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Soy and legumes from Japan — Kagawa

Sanuki shiro miso (Kagawa white miso, GI)サヌキ白みそ

Sanuki shiro miso is Kagawa's sweet, cream-coloured white miso. Dehulled soybeans are boiled in several changes of water, mixed while still hot with twice their weight of rice as koji, and ripened for no more than seven days before being ground smooth. It has 6 % salt or less.

Fully documentedSoy and legumes7.3 daysGI No. 124 (Sanuki shiro miso), Japan

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe GI fixes the rice-to-soybean ratio and the salt ceiling, not a batch size.
SoybeansDehulled[GI-124]
Rice (for koji)2 times the soybean weight[GI-124]
Salt6 % of the miso or less[GI-124]
Starterrice koji (koji mould on rice)

Total time across the recorded steps: 7.3 days

Start
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What changes: Dehulled soybeans boil in changes of water so they stay pale

Step 1 of 4
Dehull, soak and boil the soybeans in changes of water
Time
at least 8 h
Set
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts

Output: pale boiled soybeans.

Flavour
changing the water removes colour compounds
Texture
soft
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

Sanuki shiro miso is Kagawa's sweet, cream-coloured white miso. Dehulled soybeans are boiled in several changes of water, mixed while still hot with twice their weight of rice as koji, and ripened for no more than seven days before being ground smooth. It has 6 % salt or less. Made in 4 steps over 7.3 days. The longest step, short ripening, takes up to 7 days (MAFF Geographical Indication register No. 124…). Salt is up to 6 % (MAFF Geographical Indication register No. 124…). Koji mould on the rice; in sweet white miso the koji enzymes do the work, and lactic bacteria and yeast are not normally used does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepup to 7 daysSet[GI-124]Short ripening
Saltup to 6 %Set[GI-124]Hot packing (netsu-jikomi)

What makes this one different

The rice weighs twice the soybeans and the salt is 6 % or less. The beans are dehulled and boiled in several changes of water, packed hot and ripened at most seven days, so the miso stays sweet and cream-coloured. Salty pale miso such as Shinshu miso uses koji at 5–10 bu and 11–13 % salt.

Related ferments

Safety

Low-salt white miso is easily spoiled by contaminating microbes and is hard to heat-treat fully, so Kawano stresses strict plant hygiene and cold storage from shipping to sale.

History and sources

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

Two stories trace white miso in Kagawa to the Kyoto court in the 11th–12th centuries, one to Emperor Sutoku's exile after 1156, the other to Shido, an imperial estate in 1053–1058 that was later given to Kyoto temples. Farm families made white miso after the autumn rice harvest. Factory production grew after the Kagawa miso cooperative was founded in 1950 and the makers sold under one name, and Sanuki white miso won top grade for sweet miso at the first national miso show in 1958. Four makers produce it today [GI-124]. Dōmoto names Sanuki miso among the noted white misos of the Inland Sea coast [DOMOTO-1989].

  1. [GI-124] MAFF Geographical Indication register No. 124, サヌキ白みそ (Sanuki shiro miso) specification, applicant Kagawa miso cooperative, updated 2024-05-21spec
  2. [KAWANO-1999] Kawano K., Kishino Y. 1999, 米甘味噌 白甘味噌・江戸甘味噌 (sweet rice miso: white and Edo sweet miso), J. Brew. Soc. Japan 94(2):102–108, doi:10.6013/jbrewsocjapan1988.94.102 (the white miso part by Kawano)paper
  3. [DOMOTO-1989] Dōmoto Y. 1989, 味噌の地域特性 —西日本編— (regional features of miso, western Japan), J. Brew. Soc. Japan 84(2):76–82, doi:10.6013/jbrewsocjapan1988.84.76paper