A Device to Make Tempeh

There are many great foods to eat in the world, and Tempeh is one of them. It is a foodstuff that is similar to tofu in some ways; but quite different in others. Tempeh often has a nicer texture than tofu, and is just as adaptable in flavor. "Hipster Tofu" is the shortest way to describe tempeh to a naive and disinterested 17-year-old.

My girlfriend loves tempeh, so I decided to make her a kitchen appliance to make the stuff. Upon researching tempeh further, I was suprised to find that it is grown as a mold on a variety of beans. The growing process has been done naturally inside of banana leaves in Indonesia for years, but holding the 85F incubating temperature in Indonesia is not a problem. In Cleveland, you can never count on the weather to be warm. Since the climate would not provide the needed incubation temperatures, building a countertop incubator seemed like the next logical choice... After searches rendered no off-the-shelf products that would work. So I set to work. There were some lightbulb based designs available from across the FabLab network, and a controller available for the BioAcademy buildable inventory; but neither of these excited me. I designed an incubator that could be built cheaply from spare 3D printer parts I had laying around in the lab. This design is a mash-up of Makergear M2 printer parts and RepRap parts. Although, any spare heated bed parts could work.

I hope you enjoy the design and that it may be useful for you. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!

Corey Rice 12/29/2017