[HN Gopher] A South Korean grand master on the art of the perfec...
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A South Korean grand master on the art of the perfect soy sauce
Author : n1b0m
Score : 104 points
Date : 2025-05-21 11:19 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| How would traditional taste to someone who has spent their life
| on mass produced kikoman?
| thfuran wrote:
| Salty
| LarsAlereon wrote:
| Kikkoman has a double-fermented soy sauce in their product
| line, brewing starts with their regular soy sauce instead of
| salt water. The flavor is much deeper and more complex, it's
| actually less salty than regular soy sauce.
| interestica wrote:
| Have they thought about triple fermenting? Quadruple?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Another commentor suggests this is more like tamari than soy
| sauce. If it is, expect a similar but more intense flavor and
| an especially long after taste. It's hard to describe the more
| intense flavor. It's like if you only taste soy sauce with the
| center of your tongue, you taste tamari with the tip, center
| and sides.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| I grew up on kikkoman, view it as the soy sauce equivalent of
| Heinz ketchup or Best Foods/Hellmans mayonnaise and still cook
| with it all the time. But after tasting a wide variety of soy
| sauce I would describe kikkoman's profile as salty, metallic
| and stout-beer like. The fancier soy sauces seem less salty
| (despite similar amounts of sodium) and can have varying notes
| of oyster sauce, seafood, sweetness, coffee, molasses and MSG.
| etblg wrote:
| Are there any brands of soy sauce that could be commonly
| (even if its in an Asian market) found in the states that you
| would recommend?
| tpm wrote:
| One that we use at home and could be available is the
| Sempio 'green' soy sauce with 25% less salt.
|
| https://en.sempio.com/product/soysauce/view/605
| shawn_w wrote:
| Pearl River Bridge makes pretty good Chinese style soy
| sauces and seems readily available, at least in the PNW. I
| use the light and dark sauces a lot in cooking.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I started buying Kikkoman's "whole bean" soy sauce (I don't
| remember what it's called in Japanese: maroyaka?), because I
| found a local Asian mart carried it, and it was reasonably
| priced. Seems you can find it on Amazon these days, even:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Kikkoman-Maroyaka-Sauce-33-8-Ounce-
| Pa...
|
| Haven't compared it side-by-side with the normal stuff, but
| anecdotally it tasted a little more mellow to my palette, and
| I will probably continue using it moving forward when my 1L
| bottle runs out.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Not sure about using Heinz ketchup as an example. To me there
| are cheap ketchups that taste worse, and fancy yuppie
| ketchups that taste different for 2-5x the price, but nothing
| really tastes genuinely better.
|
| Ketchup is like a staple unobjectionable thing to stock in
| the fridge for kids/guests/comfort. Stocking a weird one kind
| of defeats the purpose.
|
| I'd rather try various steak / bbq / teriyaki / whatever
| sauces that set out to be categorically different.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Yes! Heinz is coke. Hunts is Pepsi. Everything else is
| usually lesser.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yes for me theres a whole variety of low-brow staple
| packaged processed foods I think we've all sort of
| imprinted upon a certain flavor profile growing up.
|
| I'd rather explore entirely other flavors/categories than
| spend 4x on some fancy knockoff to signal I'm low brow
| high end. Extremely diminishing returns, and mostly just
| tastes different.
|
| I don't need a $4 replacement for a Coke or a $5 Mac-n-
| cheese or a $10 bottle of ketchup.
|
| Honestly we should all be buying less of these processed
| foods, not going further upmarket with them.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| Don't forget French's (is it the RC Cola of ketchups?)
| jt2190 wrote:
| Kikkoman USA has been brewing a lighter soy sauce in Wisconsin
| for the U.S. market for a few decades while now. It's what most
| people in the U.S. think of when they hear "Kikkoman".
|
| Specialty markets sell imported Kikkoman products, such as
| "traditionally brewed" soy sauce which tastes stronger. Note
| that "stronger" doesn't mean "better": Asian consumers are used
| to using different styles of soy sauce as they see fit. U.S.
| consumers still largely view soy sauce as a single thing with
| no variation except maybe "low sodium". Definitely worth
| exploring the different varieties.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Try Pearl River Bridge Light soy sauce. Is the default
| recommended light soy sauce for a lot of asian cooking, and
| easy to find.
|
| You'll like it better than the harsh flavor of Kikkoman
| jihadjihad wrote:
| So is it like tamari? Seems to be made from fermented soybean
| paste, which is how tamari is made too (byproduct of miso paste).
|
| Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat, while in
| Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat added.
|
| Personally once I switched to tamari I never went back to
| "regular" soy sauce, the flavor is quite a bit richer and more
| versatile in cooking, in my opinion.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I was under the impression that traditional Japanese soy sauce
| (shoyu, not tamari) also contains wheat (close to 50/50 ratio)
| - it's used to help start the fermentation.
| mlinhares wrote:
| It does, when it doesn't that's when you call it tamari.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Tamari is "low wheat" rather than specifically "no wheat".
| Many manufacturers (particularly when selling to Western
| markets) will simply take the extra steps to expand the
| market.
| least wrote:
| > Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat,
| while in Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat
| added.
|
| This is incorrect with regards to Japan. Shoyu is made with
| wheat. Tamari is not. Their production process is different.
|
| Kikkoman is the most popular brand in the West AND in Japan,
| which is a koikuchi shoyu, which is the "standard" shoyu type
| in Japan. It is made with wheat.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| Yes, and Chinese "light soy" is also similar to shoyu.
| rjsw wrote:
| The Kikkoman gluten free variant is also labelled as tamari.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| For me I always have Kikkoman in the fridge (especially
| because thats what wife grew up with) as the staple soy
| sauce. I like to dabble in having 1-2 other variants in the
| fridge at once, but they can tend to have too strong a flavor
| for some peoples taste. Or certain variants are best with
| certain dishes, etc.
| molf wrote:
| This is the first time I hear about keeping soy sauce in
| the fridge. Is this common?
| pcurve wrote:
| Good question... I think they're pretty different in taste and
| how they're made (which is why they taste so different)
|
| Miso and "dwen jang" taste very different because miso is
| usually mixed with soybean and rice, whereas dwen jang is all
| soybean. They are also aged differently. Miso is packed into
| more air tight container, whereas dwen jang is shaped into a
| block, hung outside to air dry.
| t3rra wrote:
| The block to hang up outside for air drying is called meju
| (meju) which is form before made into doenjang (dwenjang).
| There is more process involved to make it into dwenjang.
| Actually from that meju we make daenjang and soy sauce.
| squidsoup wrote:
| I've really come to appreciate daenjang more than Japanese
| miso over time. It has funkier, earthier but arguably less
| refined taste than Japanese miso.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Same. Tamari seems to have a much richer flavor than soy sauce.
| I would recommend others try it a replacement.
| bananalychee wrote:
| Western tastes favor intense flavors, so tamari may provide
| better balance than standard (koikuchi) soy sauce in that
| sense, but in Japanese cooking, "richness" is not necessarily
| a desirable characteristic, and tamari would overwhelm many
| dishes when substituted for koikuchi in similar amounts.
| Reprocessed (sai-shikomi) soy sauce, made by fermenting soy
| sauce twice, is considered a middle ground between koikuchi
| and tamari in terms of richness and is popular for dipping.
| But there is also a relatively wide range of flavor within
| the koikuchi category, and the US-made Kikkoman sauce that
| many people are familiar with is not very flavorful.
| fermentation wrote:
| Once I had to switch to tamari due to a celiac diagnosis, I
| found it was one of the few things that actually tastes better
| without gluten. I think most of the world would enjoy soy sauce
| made without wheat more if they tried it.
|
| Also, most soy sauce in Japan absolutely has wheat
| unfortunately.
| tuna74 wrote:
| Almost all wheat based soy sauces has such a low gluten
| content that they can be seen as gluten free.
| squidsoup wrote:
| > Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat,
| while in Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat
| added.
|
| My favourite jang is made from fermented wheat and soy -
| chunjang. Chunjang is the star ingredient in one of the most
| delicious noodle dishes ever conceived, Jjajangmyeon.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Fermentation is such wonderful technology. It both preserves and
| makes things more delicious.
| carabiner wrote:
| It also makes things rotten. The difference between spoilage
| and fermentation/aging is whether humans like the result at the
| end.
| tough wrote:
| Same could be said of fire and burnt food
| dlisboa wrote:
| The difference is whether humans get ill or not.
| charcircuit wrote:
| People get ill from alcohol, yet it's called fermentation.
| algorias wrote:
| No, people get ill from _excessive quantities_ of
| alcohol.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| Acetaldehyde is always toxic, so no, they always get
| sick, just less sick.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The line between spoiled and fermented... blurs, at times.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl
| Carrok wrote:
| What point are you even trying to make? The difference
| between gone bad and fermented is pretty obvious, but fine,
| don't eat anything fermented if you like.
|
| I'll be over here enjoying cheese, kimchi, beer, miso,
| pickles, sauerkraut, etc etc etc
| soperj wrote:
| chocolate
| sho_hn wrote:
| TIL! I had no idea chocolate-making involves
| fermentation. Turns out fermenting the beans is highly
| involved in producing the characteristic flavor.
| bpicolo wrote:
| Coffee, similarly
| montebicyclelo wrote:
| > The difference between spoilage and fermentation/aging is
| whether humans like the result at the end
|
| Is not whether it makes humans unwell quite an important
| factor..
| GoatInGrey wrote:
| Liking the result at the end in a qualifier that
| encompasses "does not make me ill", "does not taste
| terrible", and various other factors.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I only like the start and middle of consuming alcohol.
| nkrisc wrote:
| And veggies and meat begin decaying the moment they die. So
| what?
|
| The difference between spoilage and fermentation is whether
| it's spoiled.
| talkingtab wrote:
| What is fermentation really? It is a process whereby bacteria
| et al. process a food source, breaking it down. And the same
| process goes on inside your gut. Ouch, now there is spoilage
| for you!
|
| There is at least some research that says fermented foods
| have some benefits including reducing inflammation. My
| personal guess based on subjecting myself to more and more
| fermenting foods is that much of the obesity and many of the
| common health issues have to do with _not_ eating enough
| fermenting foods. Just a guess based on a sample of one.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| So much of human society relies on the byproducts of other
| organisms. Pickles, bread, antibiotics.
| znt wrote:
| Yoghurt + Kefir + Kumis.
|
| Golden Horde conquered the known world fueled by milk
| byproducts.
| ge96 wrote:
| It's interesting they mention charcoal purification, there is
| this plant that Japanese people eat (like wild green tubes with
| leaves) and they soak it in water with wood ash from a fire.
| vasusen wrote:
| I believe (more likely, chatgpt believes) this plant is Warabi.
| I didn't know it was processed with charcoal purification!
|
| The process sounds similar to how I use something acidic to
| process the toxins from Taro leaves before eating them.
| ge96 wrote:
| Yeah that looks right, long tubes. Another one I see a guy
| foraging/eating is a big leaf called "strawberry something"
| and he batters it up/fries it, interesting.
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| I delved into the world of soy sauce a few years back and id say
| if your looking to go beyond kikkoman, or god forbid that swill
| they call la choy, go for kimlan. super special, I-Jen (for
| something a little different), light, or aged..pearl river bridge
| isn't too bad either just watch out for brands with a bunch of
| added chemicals in the ingredients
| getnormality wrote:
| Pearl River Bridge has a seasoned soy sauce that's been my
| constant for over a decade.
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