Rich, savoury, and gently sweet - this oat miso has been slowly and lovingly barrel-aged in Scottish oak casks for 3 months. Slow Sauce ferment slowly, seasonally, and seriously. No short-cuts. No imported soy. Just well-grown ingredients, wild weather, barrels, time, and care. Scottish miso, slowly made. Slow Sauce is a fermentation project that began rooted in tradition, adapted to place. They make small-batch miso and shoyu using Scottish-grown gluten free oats and British peas, aged in oak barrels in the hills of Aberdeenshire. Founded by fermentation obsessives Robin Sherriff and Jonathan Hope, Slow Sauce is part kitchen experiment, part agricultural rethink. They take the classic Japanese method of koji fermentation and reimagine it with the ingredients that they have here - creating something new that’s still deeply respectful of where it came from. It’s miso, but not as you know it. It’s sweet, savoury, punchy stuff. Slather it on toast. Stir it through porridge. Sip it hot in the morning. Dress your salad. Glaze your veg. Why is this miso pasteurised? This oat miso is pasteurised at 63C to arrest the very active natural fermentation and avoid over-fermentation resulting in off flavours and possible leakage, but without destroying the enzymes, prebiotics and postbiotics produced by the fermentation. Like any cooking process, pasteurisation stops the microbial activity but it doesn't undo the results of the fermentation. Postbiotic amino acids, organic acids, peptides, enzymes and other metabolites produced during fermentation remain after heating. Along with prebiotic fibres and other substrates these feed beneficial microbes living in your gut. The microbial activity of most miso products is limited to prevent over-fermentation, often by washing with alcochol. Slow Sauce prefer to use simple pasteurisation at the minimum necessary temperature.
