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Sauces and condiments from Indonesia

Kecap asin and kecap manis sedangkecap asin

Kecap asin is Indonesia's salty soy sauce. Boiled soybeans are grown over with mould, soaked in a strong brine where salt-loving lactic bacteria work, about a month in industrial production, then filtered and boiled. Kecap manis sedang is the medium-sweet version.

Fully documentedSauces and condiments30 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceNo tested household recipe was found. Widiantara et al. 2018, citing Hidayah 2014, say 17–19 % salt is the strength usually used for kecap.
SoybeansBlack or yellow soybeans are the usual raw material. In an 1890s account of Chinese makers in Java, black soybeans were boiled, drained and sun-dried before mould grew on them. The cited lab study used jack-bean and tofu-dregs tempeh instead.[suri2024][sic-hss2][unpas2018]
BrineUsually 17–19 %Salt additions of 20–23 % are also cited[unpas2018]
Starterkecap makers do not usually add an inoculum; moulds from the air and the previously used trays grow on the cooked beans (Sulistyo and Nikkuni 2006, on kecap in general)

Total time across the recorded steps: 30 days

Start
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What changes: Soybeans are boiled soft

Step 1 of 4
Boil the soybeans
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Aspergillus
Rhizopus
T. halophilus
Moulds

Output: cooked soybeans.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
soft beans
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

Kecap asin is Indonesia's salty soy sauce. Boiled soybeans are grown over with mould, soaked in a strong brine where salt-loving lactic bacteria work, about a month in industrial production, then filtered and boiled. Kecap manis sedang is the medium-sweet version. Made in 4 steps over 30 days. The longest step, ferment in brine, takes 30 days (Röling W.F.M). Salt is 17–23 % (Widiantara T 2018). Moulds Aspergillus oryzae, A. niger and Rhizopus and Tetragenococcus halophila do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30 daysReported[roling-ipb]Ferment in brine
Salt17–23 %Reported[unpas2018]Ferment in brine
AciditypH 3.5–6Set[suri2024]Filter and boil

What makes this one different

Kecap manis is boiled with large amounts of palm sugar and simmered long, so it is thick and sweet; kecap asin is the thinner, saltier type. Kecap inggris is Worcestershire sauce, not soy sauce.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Kecap manis sedangMedium-sweet; less thick and saltier than kecap manis.
  • Bangka black-bean kecap asinHakka-style, very salty soy sauce made from black beans on Bangka Island.

Safety

Indonesia's standard SNI 3543.2:2013 sets kecap asin at pH 3.5–6.0 with at least 10 % salt, and limits moulds to 50 colonies per gram, aflatoxin B1 to 15 µg/kg and total aflatoxin to 20 µg/kg. Mould grown without a pure starter is the risk. Aflatoxin producers have been isolated from Indonesian soybean koji, and a 1992 survey by Sadjono and colleagues, cited by Sulistyo and Nikkuni 2006, found aflatoxin B1 above 5 μg/kg in about 47 % of 32 kecap samples. WHO says most mycotoxins survive food processing, so boiling cannot be counted on to remove it.

History and sources

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

Shurtleff and Aoyagi write that the Indonesian word kecap (once ketjap) is believed to come from the Malay kechap, a kind of fish sauce, itself thought to come from the Chinese ketsiap, and that this soy sauce was probably brought to Indonesia by Chinese from south China. The earliest known descriptions are Dutch. In 1787 Isaac Titsing described its preparation and said it was called ketjap in Batavia. In 1895 H.C. Prinsen Geerligs described Chinese makers in Java who boiled black soybeans, sun-dried them, grew mould on them under hibiscus leaves, soaked them in cold salt water for 8 days in the sun and then cooked the liquor. Indonesia's first large modern soy sauce plant opened in Jakarta in 1978. They describe kecap asin as the thinner, saltier of the two basic Indonesian types.

  1. [sulistyo2006] Sulistyo J., Nikkuni S. 2006, Development of pure culture starter using a white-spored mutant of koji mold, K-1A for kecap, an Indonesian soy sauce, JARQ (Japan Agricultural Research Quarterly) 40(2):171–175paper
  2. [who-mycotoxins] World Health Organization, Mycotoxins (fact sheet)gov
  3. [unpas2018] Widiantara T., Hasnelly, Deviana R.L. 2018, Pembuatan kecap asin koro pedang (salty soy sauce from jack bean), Pasundan Food Technology Journal 5(3), with background citing Hidayah 2014 and Halimah 1996paper
  4. [suri2024] Suri M. et al. 2024, Pengolahan ampas tahu sebagai bahan baku pembuatan kecap, Bioma 9(1):76–86, Table 1 reproducing SNI 3543.1:2013 (kecap manis) and SNI 3543.2:2013 (kecap asin)paper
  5. [roling-ipb] Röling W.F.M., Apriyantono A., van Verseveld H.W., Comparison between traditional and industrial soy sauce (kecap) fermentation in Indonesia (abstract, IPB repository)paper
  6. [roling1996] Röling W., van Verseveld H.W. 1996, Characterization of Tetragenococcus halophila populations in Indonesian soy mash (kecap) fermentation, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 62(4):1203–1207, doi:10.1128/aem.62.4.1203-1207.1996 (abstract)paper
  7. [sic-hss2] Shurtleff W., Aoyagi A., History of Soy Sauce, Shoyu and Tamari, page 2 (Indonesia), SoyInfo Centerbook
  8. [WP-Soy sauce] English Wikipedia, Soy sauce (kecap types)wiki