bai suan tang — MikrobenKabinett

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MikrobenKabinett is what I call my fermentation cabinet — a bubbling, living archive.

Here I keep a growing collection of starter cultures that I’ve collected, nurtured, traded, or purchased over the years, along with several ongoing jarred fermentation experiments.

This page is a digital duplicate of my cabinet at home. It serves both as a record of each “member” in the Kabinett, and as a practical manual: If you’ve ever received a culture from me in real life, you will likely find its basic ratios and reference recipes here to help you start your own fermentation journey!

Welcome to explore！
Xijing Xu

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Bái Suān Tāng
白酸汤

Lacto-fermented rice-rinsing water

I bought my Bái Suān starter at a local market in Kaili, Guizhou.

Terminolodgy

Bāi white
Suān sour
Tāng soup

Bái Suān Tāng, often colloquially referred to simply as Bái Suān, is a distinctive fermented food from Guizhou, traditionally prepared by the Miao people. It is made from rice-rinsing water, which still contains a significant amount of starch. The liquid is heated until the starch gelatinises, then bottled and left to undergo lactic acid fermentation.

Bái Suān Tāng is commonly used as a base for hot pots and soups, where it contributes a gentle acidity and subtle grainy depth of flavour.

At the local market in Kaili, Guizhou, vendors sell homemade starters for bái suān and hóng suān, packaged in reused plastic bottles.

Bolttled bái suān starter

How to start?

What you need

To make your own Bái Suān starter, you will need an airtight jar.
As ingredient, I prefer to use rice-rinsing water, although gelatinised rice flour can also be used.

The steps

1. Rinse the rice two or three times and collect the water.
2. Heat the liquid to above 60°C while stirring continuously, until the starch gelatinises.
3. Allow it to cool to room temperature before adding the starter culture.
4. Transfer the mixture to the airtight jar and leave it to ferment for approximately one week.

Add flavour

I love using litsea, a traditional spice commonly added to suān tāng dishes. I like to add a small amount to the jar as well, which gives the ferment a subtle lemony aroma and flavour.

How to use it?

Bái Suān is commonly used as a hot pot base soup, which leads to a completely different flavour profile from what people usually associate with Sichuan-style hot pot.

For everyday home cooking, Bái Suān can be used as a base for a light vegetable soup. By mixing half Bái Suān and half water (if you want to reduce the acidity), you can cook vegetables such as tomato, bean sprouts, courgette, cabbage, and so on. It works very well as a noodle soup base, or as a side dish alongside richer, heavier dishes.

Fun fact: When I visited a fusion sake brewery in Berlin, I was told that they use a mixture of cooked and uncooked rice to undergo lactic acid fermentation. This is then added to their sake fermentation to give it a more vibrant lactic character. I guess they share the same principle with the bái suān tāng fermentation!

The hot pot we had in Kaili, based on Bái Suān Tāng, was really delicious!