22 BULLETIN 1152, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
factories. The reasons for the practices followed in the various steps 
in the ripening of shoyu-koji have been but partially worked out. 
The established practices are based upon accumulated manufactur- 
ing experience rather than upon carefully planned investigations. 
Available scientific studies on the moromi fermentation or the brin- 
ing have up to the present been either futile or inadequate from a 
practical point of view. 
The great obstacle in the way of developing a soy-sauce industry 
in the United States lies not only in the fact that soy sauce is not an 
everyday necessity, as it is with the people of the Far East, but also 
in the very little realized truth that a properly flavored and uniform 
output can be readily produced only at comparatively great expense 
and after a certain amount of experimentation has been conducted. 
The majority of soy-sauce makers and manufacturers in the Orient 
employ purely rule-of -thumb methods which have been handed down 
and individually perfected by more or less successful experience. 
Accurate knowledge of the reasons for the steps involved in the 
process as practiced is not common. 
The possible manufacturer of soy sauce in America needs to re- 
member that an attempt at transplanting an old. established fermen- 
tation practice to a new land carries with it difficulties due to new 
atmospheric and climatic conditions. Further, in bringing to this 
country a process which has arisen in a land where human labor is 
cheaply obtained there will be economic and technical factors to be 
adjusted to the new conditions. Imported technical assistance may 
secure a successful product, but it admits of no interpretation of the 
cause of failure, should such failure arise. 
Soy bean seed is used as a food as well as for its oil and meal. 
Of the almost innumerable ways in which soy beans are used in the 
Orient as more or less elaborately prepared foods, soy sauce seems to 
offer prospects of more immediate adoption in the United States 
than any other product. Soy sauce and related substances, such as 
red miso and white miso among Japanese bean products and the 
various sauces and mold-fermented bean cheeses among Chinese 
foodstuffs, are highly relished in the Orient. Occidentals who have 
had the good fortune to become acquainted with the seasonings of 
oriental cookery readily adapt soy sauce and other soy bean prod- 
ucts to their home dishes. Soy sauce has already gained a strong 
foothold with frequenters of Chinese-American restaurants. 
Table sauces containing soy sauce as an ingredient are to be had 
in a great variety of grades and flavors. They also present an un- 
limited field for further variation. Concentrated forms of season- 
ing, such as yeast and vegetable extracts suitable as meat substitutes 
in flavoring soups and other prepared dishes, are receiving consid- 
eration by manufacturers. Soy sauce is of value in any table sauce 
and it can easily rank with yeast or vegetable extracts when pre- 
pared in concentrated form. Soy sauce, as developed in the labora- 
tory of this department and concentrated under a vacuum, made 
delicious bouillon, especially when flavored with a little celery seed 
extract and garlic. It need scarcely be said that the method of con- 
centration to be employed, as well as that of removing excess salt 
from a concentrated soy sauce, is one which modern machinery can 
ably cope with. United States Patent 1,332.448. of Sadakichi Satow, 
of Sendai. Japan, specifies a dry powder form of soy sauce. 
