AND COMPOSITION OF MISO. 
5 
consumption after 4 days. If the beans are, however, allowed 
to cool down to the temperature of the air, as is the case in the 
preparation of Sendai miso, the fermentation proceeds very 
slowly and the miso is not ripe until after 8—15 months. The 
common salt is usually dissolved in a very little hot water, and 
when cold, is poured into the mixing vat partly during the 
mixing, partly afterwards. The treading is continued until all 
the grains are freed from the hulls, and the cotyledones of the 
beans are separated. The mixture is finally transferred into 
large wooden tanks covered with straw mats or wooden lids 
upon which some heavy stones are laid. There it is left till 
maturity, which is judged exclusively by the taste. 
On the preparation of the raw materials some data will be 
found later on in the description of the principal varieties of miso 
(part III). 
II. The Chemical Processes during the 
Ripening of Miso. 
As there exist no investigations on this subject, and as 
even the analyses hitherto made of miso are too incomplete 
to admit of reliable conclusions on the alterations of the 
materials mixed and stored for ripening, Mr. Y. Kurashima 
who to our great regret died this year, has tried in 1887 to 
throw some light on these processes by analyzing specimens 
of inaka miso (country miso) taken from a large fermenting 
vat at different periods. 
The factory, which very kindly granted us the material for 
the experiments, is in the province of Shimösa ; and the samples, 
each weighing several kilograms were sent to the laboratory in 
well closed small barrels specially made for the purpose. The 
raw materials applied in the present case, were a variety of 
soy beans called aka saya, grown in the neighbourhood of the 
factory, a rather inferior sort of barley of an early variety 
known as roku kaku wase (six-edged variety), and a medium 
quality of salt, prepared at Ako in tho province of Harima. 
