Asked by dom_912 ·September 24, 2021 ·17.5k readers

Pink Mould - IMO 1

Hi KNF Fam I have just collected some IMO's from my local forest and when I opened up the box I found some nice fuzzy mould on the rice but also a few pink patches. I can't seem to find any information about whether these pink patches are good or bad and whether or not i should keep the collection? I decided to mix it in with the raw cane sugar anyway but before I did I removed some of the bigger spots... Any advice on what to do with it would be much appreciated. Blessings from the UK.

mould microbes-indigenous-collection collection pink imo1

Top answer

Drake Weinert Foundation · Sep 26, 2021

Pinks and reds are not good. I want to be encouraging here, and I think you did your best with limited information to just move to the next step, so that is good, but sounds like you could get a better collection in the future. Most likely those certain pink microbes that you collected will be outcompeted when you move on to further steps in the IMO process. My hunch here is that there were also other colors and that the batch looked more like a tiedie shirt? If this is the case, most likely there was too much moisture present in the collection. There are several solutions, the simplest being to add less water to the rice when cooking it, and to wait until it is completely cool before putting it in the collection box. Collecting IMO can be challenging, so try again!

From the KNF library

From the KNF library Drafted by Claude from Office Hours and the books · Sep 2026 · 4 sources

Drake says don't toss the pink spots. Mix them in. (Office Hours Ep. 154, 7:48)

A little pink, red, or black is fine. Once mixed with sugar, the good microbes out-compete the bad ones. (Office Hours Ep. 50, 18:55) Master Cho's text says the same about red and blue mould: a few spots are acceptable. (Cho, Recipe, p. 12)

The sugar step assists too. The week-long sugar fermentation is a purification step that ferments out any pathogens you collected. (Office Hours Ep. 56, 49:26)

Drake reads mould as a timing signal. The collection ran too long and needs more rice next time. (Office Hours Ep. 154, 7:48)

The library does not say what the pink patches are. It also says nothing on whether removing the bigger spots first matters.

Sources

3 more answers

joelorusso · Nov 1, 2021

In master Cho’s book it does state that a small amount of “bad guys” will be outcompeted by the “good guys”. You will know when you get to the IMO 3 stage for sure.

dom_912 · Nov 1, 2021

Hi both. Thanks for your responses. I’ve heard that the general rule is that if the collection is 80% nice white fluffy mould then the collection should be ok. Is this correct? Going back to my collection, I found that it wasn’t a tie die collection, it only had a few pink spots and no other colours. These pink spots were on less than 20% of the rice. I’ve still got it but, as I understand, we are looking for microbial diversity so I’m going to follow master cho’s process (via Chris trump) and try to get great collections (just white fluffy mould) from different seasons and this pink/fluffy mould collection could be added in a mix of collections as opposed to being used as the only collection.

dom_912 · Nov 1, 2021

Also thanks drake for the advice on cooking the rice. Will use less water next time as I think this was the problem.