Talk:Aspergillus oryzae
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I am wondering whether "low" and "mid" importance for this article are appropriate, since A. oryzae is about as important for the Japanese culture as Bakers yeast is for us! I mean Soy sauce, Sake, and miso all are quite essential for the Japanese food culture. I just recently heard a talk about this organism by a Japanese scientist. A. oryzae definitely is essential to break down higher sugars (and other compounds) in rice, soy beans etc. during processing of the above foods. It's similar to what we do during beer brewing: while during beer brewing, we use the enzymes stored in the barley grains to break down higher compounds (by incubating the mash at temperatures ideal for the individual enzymes) and then let yeast degrade glucose to ethanol and CO2, Japanese inoculate rice etc. with A. oryzae to do this job. I don't remember anymore whether it also does the job of fermenting glucose in the end, or whether they add yeast for that. --Spitfire ch 12:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
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It is highly possible that the japanese word koji refers to the rice (or other fermentable medium) inoculated with Aspergillus, rather than the aspergillus. In the company websites, the inoculated precursor for soy sauce and sake is called koji, not the organism doing the inoculation. However, on Jeffrey's J-E Dict, it is defined as: Kouji: malt; leaven; yeast; mould used to make sake; mold used to make sake. See The dictionary and look up Kouji. I will continue to use Koji as the organism and as the inoculated base. ~~Magicwombat
- The organism is referred to as "Kōji-kin," as "Kōji" refers to the fermented rice-stuff they cultivate it from.--Mr Fink 23:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
- oryzae -> Oryza sativa. --Abdull 09:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Ah, I think most manufacturer in Japan rarely use A. orizae to make soy sauce; instead, Aspergillus sojae should be suitable ("sojae" means soy bean, of course). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.147.75.165 (talk) 22:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Other foods
I think this article would benefit from a list of foods that are made from koji. I notice that amazake is missing. What else?
- Mizuame, I guess. Maybe we need to research further. 210.147.75.165 (talk) 22:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
- Well... from what I've read now, mizuame is not really made with this microbe and, rather, it was made with the enzyme (amylase) in rice itself or malt, but it's an old method and I don't know about details anyway. Then, well, how about mirin? 210.147.75.165 (talk) 23:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
