I just follow instructions provided by @nube to make the LAB, for phase 1.
- With a gloved hand, swish and rinse white rice with water.
- Save the cloudy water in a jar, let it sit for 1wk in a cupboard or other dark spot with a paper towel over the top and secured with rubber bands or the rim of a mason jar lid.
- When it’s developed three distinct layers inside (mold/gunk on top, clear yellowish liquid in the middle, white gunk/sediment on the bottom), siphon out the middle layer into a separate large container such as a half gallon jar.
- Pour skim milk into the jar with the middle yellowish rice wash water, leaving an inch or two on top for it to bubble. Leave it in the same dark cupboard for a week or two, checking daily to see the milk’s consistency. This may smell bad for a few days.
- After the milk has clearly curdled, pour out the remaining liquid without disturbing the curds. This liquid should be yellow, slightly cheesy, and is basically pure cultured lactobacillus serum aka LABS. You can eat the cheese curds, as it’s just homemade queso fresca.
Ended up with this solution:
Kind of hard to see, but there’s a big curd at the top… I fed that to the dog we’re fostering and she loved it! The yellowish opaque liquid is the good stuff
- Store the LABS in a tightly sealed jar in your fridge. When you want to use it, mix at a ratio of 1:20 with tap water, adding a couple tablespoons of unsulfured molasses per quart of water, a day before you want to use it, to activate it. This activated mixture is what you can use for clearing drains, stinky compost containers, adding to topwatered organic soil for a boost, and for making bokashi.
I modified the above step a bit, and went ahead and added the molasses to the mixture and then stored in a sealed jar.
Phase two of the process involves having some sort of bran/grain/carb to inoculate with the LAB solution, and then leave to ferment.
In my test batch I used whole oats, because I had those around for other mycology projects. I’ve heard you can use other things too, like rice husks/hulls, newspaper, shredded cardboard, coffee grounds, etc. but I have no experience with those. I used a coffee grinder, grinding the oats, to expose the endosperm under the husk/bran of the oats, but I’m not entirely sure that step is necessary.
I used enough oats to fill a one quart mason/ball jar all the way to the top of the jar. Once full, I prepped the LAB solution, in my case, just added it to some water… I eyeballed it, but probably 1:15 or 1:10 ratio. Keep in mind I already added molasses to mine, so if you haven’t done that, you’d need to do that at this step. Once ready, pour enough of the solution into the mason jar with your bran of choice, just enough to saturate the medium, you don’t want it sopping wet. I think the instructions that I’ll link below mention something like the consistency of oatmeal cookie dough. Anyways, once saturated, seal the jar tight with a jar lid and leave to sit for two weeks or longer.
In my case, after two weeks, I could see tiny bits of white stuff growing in the jar, mostly on the endosperm parts, but I’m not sure if that’s even good thing or not, I don’t have a good microscope, nor do I know much about micro bacteria to ID anything, but white stuff is good, any other color is bad, in this case.
After it’s done fermenting for two or three weeks, open the jar and give a smell test… it should smell slightly sweet, and a little yeasty, those are good signs.
At this point, you want to spread it out on something and let it dry, if you’re trying to store it for later use. I think it will stay good for a year or longer if properly stored in an air tight container (once fully dried).
I used cardboard shoeboxes and the lids, then spread out the bran and left out for a couple of days and it dried right up. I’m betting you could leave it out on whatever’s convenient for you, you could also probably use a fan to speed of the process. Put everything back in the jar, and seal it up. At the end I was left with this:
How exciting… a jar of ground oats 
Nah, it’s what’s living on 'em that counts…
I kind of went by mixture of these instructions, and just winging it. I didn’t use the EM-1 listed in the instructions, obviously, using my own LAB solution in it’s place.
It should be fairly simple to replicate, especially for you guys already making your own LAB. It would be cool to see some others attempt it, to compare our results… hit me up if you do.
