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Soy and legumes from Indonesia

Upcycled ferments (okara tempeh, oncom, koji-mould okara)tempe gembus (okara tempeh)

Wet by-products such as okara (tofu pulp) and brewer's spent grain spoil quickly. Moulds can turn okara into food. In Indonesia, okara grown with Rhizopus is called tempe gembus and okara grown with Neurospora is called red oncom; modern labs grow the same moulds, or koji mould, on the pulp after adjusting its water and sterilising it. Each mould needs a different time at about 30 °C.

Fully documentedSoy and legumes24 h – 3 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceLaboratory conditions from Farniga et al. (2026), who fermented the same okara with five fungi.
Okara or another wet side streamFresh okara is about 80–85 % water and spoils within 6–8 h at room temperature. Not coconut press cake or maize, which can carry a deadly toxin (see the safety note)[faisal2026][anwar2017]
Mould spore suspension1 % (w/v)Rhizopus, Aspergillus oryzae or Neurospora, in one comparative study[farniga2026]
Starterdefined culture or traditional starter: Rhizopus (tempe gembus, black oncom), Neurospora (red oncom), Aspergillus oryzae (koji)

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h – 3 days

Start
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What changes: Water is pressed or dried out of the wet pulp so the mould can breathe

Step 1 of 4
Bring the by-product to the right water content
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds

Okara straight from the tofu works is too wet for the mould to grow well. Output: drier okara.

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

Wet by-products such as okara (tofu pulp) and brewer's spent grain spoil quickly. Moulds can turn okara into food. In Indonesia, okara grown with Rhizopus is called tempe gembus and okara grown with Neurospora is called red oncom; modern labs grow the same moulds, or koji mould, on the pulp after adjusting its water and sterilising it. Each mould needs a different time at about 30 °C. Made in 4 steps over 24 h – 3 days. The longest step, incubate until the mould covers the cake, takes 24 h – 3 days (Farniga A 2026) and runs at 30 °C (Farniga A 2026). Rhizopus microsporus, R. oligosporus and R. oryzae and Neurospora sitophila do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 3 daysReported[farniga2026]Incubate until the mould covers the cake
Temperature30 °CReported[farniga2026]Incubate until the mould covers the cake

What makes this one different

These ferments start from what is left over after another food is made, so the first job is to make a wet, perishable pulp stable enough to ferment, by pressing, drying or sterilising it.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tempe gembusOkara with Rhizopus, pressed under stones and wrapped in banana leaves (separate entry).
  • Oncom merah and hitamRed from Neurospora; black from Rhizopus.
  • Okara tempeh (EPFL)Okara soured, sterilised and part-dried to 70 % water before Rhizopus (separate entry).
  • Brewer's spent grainNot fermented in the source. It is dried at the brewery into barley flakes, which ingredient makers process further into flours and protein concentrates (Koptelova 2024).

Safety

Fresh okara spoils within 6–8 h at room temperature [faisal2026]. Fermented soybean pulp has caused fatal bongkrekic acid poisoning in Central Java, and coconut and corn ferments have caused it too [han2023, anwar2017]. The toxin comes from the bacterium Burkholderia gladioli pathovar cocovenenans, which makes it at 22–30 °C and near neutral pH, the same conditions these moulds grow in. It is heat-stable, so cooking cannot be relied on. Food that holds it can look, smell and taste normal, and no reliable test is on sale [anwar2017]. Good sanitation and complete mould growth may lower the risk but cannot rule it out, so do not mould coconut press cake or maize at home. Peanut and soybean press cake can also carry aflatoxin, and most mycotoxins survive food processing [owolabi2022, who2023].

Hazards the sources name: Burkholderia gladioli pathovar cocovenenans, which makes the toxin bongkrekic acid; fermented soybean pulp caused fatal poisoning in Central Java, and coconut and corn ferments have too; Aflatoxins, reported in oncom made from peanut or soybean press cake.

History and sources

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

Tempe gembus was eaten in Java from around 1943, when food was short (Gandjar 1972). Recent studies in Thailand, China and Switzerland revisit fungal fermentation as a way to keep okara out of the waste stream.

  1. [farniga2026] Farniga A., Pinsirodom P., Wattanachaisaereekul S. 2026, Fungal biotransformation of okara into functional food, comparative species-dependent metabolomic and antioxidant profiles, Current Research in Food Science 12:101396paper
  2. [koptelova2024] Koptelova A., Ducrey A., Lunven B., Köller L., Nagornova N., Appenzeller E.W., Abitbol T. 2024, Waste-to-Taste: Transforming Wet Byproducts of the Food Industry into New Nutritious Foods, Chimia 78(12):824–830paper
  3. [gandjar1972] Gandjar I., Slamet D.S. 1972, Tempe gembus hasil fermentasi ampas tahu, Penelitian Gizi dan Makanan 2 (1972)paper
  4. [faisal2026] Faisal M. et al. 2026, Inoculation fermentation improves the nutritional quality and flavor profile of Chinese traditional fermented okara (Meitauza), Frontiers in Microbiology 17:1846638paper
  5. [han2023] Han D., Chen J., Chen W., Wang Y. 2023, Bongkrekic acid and Burkholderia gladioli pathovar cocovenenans, formidable foe and ascending threat to food safety, Foods 12(21):3926paper
  6. [anwar2017] Anwar M., Kasper A., Steck A.R., Schier J.G. 2017, Bongkrekic acid, a review of a lesser-known mitochondrial toxin, Journal of Medical Toxicology 13(2):173–179paper
  7. [owolabi2022] Owolabi I.O., Kolawole O., Jantarabut P. et al. 2022, The importance and mitigation of mycotoxins and plant toxins in Southeast Asian fermented foods, npj Science of Food 6:39paper
  8. [who2023] World Health Organization 2023, Mycotoxins, fact sheet (2 October 2023) (general safety text only)gov