Finding Nuruk (누룩)

This will most likey be the only difficult task in making Makkoli for most people.  It isn't the most common ingredient as very few people ever have a reason to find it. It is used to make soy sauce, miso, dwenjang, and any other products that has fermented rice or beans.  However its not popular to make your own, not even all that popular to homebrew makkoli yet.

What I did was to search all over the open air markets until I found someone who even knew what Nuruk was, then they sent me to a different market where people buy the ingredients to make different foods at home.  Funny thing was the proper stores advertising "homemade dwenjang" didnt even know what Nuruk was (even though you cant make dwenjang without it).

When I got to the right market, it was pretty interesting as they had many things I haven't seen before and I love to cook at home.  They had all kinds of Nuruk and even the bark it grows on in the wild, but there was one problem.  Apparently Nuruk has become very popular as a face scrub of some sort and the kind they wanted to sell me was just that kind.  I didnt want to make cosmetics, I want to make Makkoli.
-When yo try to shop for Nuruk online you get links to the cosmetic products, another thing that made finding some difficult.

Eventually I did find someone who pointed me in the right direction and I was the proud owner of a 14 inch disk of dried Nuruk.  I have to tell you it was an interesting adventure and I felt proud as hell when I did find the person who could get it for me.

*On a side note so many of the shriveled, grumpy old ladies in these markets get very angry at you when you ask them a question.  The consumer is more of an annoyance than a source of income in the eyes of Ajuma.  Strange culture here, very strange.

The couple I bought from were nice as all hell and I will be going back there with a bottle of my finished product as a thank you to them.