Method of brewing soy sauce
Taking plant collagens as materials, so called soy sauce is liquid condiment produced by brewing, quick brewing or blending method.
Brewed soy sauce: regarding soybean or defatted soybean, and wheat or bran as materials, it is a colored, fragrant and tasty liquid condiment produced after microbial fermentation. The fermentation features high salt liquid-state fermentation and low salt solid-state fermentation; due to different processes, the former is to adopt soybean and bran as materials and thus the soy sauce is with darker color; while the other adopts soybean and wheat as materials and thus the soy sauce is with stronger fragrance.
Blended soy sauce: It is liquid condiment produced by blending the major brewed soy sauce with acid hydrolyzed vegetable protein seasoning and food additive, etc. Those belong to blended soy sauce only if acid hydrolyzed vegetable protein seasoning is applied to production, which are diversifying in the taste but have lower nutritional value than the brewed soy sauce does.
Quickly brewed soy sauce (commonly referred to as chemical soy sauce): An amino acid liquid obtained by acid decomposed vegetable protein and ferment hydrolyzed vegetable protein, which is neutralized by alkali and colored by adding brown sugar.
Major variety of soy sauce
Light soy sauce
Color: It has lighter color that is rufous.
·Flavor: Provided for cooking, it tastes somewhat salty.
·Purpose: Provided for enhancing flavor and with light color, it is usually served for cooking dishes and preparing cold dishes.
·Making of light soy sauce: As a certain soy sauce and regarding soy bean and flour as major materials, it is processed by inoculating mouldstarter, exposing to sunshine and after fermentation. By this way, the product is ruddy in color and harmoniously delicious; it smells rich fragrance of bean and appears clearly and transparently; the flavor is unique.
Dark soy sauce
Color: After added with caramel color, the dark soy sauce is with darker color which is brown and lustrous.
·Flavor: It tastes delicious and sweet.
·Purpose: It is generally used for enriching colors of the dishes, for instance, for braised dishes or other dishes needed to be colored.
·Making of dark soy sauce: Firstly, the light soy sauce will be exposed to sunshine for 2-3 months, after that, carry out filtering and precipitation to obtain dark soy sauce which is thicker than light soy sauce.
Premium Deluxe soy sauce
Also known as a kind of light soy sauce, it is refined for the first time. So, the flavor is more fragrant and enriched. Since each jar of soy sauce after fermentation has only one time to be refined into premium soy sauce, it is expensive slightly.
Mushroom dark soy sauce
Also known as a kind of dark soy sauce, it is prepared by soy bean and mushroom extracts which should be fermented.
Soy sauce's nutritional value
With high nutritional value, soy sauce contains as many as 17 amino acids, in addition to B vitamin as well as calcium, phosphorous and iron, etc. It is able to add flavor for the dishes cooked with a little soy sauce and offer pleasant color and luster so as to stimulate appetite. It is recommended to apply soy sauce just at the time the dishes are to be well done, for which, the reason is to avoid destroy of amino acids contained abundantly in the soy sauce due to high temperature and to prevent degradation of nutritional value; furthermore, the sugar in the soy sauce will not be coked to make it taste acidic. With functions of allaying a fever and eliminating irritation, and enhancing flavor and stimulate the appetite, the soy sauce contains genistein, which enables to lower the cholesterol in the human body and thus realize the reduction of cardiovascular disease. It is found by Singapore Institute of Food Research, a natural antioxidant can be produced by the soy sauce, which is helpful to reduce harm caused by free radicals to human body, with more than ten times effect than vitamin C and E. A very little soy sauce may be used to restrain free radicals, which has equal effect as a cup of red wine does. It should be mentioned that soy sauce may result in such side effects as nausea and vomiting, so it is not suitable for people taking medicines for curing vascular diseases and gastrointestinal illnesses.
Clinically, people always raise a question like this, will the soy sauce make the skin black or be left with a scar when the there is hurt with the skin? The answer is negative. Whether a scar will be left or not, it mainly depends on depth and infection of the hurt, as well as individual difference. Since it is glutamic acid which makes the major ingredient of soy sauce, it has no direct relation to tissue repair. Moreover, for the color, the food color is selected, which will not be carried to deep skin after taken into the body. For all of these reasons, it is unnecessary for people with hurts or plastic surgery not to eat soy sauce intentionally.
How to select soy sauce
When buying soy sauce, customers need to pay special attention to the production date and shelf life. Observation, shaking and tasting will be done to choose soy sauce. For observation, it means to observe the index and color. For high quality soy sauce, there will be sufficient foams after it is shook and they will not disperse quickly; or it may smell the flavor by approaching the bottle mouth to recognize the quality, because, for high quality soy sauce, it will smell strong fragrance of soy bean and taste delicious; but, the soy sauce soy sauce tastes slightly bitter, and there will be little foams which will disperse quickly.
Firstly, you should know it is brewed or blended soy sauce by observing the label. The brewed may be rated according to the content of amino acid nitrogen. It is of better quality when there contains a greater amount of amino acid nitrogen for 1g/100ML, that is, amino acid nitrogen ≥0.80g/100ml, 0.70g/100ml, 0.55g/100ml and 0.40g/100ml respectively for special, first, second and three class.
Secondly, observe its purpose for it will indicate the soy sauce is used for cold dishes or for cooked dishes. The hygiene indexes vary for the two purposes. Soy sauce for cold dishes may be eaten directly and require high hygiene indexes; while, for cold dishes, it is better not to put soy sauce special for cooked dishes.
Thirdly, observe the color; normally, the soy sauce is rufous which will be slightly darker for the high quality one; yet, if the color is too much darker, it shows caramel color is mixed in the soy sauce, if so, the fragrance and flavor will become weakened. Such soy sauce is only suitable for braising.
Be cautious to buy bagged soy sauce. Currently, there are many nonconforming bagged soy sauce and vinegar sold on the market, which are prepared by water, caramel color and industrial vinegar essence. They smell an offensive odor and contain heavy metals harmful for human body.
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