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Vinegar from Korea

Day-named and sajeolcho vinegars (병정초 丙丁醋, 사절초 四節醋)병정초

Joseon household books timed some vinegars by day names. In the Gyuhap chongseo version, roasted nuruk powder and water are sealed in an earthenware jar on a byeong (丙) day, and washed, steamed glutinous rice is poured in hot on the next jeong (丁) day. The jar is stirred with a peach branch, sealed thickly and left in the sun to become vinegar.

Fully documentedVinegar

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe Gyuhap chongseo recipe as the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture quotes it, in Joseon household measures (1 mal = 10 doe; a dongi is a water jar).
Water1 dongi (동이)[ek-sikcho]
Nuruk powder, roasted4 doe (되)[ek-sikcho]
Glutinous rice, washed again and again (百洗) and steamed1 mal (말)[ek-sikcho]
Starternuruk (누룩) powder, roasted, mixed with the water first
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What changes: On a byeong day, roasted nuruk powder and water are sealed in an earthenware jar

Step 1 of 4
On a byeong day, seal roasted nuruk powder and water in an earthenware jar
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Saccharomyces sp.
Acetobacter pasteurianus

Output: nuruk water.

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

Joseon household books timed some vinegars by day names. In the Gyuhap chongseo version, roasted nuruk powder and water are sealed in an earthenware jar on a byeong (丙) day, and washed, steamed glutinous rice is poured in hot on the next jeong (丁) day. The jar is stirred with a peach branch, sealed thickly and left in the sun to become vinegar. Saccharomyces sp. and Acetobacter pasteurianus do most of the fermenting.

What makes this one different

The calendar sets the steps. The starter goes in on a byeong day and the rice on the jeong day that follows. The encyclopedia notes that the old vinegar recipes in general chose lucky days and kept away anything unclean.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Sajeolcho (사절초)The Suun japbang (about 1540) lists it next to another byeongjeong vinegar (또 다른 병정초) [ek-suun]. The sources read here give no method for it.

Safety

The recipe gives no safety limits. As a general hazard of mould starters, a 2025 study of Aspergillus strains, among them isolates from nuruk, notes that A. oryzae and A. flavus are near relatives that differ markedly in making aflatoxin, a carcinogenic mycotoxin [jeong2025]. WHO says most mycotoxins survive food processing [who-mycotoxins], so this old recipe is a historical record, not a tested method.

History and sources

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

The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture quotes this method from the Gyuhap chongseo [ek-sikcho]. Lim and Cha (2010) studied vinegar in 22 Joseon texts of the 15th to 19th centuries, and their abstract says they analysed the favourable days for making vinegar [lim2010].

Process times
The sources we found give no figure for how long any of its steps take.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [who-mycotoxins] World Health Organization, Mycotoxins (fact sheet)gov
  2. [ek-sikcho] Kim Chan-jo, Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (한국민족문화대백과사전), Academy of Korean Studies, article 식초 (食醋, vinegar), written 1995, read 2026-10book
  3. [ek-suun] Jeong Hye-gyeong, Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (한국민족문화대백과사전), Academy of Korean Studies, article 수운잡방 (Suun japbang), read 2026-10book
  4. [lim2010] Lim E.-J., Cha G.-H. 2010, Study on manufacturing of vinegar through literatures of the Joseon dynasty, Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture 25(6):680–707 (abstract)paper
  5. [haruta2006] Haruta S., Ueno S., Egawa I., Hashiguchi K., Fujii A., Nagano M., Ishii M., Igarashi Y. 2006, Succession of bacterial and fungal communities during a traditional pot fermentation of rice vinegar assessed by PCR-mediated denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, International Journal of Food Microbiology 109(1-2):79-87 (abstract)paper
  6. [jeong2025] Jeong E., Kwon Y.J., Seo J.A. 2025, Distinction between Aspergillus oryzae and aflatoxigenic Aspergillus flavus by rapid PCR method based on the comparative sequence analysis of the aflatoxin biosynthesis gene cluster, Journal of Fungi 12(1):10 (abstract)paper