Tempeh-tations

Tempeh is fermented bean stuff, covered in a fuzzy colonization of mycelia, and it is beautiful and I made it. Me and my friend Lucas. This first image is what the bean cakes look like when they aren't bean cakes, bean cakes unbinded, before incubation. Prior to this picture, the soybeans were soaked, dehulled, skimmed of skins, and skimmed of more skins, and more, and then inoculated with spores from the Rhizopus oligosporus. The ziplock bags are poked with a fork or needle or something every half inch or so, in order that contact is made with air, and they are stuffed with the bean and spore mixture, packed tightly and about one inch thick.
    In the bedroom I rigged up an incubator system with a digital thermometer and a heating pad, with an oven rack and blankets. I got the temperature up within the range of 80 to 93 degrees F and put those little puppies in to sit for 24 to 36 hours, which they did, hence the next few pictures, where the cakes are now white with mycelium, the fungus fully winding its way through the crowded beans and partially digesting them. In this form they are solid and easily sliced.