AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 



105 



6. Shoyu, the Japanese bean-sauce, also called Soja, English 

 Soy, both being corruptions of the Japanese name, is a dark-brown 

 fluid with a pleasant aromatic odour and a peculiar salty taste. It 

 foams up yellow when shaken, and leaves behind on the side of the 

 glass a clear shining line of a fatty appearance, so that the Japanese 

 designation "soy-oil" (Sh6 = soy, yu = oil) is quite appropriate. Its 

 specific gravity, which Kinch gives as riQQ, may vary not incon- 

 siderably, according to the method of its production. The same 

 author found in i liter, as the total weight of the solid remnant 

 359-88 grammes, ashes (chiefly chlornatrium) 195*16 gr., sugar 

 3103 gr., nitrogenous matter 41*00 gr., free acid (acetic acid.?) 

 6-20 gr. 



For the manufacture of Shoyu, as I became acquainted with it 

 in Kioto, they use wheat (Ko-mugi), light-yellow Soja-beans (Shiro- 

 mame), common salt (Shio or Sho), and water (Midzu) ; the first 

 two in equal parts, three parts of water, and five or six parts of 

 salt. In other places they take equal volumes of all four com- 

 ponents. A small portion of the wheat is brought to fermentation 

 with Koji (rice-ferment) ; the rest is roasted to a delicate light- 

 brown in iron pans over a fire of coals, and then ground in little 

 hand-mills. The Soja-beans are boiled soft for about half a day 

 with a little water, in iron kettles, and after that pounded to mush. 

 Flour, bean-mush, and the fermenting wheat are now thoroughly 

 mixed, poured into little wooden boxes, and exposed to fermenta- 

 tion for three days in a suitable room, at as uniform a temperature 

 as possible (25° C), whereby the mass becomes covered with 

 mould-fungus.^ 



It is then immediately put into vessels open at the top ; the 

 required amount of salt and water is added and thoroughly mixed 

 in, producing a paste. This is transferred to large open butts, 

 like the mash-tubs of brewers. According to Hoffmann,^ each of 

 these can contain 20-30,000 liters. I found them considerably 



^ According to Hoffmann, " Mittheilungen der Ges. Ostasiens" 6 Heft, p. 98, 

 the grains of wheat are only coarsely ground, and the beans are not pounded 

 down, so that the formation of diastase takes place, as in the production of 

 malt with us. 



2 "Mitth. d. deutsch. Gesellschaft Ostasiens," Heft 6. 



