Traditional Tofu Making Process

Ze’s cousin who made a traditional old-style tofu. We walked in on him like this, grinding soybeans.

His wife also helped, here she is stoking the fire to get the water hot for extracting the soy milk

They use this bench to rest the hot, steaming cheesecloth on while they wring it out over the wok

Here he presses down with the paddle attachment and wrings out the soy milk. They feed the left overs in the bag to their goats.

Next the milk is heated and they skim the top of foam often.

This is fermented soymilk whey that they use to form the tofu curds. This is an ancient and traditional style that has become unpopular in modern tofu making do to the strong flavor that it imparts.

This was slowly stirred in ladle-full by ladle-full

And then like magic, curds appear!

preparing the box for the tofu to be pressed in

filling it up

wrapping it with the cheesecloth

a wooden top to the box is put on and on top of that, a heavy rock to sit and slowly press the tofu over night. Below they catch the whey to be used again in the next batch.