Chapter 51: I can no longer understand this world!
Legend has it that during the Kamakura period, Monk Kakushin of Japan went through immense hardship and, with great determination, traveled to Mount Jing Temple in China, known as the “foremost of the Five Mountains and Ten Temples,” to seek Mahayana Buddhist teachings. It’s unclear whether he obtained the Buddhist teachings, but he did acquire the method for making miso, which is fermented bean paste.
Upon his return, he organized the monks and believers of his temple to begin trial production of fermented bean paste, preparing for large-scale manufacturing as capital for protecting the Dharma. After the paste was made, he discovered that the “soy sauce” floating on top was savory and delicious, possessing a unique and excellent flavor. Thus, Japan gained soy sauce, whose alternative names include “bean paste soy sauce” and “bean paste.”
Of course, there are many other theories regarding the origin of Japanese soy sauce, such as Monk Kakushin’s failed attempt at making fermented bean paste, which resulted in a vat of dark water. Before discarding it, he felt it was a shame and tasted it, thus discovering soy sauce. Other theories suggest soy sauce was introduced to Japan by Monk Ganjin during the Tang Dynasty and by immigrants during the Ming Dynasty.
It’s now difficult to ascertain the truth, as Japan historically lacked a tradition of recording historical materials before the modern era. After so long, no one can be sure of what truly happened, and no one can be certain—except for Koreans. Koreans firmly believe that soy sauce was invented by the great Korean inventor King Sejong the Great, and then introduced to China and Japan.
Anyway, they’ve been saying this online, and it’s likely they’ll soon apply for UNESCO World Heritage status.
As for the ancient brewing method of soy sauce…
The basic raw materials are beans, wheat, and salt. The plant protein in beans is responsible for converting into amino acids to provide umami, the starch in buckwheat or wheat is responsible for becoming glucose to provide sweetness, and salt provides the salty taste while also combating miscellaneous bacteria to ensure the brewing process is successful.
Once the raw materials are ready, the process can move to the koji-making stage. The first step is washing and steaming. If the soybeans have insufficient moisture, the koji mold cannot proliferate. However, if there is too much moisture, it will severely affect the quality of the final product. Therefore, constant observation is required during the steaming process, generally ensuring the moisture content of the soybeans is around 47%.
After the soybeans are steamed, the wheat is dry-fried and mixed in, followed by the addition of koji mold. The koji mold proliferates rapidly at high temperatures and requires a large amount of oxygen during proliferation, so constant stirring is necessary, making it arduous work.
Once the koji mold has proliferated, its mycelia begin to develop and start breaking down the beans and wheat.
This process typically takes three days. Throughout this period, the koji mold releases a significant amount of heat, requiring constant monitoring and manual intervention to maintain the temperature below 40 degrees Celsius. Otherwise, the result will not be soy sauce but stinky natto. Above 40 degrees Celsius, natto bacteria and other miscellaneous bacteria become more active, but it cannot be below 24 degrees Celsius, or the koji mold will stop developing or die.
After this process is complete, “koji” is obtained. At this point, saltwater can be added, determined by the desired saltiness for the final product. The amount is usually 1.2 times the amount of “koji.” If salt granules were added instead at this step, the final product would be miso.
After adding the saltwater, the “saltwater koji” can be placed into wooden barrels or earthenware jars for aging. This process takes at least one year, but during this year, it’s not left unattended. It requires constant checking and stirring, with air being introduced to ensure the survival of the microorganisms.
The primary daily work of ancient brewers was essentially “how do I ensure the microorganisms stay alive and happy.” There are many subtle techniques involved, such as whether to use wooden barrels or earthenware jars, how often to stir in the summer, whether to wrap them with straw in the winter, whether to stir more on rainy days, and whether to cool them down if the weather is too hot. These are typically referred to as “family secret techniques.”
After a year, when the microorganisms have finished their work, the contents of the jars can be poured out, wrapped in cloth, and pressed. The liquid extracted is raw soy sauce containing various microorganisms. Subsequently, the raw soy sauce is heated to boiling to kill the microorganisms, yielding the final product—soy sauce.
A Man might not be familiar with the specific brewing process of soy sauce, as her profession is “Original Ninja,” not a Kura-bito Artisan. However, she has some understanding of the general process and knows it’s arduous work, taking a whole year and requiring extensive “family secret techniques” passed down only to males. She thinks Yuan Ye’s ambition to earn money from this is sheer fantasy.
But Yuan Ye is stubborn, and if he insists, she can’t stop him. She had prepared a barrage of words and many sarcastic remarks, intending to nag him about being a spendthrift who only wastes money while he works. However, she didn’t expect Yuan Ye to deviate entirely from the usual script, leaving her speechless and almost suffering a stroke from holding back—she couldn’t understand what Yuan Ye was doing; it was completely different from the soy sauce brewing process she had witnessed before.
Yuan Ye first directed everyone to throw bean cakes, buckwheat husks, and rice husks into several large vats, adding a large amount of water. Then, he poured a small amount of a pungent liquid and instructed the Momoi Brothers, wearing masks, to stir continuously. Once mixed, he had the vats directly moved onto a built-up earthen stove and heated over a low flame.
During this time, people took turns watching the fire to maintain the temperature. After boiling for a day and a night, approximately twelve hours, he ordered the Momoi Brothers to move the vats down. Once they cooled to room temperature, he slowly poured in a strange powder, and while pouring, he poked small paper sticks in and out, then dipped them into another liquid until the paper sticks no longer changed color.
Then he declared the task complete, covered the vats, and moved them to the backyard for storage. He then became absent-minded, muttering things like “dilute hydrochloric acid should be recoverable through steam condensation,” “the corrosion of the vats is better than expected,” “using natural alkali to directly balance the acidity should also work,” and “it shouldn’t be lethal, right?” He then retreated into his room, which no one was allowed to enter, and began planning production equipment blueprints. This was a trial production; for actual mass production, he would need to design specialized equipment, such as ceramic pipes and labor-saving stirring tools.
A Man watched him leave, then looked at the vats left unattended in the backyard, scratching her head repeatedly.
What is going on? Is this really soy sauce brewing?
I don’t understand. I don’t understand from the raw materials. Bean cakes are one thing, but why add so many buckwheat husks and rice husks?
Can people really eat what’s made this way?
This isn’t right, is it?
She couldn’t figure it out and went to find Yuan Ye again, but Yuan Ye was busy and didn’t have time for her, only telling her to watch the vats and call him if anything happened.
It wasn’t until the sixth day that Yuan Ye lifted the lids to look inside. After thinking for a moment, he called everyone over, directly wrapped the contents in cloth, pressed them, and boiled them, obtaining a large half-vat of dark brown liquid. He then added a small half-vat of diluted saltwater, refilling the vat.
A Man hugged the vat and watched for a while, then smelled it, and dipped a finger in to taste it. She fell into deep thought—Damn it, it really does seem like soy sauce. It’s salty, slightly sweet, and very savory.
What in the world is going on?
Her worldview was completely shaken. Has the world always operated like this? Soy sauce doesn’t need a year to brew, and it doesn’t even need beans and wheat; it can be brewed using feed for livestock? For so many years, she had been completely unaware, never noticing!
For a moment, she felt her prime years, over a decade long, had been wasted. Her mind was completely jumbled, and she couldn’t comprehend it. It felt like magic, too far beyond reason. Yuan Ye, seeing her stunned, hesitated for a moment and also dipped a finger in to taste it. His specialty was chemical engineering and machinery. This process was developed by the Japanese. After the war, when Japan faced food shortages and couldn’t use soybeans to make soy sauce, they devised the dilute hydrochloric acid hydrolysis method, using soybean meal, wheat bran, and rice bran to produce soy sauce.
The principle is quite simple: soy sauce requires converting proteins into various amino acids and starch into glucose. The ancient brewing method uses various microorganisms to slowly decompose and convert these, which takes a very long time and has a low conversion rate. Modern Japanese, however, directly use dilute hydrochloric acid to quickly complete the hydrolysis and conversion, replacing the microorganisms. This not only greatly increases efficiency but also allows for the use of raw materials that microorganisms dislike, significantly saving on rations.
Many modern soy sauce manufacturers still use this method, or a compromise, semi-brewing and semi-hydrolysis. This is because brewing soy sauce using the ancient method takes too much time, putting them at a significant disadvantage in market competition, making them easily defeated. If you don’t believe it, you can check the soy sauce bottles; some ingredient lists include dilute hydrochloric acid as an additive—these are the honest ones; some use it but don’t list it.
Of course, China more commonly uses the “low-salt solid-state process” introduced from the Soviet Union to produce soy sauce, which can produce a batch in 5 days, an efficiency increase of 7200% compared to ancient brewing. However, that process requires high-end equipment and large factory space, which Yuan Ye cannot manage. In the end, he still felt the dilute hydrochloric acid hydrolysis method was the most reliable.
Although it’s a bit slow, taking seven or eight days, which is significantly worse than shipping out product in five days, and the efficiency has dropped considerably, this process is most suitable for him as a transmigrator in distress. He can completely “hand-craft” it.
As for how to obtain dilute hydrochloric acid, Japan has no shortage of sulfur. With sulfur, salt, and other minerals, one can synthesize sulfuric acid using traditional methods, then synthesize hydrochloric acid from sulfuric acid, and then dilute it. This can all be found by flipping through a high school chemistry textbook; anyone who has attended high school can do it.
Similarly, the sodium carbonate used to clean residual dilute hydrochloric acid and balance acidity can also be synthesized using traditional methods if natural alkali is available. Flipping through a high school textbook can also solve this.
Other situations are similar. If test tubes or reagents are missing, just think of traditional methods; it won’t be difficult for Yuan Ye.
There’s only one problem: the purity of these chemically synthesized reagents using traditional methods is insufficient, and the chemical residues after production will definitely exceed the standard. Yuan Ye hesitated after dipping his fingers in the soy sauce and didn’t dare put them in his mouth—he hadn’t tested it on chickens or donkeys first; it shouldn’t be lethal, right?
He had only read relevant production process papers in the library during school; this was his first time doing it in practice. He felt very uncertain and a bit unconfident after production. But then he thought, the Japanese in the 1950s and 60s probably weren’t that meticulous either. If they didn’t die from it, there’s no reason he would. Moreover, he’s currently eating salt that exceeds heavy metal standards, so eating soy sauce with chemical residue exceeding standards should be fine.
With that thought, he also became the test subject, licking his finger and slowly savoring the taste.
Hmm… it really is the taste of soy sauce. It feels okay, and I can’t taste any strange flavors!
He turned to look at the “knowledgeable local” and asked for her opinion: “Do you think anything is wrong with it?”
A Man looked confused: “It seems… there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that the color is a bit too bright red. The soy sauce I’ve seen before seems to have a darker, murky color.”
Actually, the fact that there’s nothing wrong is the biggest problem. This took seven or eight days to complete what a Kura-bito Artisan needs a year for, and it was done using waste materials, yet it tastes good. This is too wrong!
Is this reasonable? This is unreasonable!
She still couldn’t understand what was going on. The world felt absurd and distorted, and her common sense had been corrupted by Yuan Ye, this Cthulhu. Yuan Ye thought for a moment, looked at the color of the soy sauce, and judged that something had gone wrong during one of the two heating processes, possibly insufficient caramelization. However, this could be remedied.
He went and got a small jar, scooped two spoonfuls into the vat, stirred it, and then asked A Man, “How about now? Is the color right now? If not, I’ll add two more spoonfuls!”
A Man watched this scene, watched the soy sauce turn a bright brown color, and her little head buzzed—it was already buzzing before, and now she didn’t understand again, buzzing even more.
What? The color of soy sauce can be adjusted? I’ve never heard of that before!
Could it be that I, as the second wise person of the Kōka Life Preservation Style, have lived in vain? Am I a person of limited knowledge?
Her worldview was finally completely chaotic, finally thoroughly corrupted by Yuan Ye, this Cthulhu. She could no longer comprehend this world!
