we're going to release it from the sides and press this to the surface of the beans now we're going to repeat this with a second layer of plastic wrap and this one we're going to keep it tight and then again poke it with our toothpick love that sound now I'm gonna add a cup of hot water and then use the steamer rack place that in the bottom place my motto inside put the lid on closed yogurt unless and then I'm gonna set it for 16 hours and put at 16 and a half hours so while my beans are incubating let me tell you a little bit more about wicks so wicks is a web building site that allows you to make a beautiful website whether you're an individual or a business if you need a place to put your menus your artwork or have an e-commerce site Wix gives you options and the tools you need so Wix does all the heavy lifting for you they have reliable hosting so your site remains safe and secure click on the link below and register for a free account and use the Wix website builder to make yourself a beautiful website in five easy steps big thanks to Wix for sponsoring this video net let's check on the beans Oh thrilled about this I've been wanting to make natto myself for so many years and I'm so happy that the day is here here is my bowl of natto let me walk you through the steps of what I did afterwards then initially I put it on the less setting of yogurt and I checked the temperature and it was around 95 degrees but I noticed that it was cooling and that not only to incubate about a hundred degrees so what I did was I increased it to the normal temperature inside the insta pot was about 105 degrees so then I let it sit for another 8 hours and then I started seeing some of the culture start to develop and not so dad calls this a halo where you get this kind of white fuzziness that is around each bean and I started noticing that after 8 hours so I did an additional another 8 hours total incubation time for this particular batch was 24 hours had I not used the lower temperature initially I think the incubation time probably would have been reduced more like 18 16 hours I should also mention you don't need an insta pot of course to make this recipe not that instructs that you can actually do the incubation in your oven you can use a hot plate and a thermostat to regulate the temperature I tried using my heat lamp from my brooder box when I was raising my chickens put links to my chicken videos but that was a little bit too hot the oven was about 125 degrees so too hot for incubating another technique I've seen is using a heating pad and lots of blankets that's actually the original video I saw I'll put that link down below as well I imagine you can also use a sous vide but anything that can maintain a temperature of a hundred degrees for an extended period of time will work so after they're incubating for 24 hours I took the beans out and let them sit at room temperature for a few hours let them cool off and then I placed it into the refrigerator and I've let these sit in the fridge for a couple days so method that recommends three to five days he says the flavors mellow out a little bit they're not as strong so here we are today I can't wait to taste it and here can you see that you can see the signature stringy cobwebby surface of the natto beans look at this this is exactly what you want look at those strings aren't they gorgeous so happy about that look at those strands take a portion of my beans and place them into a bowl I'm gonna whip them up and you whip it and whip it in with it and this develops the slime it whips it up and gets these really gooey strands love this so novel dad says that his test for a really good batch of natto is that he whips the beans up and then he adds sure you would you soy sauce and he says if the strands are maintained and it stays nice and gooey he knows it's a good batch so let's test mine instead of show you I'm using this it's come to you and it comes in a couple different forms and it's basically concentrated soup base I love this this is what I used to season my natto just a tiny bit goes a long way it's very concentrated just a couple drops and whip that up and let's see if my natto is up to snuff so whip that around and yep it looks just as gooey as ever now I've got my rice and I'm gonna pour our beans on top now it smells great it smells a little bit cheesy nutty beanie ricey that lovely smell of cooked rice now I'm gonna top it with some green onion oh yeah now that that really does it right there finally finally I've been waiting days for this let's give this a taste all right here you go meet the docq most mmm-hmm delicious absolutely delicious the beans are soft and tender they have a great natto flavor which is slightly bitter a little bit cheesy full of not too beef liver that's pungent and just delicious the little bit of sue that's in there and gives a little bit of saltiness a little bit of mami you've got the green onions on there that brighten things give you a little bit of crunch and then of course you have rice which is you know your means of delivery lovely lovely lovely lovely a cracked egg would make this even better my chickens will be 20 weeks old tomorrow so I should be getting fresh eggs very soon and once I do I'm gonna have fresh eggs cracked right on top of this just raw on my rice with my natto beans absolutely scrumptious mmm hmm hmm this twirling brakes was kind of cobwebby strand to just twist your chopsticks around and it breaks the strands because the strands are pretty tenacious they go on and on and on and on and on so you use your chopsticks to kind of break up the strands mm-hmm delicious so stinking good love this is gonna be my lunch right here so for this entire batch of natto which is almost a pound it was about three dollars I paid three dollars for the beans and then I paid maybe 25 cents for the natto to inoculate and of course I did use some energy to make everything so maybe let's say three dollars and fifty cents for a pound of natto beans super economical fresh tasty delicious if you're an auto head try this it's delicious it's fun and it's cheap big thanks to not the dad for putting those thorough thorough instructions he has all kinds of tips and tricks check his website out I'll put the link down below big thanks to Wix for sponsoring this video head over to Wix calm and see how you can build yourself a beautiful website thank you guys so much for watching I hope you guys enjoy that one I hope you guys learn something share this video with your friends it really helps me out follow me on social media subscribe like this video and I shall see you my next one did you take caregreetings my beautiful lovelies its Emmie welcome back today's video is sponsored by Wix a free web building site that allows you to make your own website whether you're an individual or a company Wix has all the tools you need to build yourself a gorgeous site click on the link below and register for a free account and use the Wix website builder to make yourself a beautiful website in five easy steps big thanks to Wix for sponsoring this video already so today I'm going to be making DIY and motto here are my beans that are soaking so let me step back a little bit and talk about natto konato are fermented soybeans that are eaten in Japan and through the fermenting process the beans develop a gooey stretchy cobwebby like texture around them so I was actually inspired to make this years and years and years ago back when I was living in Japan when I saw an old YouTube video of this ol baat jaam this sweet little old lady making natto and she would make it in paper cones and then she wrapped the whole thing in blanket it's a big pile of blankets like a little baby tucked in and allowed the beans to ferment develop those lovely strings so ever since I saw that video I knew I wanted to make not though but I'm just getting right to it now so in my research to find be perfect not so recipe I discovered not though that I'll put his link to his channel and also to his blog down below and he has a very very clear and thorough instructions on how to make homemade natto I'm gonna put a little spin on things because I'm going to be using this and this is an insta pot and if you follow me on social media at all you saw that I went and purchased this recently at Target for this recipe and for some other concoctions because I want to really see what this thing can do apparently an insta pot cooks with pressure so it's a combination slow cooker pressure cooker cooker and so I wanted to see if it would work for this application I'm gonna use it to both cook the beans and to ferment the beans enough yapping let's go ahead and get started so first I got this two pound bag of dried soybeans and then I rinse them in a colander really well and picked out any ones that look perfect and then after washing them I place them into a bowl with lots and lots of water and allowed them to soak so not that that instructs that he likes a long soaking period in the summer time it's slightly shorter anywhere from 12 to 18 hours in the winter time it's gonna be extended gonna be more like 24 hours the beans are ready when you start seeing these little bubbles on top this is the IP duo I bought this at Target for about a hundred dollars now I hear that so it says off and it sings a little song to me remove the lid here's the stainless steel insert everybody wash this replace that back into there so what not so dad does is he has a large capacity pressure cooker and he steams under pressure but the insta pot has a steaming option but that is not under pressure so that would still take hours so I'm going to go ahead and do it under pressure it has a being option right here it has soybeans listed and it says 18 to 20 minutes fill this up in my blue water to cover I'm going to switch it to sealing because I'm going to cooking under pressure and then I'm pushing the bean option high pressure cook it for 20 minutes and then let's just start alright so now it's on and now in 20 minutes we'll see if the beans are ready so I'm back it's been 20 minutes and now let's check on our beans and see if they're cooked I should also say that when they say 20 minutes that is the cooking time that does not include the time it takes for the instant pot to get to pressure I would say that would be an additional 10 minutes or so when the timer went off after 20 minutes I did a manual venting and I allowed this steamed event so I could open this up I should say that it got steam and water everywhere there's a method where you can allow it to naturally decompress and just let the instant pot cool down and then you can do a venting a partial kind of venting I think that's what I would do next time to avoid kind of the steamy boil over thing that I had happened so I'm going to turn this dial - this way and makes that cute little sound and there are the bees let's see if these are cooked the beans are just kind of squish and they do perfect so I'm gonna reserve some of this cooking water take the beans to the sink and drain them and now we're supposed to let these cool down for 20 minutes before we inoculate them with the natto now this is regular natto and this is how it comes it comes usually in three or four styrofoam trays and what we do is we're going to use this as the seed if you haven't seen my how to eat natto video I'll put the link up there and down below and you can see how to prepare natto typically for breakfast and it comes a little seasoning packet a little spicy mustard we're not going to use that pretty take 6 plastic off so this is frozen and typically when you buy this in Japan they're in the refrigerated section and now we're just going to cut this into nine pieces first can take one of those another thing what we want to do is make sure we sterilize the dish in which we're going to ferment the beans in so you can use a bleach method or boiling water method add 1 tablespoon of bleach to your container fill that with water and allow that to soak and do the same for your spoons that you're going to be using and then we're going to rinse that completely to make sure everything's nice and sterile ok so now that the beans have been cooling for about 15 to 20 minutes we are ready now to inoculate it with an octave starter here is my sanitized glass dish now I'm going to add some beans and now I'm going to take my little square of natto and use my sterilised spoon and I'm going to bury this inside here cover the beans up I want to allow the frozen beans to kind of soften up a bit we're also going to add a couple tablespoons of the cooking liquid to this to moisten the beans mix that well make sure that all of the beans get a little bit that binoculars now we're gonna take some plastic wrap stretch it pretty tightly and then take a toothpick and prick the surface this will allow it to breathe but also retain some moisture then we're going to release it from the sides and press this to the surface of the beans now we're going to repeat this with a second layer of plastic wrap and this one we're going to keep it tight and then again poke it with our toothpick love that sound now I'm gonna add a cup of hot water and then use the steamer rack place that in the bottom place my motto inside put the lid on closed yogurt unless and then I'm gonna set it for 16 hours and put at 16 and a half hours so while my beans are incubating let me tell you a little bit more about wicks so wicks is a web building site that allows you to make a beautiful website whether you're an individual or a business if you need a place to put your menus your artwork or have an e-commerce site Wix gives you options and the tools you need so Wix does all the heavy lifting for you they have reliable hosting so your site remains safe and secure click on the link below and register for a free account and use the Wix website builder to make yourself a beautiful website in five easy steps big thanks to Wix for sponsoring this video net let's check on the beans Oh thrilled about this I've been wanting to make natto myself for so many years and I'm so happy that the day is here here is my bowl of natto let me walk you through the steps of what I did afterwards then initially I put it on the less setting of yogurt and I checked the temperature and it was around 95 degrees but I noticed that it was cooling and that not only to incubate about a hundred degrees so what I did was I increased it to the normal temperature inside the insta pot was about 105 degrees so then I let it sit for another 8 hours and then I started seeing some of the culture start to develop and not so dad calls this a halo where you get this kind of white fuzziness that is around each bean and I started noticing that after 8 hours so I did an additional another 8 hours total incubation time for this particular batch was 24 hours had I not used the lower temperature initially I think the incubation time probably would have been reduced more like 18 16 hours I should also mention you don't need an insta pot of course to make this recipe not that instructs that you can actually do the incubation in your oven you can use a hot plate and a thermostat to regulate the temperature I tried using my heat lamp from my brooder box when I was raising my chickens put links to my chicken videos but that was a little bit too hot the oven was about 125 degrees so too hot for incubating another technique I've seen is using a heating pad and lots of blankets that's actually the original video I saw I'll put that link down below as well I imagine you can also use a sous vide but anything that can maintain a temperature of a hundred degrees for an extended period of time will work so after they're incubating for 24 hours I took the beans out and let them sit at room temperature for a few hours let them cool off and then I placed it into the refrigerator and I've let these sit in the fridge for a couple days so method that recommends three to five days he says the flavors mellow out a little bit they're not as strong so here we are today I can't wait to taste it and here can you see that you can see the signature stringy cobwebby surface of the natto beans look at this this is exactly what you want look at those strings aren't they gorgeous so happy about that look at those strands take a portion of my beans and place them into a bowl I'm gonna whip them up and you whip it and whip it in with it and this develops the slime it whips it up and gets these really gooey strands love this so novel dad says that his test for a really good batch of natto is that he whips the beans up and then he adds sure you would you soy sauce and he says if the strands are maintained and it stays nice and gooey he knows it's a good batch so let's test mine instead of show you I'm using this it's come to you and it comes in a couple different forms and it's basically concentrated soup base I love this this is what I used to season my natto just a tiny bit goes a long way it's very concentrated just a couple drops and whip that up and let's see if my natto is up to snuff so whip that around and yep it looks just as gooey as ever now I've got my rice and I'm gonna pour our beans on top now it smells great it smells a little bit cheesy nutty beanie ricey that lovely smell of cooked rice now I'm gonna top it with some green onion oh yeah now that that really does it right there finally finally I've been waiting days for this let's give this a taste all right here you go meet the docq most mmm-hmm delicious absolutely delicious the beans are soft and tender they have a great natto flavor which is slightly bitter a little bit cheesy full of not too beef liver that's pungent and just delicious the little bit of sue that's in there and gives a little bit of saltiness a little bit of mami you've got the green onions on there that brighten things give you a little bit of crunch and then of course you have rice which is you know your means of delivery lovely lovely lovely lovely a cracked egg would make this even better my chickens will be 20 weeks old tomorrow so I should be getting fresh eggs very soon and once I do I'm gonna have fresh eggs cracked right on top of this just raw on my rice with my natto beans absolutely scrumptious mmm hmm hmm this twirling brakes was kind of cobwebby strand to just twist your chopsticks around and it breaks the strands because the strands are pretty tenacious they go on and on and on and on and on so you use your chopsticks to kind of break up the strands mm-hmm delicious so stinking good love this is gonna be my lunch right here so for this entire batch of natto which is almost a pound it was about three dollars I paid three dollars for the beans and then I paid maybe 25 cents for the natto to inoculate and of course I did use some energy to make everything so maybe let's say three dollars and fifty cents for a pound of natto beans super economical fresh tasty delicious if you're an auto head try this it's delicious it's fun and it's cheap big thanks to not the dad for putting those thorough thorough instructions he has all kinds of tips and tricks check his website out I'll put the link down below big thanks to Wix for sponsoring this video head over to Wix calm and see how you can build yourself a beautiful website thank you guys so much for watching I hope you guys enjoy that one I hope you guys learn something share this video with your friends it really helps me out follow me on social media subscribe like this video and I shall see you my next one did you take care\n"