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Sauces and condiments from Korea

Dambukjang (quick hot-fermented jang)담북장

Dambukjang is a quick soybean paste made before the year's new doenjang is ready. Crumbled meju is mixed with warm water and a little salt and kept in a warm place for three to seven days. The steps below follow historical recipes.

Fully documentedSauces and condiments3 days – 10 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHistorical household recipes with no amounts. The Jeungbo Sallim Gyeongje recipe uses a small jar.
Small meju blocksMade between autumn and winter, fermented and dried, then broken up in early spring[aks-dambuk]
Warm water[aks-dambuk][imaeil2013]
SaltLightly salted[aks-dambuk]
Red pepper powder and a little soy sauceIn the 1938 Joseon Yoribeop recipe[aks-dambuk]
Startermeju

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 days – 10 days

Start
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What changes: Small soybean blocks ferment and dry through autumn and winter

Step 1 of 4
Make small meju blocks and let them ferment and dry
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

One newspaper account says the meju is made around November. Output: small dried meju blocks.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Dambukjang is a quick soybean paste made before the year's new doenjang is ready. Crumbled meju is mixed with warm water and a little salt and kept in a warm place for three to seven days. The steps below follow historical recipes. Made in 4 steps over 3 days – 10 days. The longest step, mix with warm water and a little salt and keep warm, takes 3–10 days (Yun Deok-in 1995 (rev. 2023)).

Key numbers
Main step3–10 daysReported[aks-dambuk][rda2011]Mix with warm water and a little salt and keep warm

What makes this one different

Dambukjang is made to eat before the year's new doenjang is ready. It is ready in days, because the crumbled meju is fermented warm with only a little salt and nothing is drawn off.

Related ferments

Variants

  • RDA farm-processing recipe (2011)Roasted soybeans are made into meju blocks 5–6 cm across, fermented 5–6 days and dried; salt water is poured over them, and red pepper powder, garlic and salt go in, with 7–10 days of fermenting in a warm place.
  • Joseon Yoribeop dambukjang (1938)Finely ground meju mixed with red pepper powder, left overnight, then seasoned with soy sauce and salt; 3–4 days in a warm place if needed quickly.
  • Bang Sin-yeong's dambukjang (1958)Roasted, cracked and boiled soybeans kept under leaves or straw in a warm room for 4–5 days until sticky threads form, then mixed with radish, ginger, red pepper and salt and set in the sun.

Safety

No source we read gives a pH, a salt percentage or a measured hazard for dambukjang. The recipes ferment it warm and quickly with only a little salt, and it may be eaten without cooking, so nothing we read shows this method is safe. In doenjang, a related meju-based paste, 49 of 60 samples held at least one mycotoxin, and aflatoxin B1 turned up more often in homemade paste (11 of 30) than in commercial paste (5 of 30) (Woo et al. 2019). The study reports one sample over a Korean limit, a commercial paste with 23.27 µg/kg ochratoxin A.

Hazards the sources name: Mycotoxins (aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, zearalenone, fumonisins), found in a related meju-based Korean soybean paste, doenjang; not measured in dambukjang.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The Jeungbo Sallim Gyeongje records the method as damsujang (淡水醬法). A 2013 newspaper series places dambukjang among high-temperature quick doenjang made since early Joseon.

Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [aks-dambuk] Yun Deok-in 1995 (rev. 2023), 담북장 (dambukjang), Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, Academy of Korean Studies; summarises Jeungbo Sallim Gyeongje, Jo Ja-ho 1938 Joseon Yoribeop and Bang Sin-yeong 1958 Urinara Eumsik Mandeuneun Beopbook
  2. [imaeil2013] Maeil Shinmun 2013-01-10, [자연음식 이야기] 장류(3) 조선시대의 장담그기 (jang-making in the Joseon period)web
  3. [rda2011] Rural Development Administration, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Fermentation and Utilization Division 2011, 누구나! 손쉽게! 어디서나! 농가에서 만드는 웰~빙 발효식품 (farm-made fermented foods booklet), p. 9, table of specialty janggov
  4. [woo2019] Woo S.Y., Ryu S.Y., Tian F., Lee S.Y., Park S.B., Chun H.S. 2019, Simultaneous determination of twenty mycotoxins in the Korean soybean paste doenjang by LC-MS/MS with immunoaffinity cleanup, Toxins 11(10):594, doi:10.3390/toxins11100594 (a related meju-based paste, not jeupjang or dambukjang)paper