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Sauces and condiments from Korea

Jeupjang / jipjang (vegetable jang fermented in horse manure or compost)즙장

Jeupjang is a summer soybean paste with vegetables in it. A special meju of soybeans and wheat or bran is ground, mixed with water, salt and vegetables, sealed in a jar and buried in horse manure or compost, whose heat ripens it in about one to two weeks.

Fully documentedSauces and condiments7 days – 14 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe 1716 Sallim Gyeongje recipe as quoted in the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture. Mal, doe and hop are old Korean volume measures.
Wheat2 malFor the meju; soaked, ground and steamed with the soybeans[aks-jipjang]
Soybeans2 malFor the meju[aks-jipjang]
Jeupjang meju1 mal[aks-jipjang]
Water3 doe[aks-jipjang]
Salt3 hop[aks-jipjang]
Vegetables such as eggplant, cucumber, radish and green chilliSalted first in the modern recipe[aks-jipjang][imaeil2013]
Starterjeupjang meju (soybean and wheat blocks fermented by moulds)

Total time across the recorded steps: 7 days – 14 days

Start
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What changes: Steamed soybean and wheat dumplings ferment in straw sacks, then dry

Step 1 of 4
Make jeupjang meju and let it ferment
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

In the 1716 recipe, soaked wheat and soybeans are ground, steamed, shaped like knife handles, fermented in straw sacks and dried. A later recipe mixes soybeans with wheat bran in July and layers the meju with pine needles. Output: dried meju dumplings.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Jeupjang is a summer soybean paste with vegetables in it. A special meju of soybeans and wheat or bran is ground, mixed with water, salt and vegetables, sealed in a jar and buried in horse manure or compost, whose heat ripens it in about one to two weeks. Made in 4 steps over 7 days – 14 days. The longest step, bury the jar in horse manure or compost, takes 7–14 days (Yun Deok-in 1995).

Key numbers
Main step7–14 daysReported[aks-jipjang][jeong1999]Bury the jar in horse manure or compost

What makes this one different

Jeupjang uses its own meju of soybeans with wheat or bran, holds vegetables in the paste, and takes its heat from rotting manure or compost, so it is ready in about one to two weeks.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Doenjang typeMade with ordinary meju.
  • Jangajji typeCucumber and eggplant buried in soybean paste or soy sauce.
  • Kimchi typeVegetables made into a mash with jeupjang meju.
  • Jeonju jeupjangMeju of wheat flour and roasted soybean powder kneaded with rice-washing water, mixed with sweet soy sauce, eggplant and cucumber, buried in horse manure for 3 days, and eaten with warm water and honey.

Safety

As a general hazard of meju-based Korean pastes, a 2019 survey of 60 commercial and homemade doenjang samples found at least one mycotoxin in 81.7 % of them, most often fumonisins, ochratoxin A, aflatoxin B1 and zearalenone, and the homemade samples were more contaminated on average. One commercial sample was over Korea's ochratoxin A limit (23.27 against 20 μg/kg), and the authors call the fumonisin levels low. A jar of soybean paste and vegetables sealed and buried in a warm heap is also a warm, airless setting. CDC says botulinum toxin forms in warm, airless food low in acid, salt and sugar, and that home-fermented bean products were linked to 63 % of about 2,000 botulism cases in China from 1958 to 1989. Jeupjang is salted, but the sources give no pH or salt percentage for it, so these old recipes are a historical record, not a tested safe method. The toxin cannot be seen, smelled or tasted.

Hazards the sources name: Mycotoxins (aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, zearalenone, fumonisins), found in a related meju-based Korean soybean paste, doenjang; not measured in jeupjang.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The first record is Hong Man-seon's Sallim Gyeongje of 1716. The Gyuhap Chongseo calls it jeupjang, and its recipe uses wheat bran, soybeans, nuruk powder, water and salt. A Maeil Shinmun article says the word jipjang was first used in a 19th-century household recipe book.

Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [aks-jipjang] Yun Deok-in 1995, 집장 (jipjang), Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, Academy of Korean Studies; quotes the 1716 Sallim Gyeongje recipe and summarises Gyuhap Chongseo and the Jeonju methodbook
  2. [jeong1999] Jung S.-T., Park Y.-K. 1999, A review on preparing methods of traditional jeupjang, J. Korean Soc. Food Culture 14(2):103–113 (abstract)paper
  3. [imaeil2013] Maeil Shinmun 2013-01-10, [자연음식 이야기] 장류(3) 조선시대의 장담그기 (jang-making in the Joseon period)web
  4. [woo2019] Woo S.Y., Ryu S.Y., Tian F., Lee S.Y., Park S.B., Chun H.S. 2019, Simultaneous determination of twenty mycotoxins in the Korean soybean paste doenjang by LC-MS/MS with immunoaffinity cleanup, Toxins 11(10):594, doi:10.3390/toxins11100594 (a related meju-based paste, not jeupjang or dambukjang)paper
  5. [mmwr2007] CDC 2007, Foodborne botulism from home-prepared fermented tofu, California, 2006, MMWR 56(5):96–97 (home-fermented bean products in China)gov
  6. [mmwr2013] CDC 2013, Botulism associated with home-fermented tofu in two Chinese immigrants, New York City, March–April 2012, MMWR 62(26):529–532 (conditions for toxin formation)gov
  7. [cdc-prev] CDC, Preventing botulism (botulism prevention page)gov