Yeast making at LAB3680

It was not easy to decide what to do during this bad pandemic period. After my return to Japan in March from the Philippines I realized that it was not a virus like a normal cold but that it was getting much more serious. I started thinking about how to develop products with a long shelf life, as well as various types of pizza dough. What came as a surprise to me here in japan, where normally rice is THE main staple dish, suddenly all the yeast and flour were completely sold out!! it was as though all the Japanese suddenly took up a passion for bread and cake making, something i was not aware of, after more than 30 years of living in this country! So began my project of preparing my own homemade yeast and other fermented products.

Those who do the same job as me already know how it ends when we start preparing our own yeast: for our passion it becomes a mission and I got to the point of finding a place where I could start experimenting with fermented fruit to create the yeast. Therefore, I needed fruit but not what you buy from the greengrocer or the supermarket. I decided to grow my own fruit and invested in fruit orchards to be able to cultivate my own organic products. That is how Lab3680 was born! I immediately fell in love with a very famous area in Japan for the production of fruit located in Kyushu in sourthen Japan: Hita province of Oita prefecture. It’s widely known around the country for its crisp and juicy Japanese pears in summer, beautiful, deep-orange persimmons in autumn, a variety of citrus fruits, as well as plump, succulent grapes. Fruit orchards stretch far and wide across the hills all over the region, making the driving experience all the more breathtaking.

This time I was able to make a yeast starter with a fermentation of pears and persimmons taken picked from my orchards, and I am really pleased with the results. Let me show some pictures of the process:

Fruit fermentation

After the fermantation I start to create Yeast.

Yeast preparetion

Yeast preparation normally takes about a month, but I started making bread after only two weeks.

Bread preparetion

I am extremely satisfied with the result but even more so to be able to decide how to develop the fruit, thereby creating the fermented product, a real insight into creating my original pizza in the future. I do not hide that I am also starting to enjoy the life of a farmer!! Stay tunned guys to see my next stage.

Hita surround natural site located on board to Asakura city

Published by Salvatore Cuomo

Salvatore Cuomo was born in Naples, Italy, in 1972, son of an Italian father and Japanese mother. Cuomo was first inspired by his father who also was an Italian Chef in Naples. He began at the young age of 11, where he trained himself in the kitchen and traveled frequently between Italy and Japan. He gradually learned how to blend the traditional Italian art of cooking with the Japanese art of perfection. A few years later he traveled to Japan with his father who opened an Italian restaurant in Chiba in 1984. About those early years Salvatore told the press that it wasn't a good starting experience: "I didn’t like Japan at all, so after one year, I went back to Italy and spent 2–3 years studying at a culinary school. When I was 18, I returned to Japan after my father became terminally ill and I have been here ever since."[3] Cuomo said that Italian Cuisine was just starting to get popular in those days. He and his two brothers decided that in order to succeed in the restaurant business in Japan they would have to understand the Japanese food mentality. They spent a couple of years researching the market before opening a new restaurant in Tokyo with what Cuomo calls "Original Neapolitan pizza." Since that time, Cuomo has been credited with catapulting Neapolitan pizza to fame in Japan, and today in all Asia with over 100 restaurant.

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