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Vegetables from Korea

Gochu kimchi (green-chilli kimchi)고추김치

Gochu kimchi is made from the small, thick-skinned green chillies left on the plant at the end of the season. Unlike most kimchi, the chillies are not dry-salted but soaked in brine for about a week until they soften, then tossed with anchovy and hairtail sauce and chilli powder and packed into a jar. Made in autumn, it is ripe in about a week and keeps into the next year.

Fully documentedVegetables14 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHousehold recipe with no fixed amounts. Only the strained jeot has a stated ratio, one part jeot to one part water.
Late green chillies with sound stemsThe last chillies left after the main harvest, around September; small, thick-skinned and hot[nfm-gochu]
Chilli leavesSoaked in brine with the chillies[nfm-gochu]
Salt brineFor soaking the chillies and leaves until they soften[nfm-gochu]
Anchovy jeot and hairtail jeotBoiled with an equal amount of water and strained through a fine sieve[nfm-gochu]
Chilli powder, chopped green onion, garlic, ginger and sugarMade into a thick paste with the strained jeot[nfm-gochu]
Thin green onions (silpa)[nfm-gochu]
StarterKimchi in general ferments spontaneously, without added starter cultures (Jung et al. 2011, about kimchi as a whole, not gochu kimchi in particular).

Total time across the recorded steps: 14 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: the last small, hot green chillies of the season, with their leaves

Step 1 of 6
Pick the last green chillies and their leaves
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Leuconostoc
Lactobacillus
Weissella

Around September, the chillies left after the main harvest are small, thick-skinned and hot. Output: late green chillies with leaves.

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

Gochu kimchi is made from the small, thick-skinned green chillies left on the plant at the end of the season. Unlike most kimchi, the chillies are not dry-salted but soaked in brine for about a week until they soften, then tossed with anchovy and hairtail sauce and chilli powder and packed into a jar. Made in autumn, it is ripe in about a week and keeps into the next year. Made in 6 steps over 14 days. The longest step, soak the chillies and leaves in brine, takes 7 days (National Folk Museum of Korea 2026). Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus and Weissella, which dominated industrial napa-cabbage kimchi does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step7 daysReported[nfm-gochu]Soak the chillies and leaves in brine

What makes this one different

Most kimchi is dry-salted, but gochu kimchi starts with a week-long soak in brine. It uses the end-of-season chillies, so it is a way of saving the last of the harvest for winter.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Gyeongsang gochu kimchiBrined chillies and chilli leaves tossed with boiled anchovy and hairtail jeot and plenty of chilli powder.
  • Jeolla vinegar-soaked gochu kimchiChillies soaked in vinegared water for about two days, then mixed with cheonggak seaweed, garlic, ginger and chilli powder (1984 folk survey).
  • Gochu sobagiGreen chillies are slit, seeded and stuffed with seasoning, then covered with jeot liquid in a jar; a Jeolla style also stuffs them with seasoned radish strips.

Safety

Kimchi can pick up pathogenic or spoilage bacteria if it is contaminated during preparation. South Korea's food-safety ministry sets limits for kimchi. Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Vibrio parahaemolyticus must be absent from 25 g samples, and Bacillus cereus is capped at 10,000 CFU/g in fermented foods such as kimchi.

History and sources

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

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [nfm-gochu] National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전), 고추김치; KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  2. [KoWiki] Korean Wikipedia, 김치 (sections 역사, 종류, 지역별 김치; one-line definitions follow the Standard Korean Language Dictionary), read 2026-10-16wiki
  3. [shim2024] Shim Y., Lee J.Y., Jung J. 2024, Effects of kimchi-derived lactic acid bacteria on reducing biological hazards in kimchi, Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology 34(12):2586-2595 (introduction cites the Korean ministry's microbial limits for kimchi)paper
  4. [mfds-common] Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, Korean Food Code (식품공전), 2. Common standards, 3. general standards, foodborne pathogen limits by food type (general kimchi limits, not specific to this dish)spec
  5. [jung2011] Jung J.Y., Lee S.H., Kim J.M., Park M.S., Bae J.-W., Hahn Y., Madsen E.L., Jeon C.O. 2011, Metagenomic analysis of kimchi, a traditional Korean fermented food, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 77(7):2264-2274 (industrial napa-cabbage kimchi, 29 days at 4 degrees C)paper