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Sauces and condiments from Majalengka Regency, West Java, Indonesia

Kecap Majalengka (West Javanese small-factory sweet soy sauce)kecap Majalengka

Kecap Majalengka is a sweet black-soybean soy sauce made in family factories in West Java. The boiled beans are sun-dried and grown over with mould, soaked in brine for 7–10 days, then the extract is reduced for hours over a wood fire and cooked with palm sugar.

Fully documentedSauces and condiments11 days – 18 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedFamily-factory process with no recipe amounts in the sources. In the 2018 report the boiled-down extract was measured to 60 litres before it was mixed with melted palm sugar; the weights of beans, salt and sugar are not given.
Black soybeansMoisture at most 10 %[detik2018]
SaltFor the brine soak[detik2018]
Gula aren (palm sugar)Melted, then cooked with the soy extract[detik2018]

Total time across the recorded steps: 11 days – 18 days

Start
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What changes: Black soybeans are sorted, washed and boiled until soft

Step 1 of 6
Sort, wash and boil the black soybeans
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds

Output: cooked beans.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
soft
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

Kecap Majalengka is a sweet black-soybean soy sauce made in family factories in West Java. The boiled beans are sun-dried and grown over with mould, soaked in brine for 7–10 days, then the extract is reduced for hours over a wood fire and cooked with palm sugar. Made in 6 steps over 11 days – 18 days. The longest step, soak in brine, takes 7–14 days (Pasti Liberti 2018).

Key numbers
Main step7–14 daysReported[detik2018][kontan2011]Soak in brine
AciditypH 3.5–6Set[suri2024]Cook with melted palm sugar and spices, then cool in wooden vats

What makes this one different

Majalengka kecap comes from small family firms that mould the black beans themselves, soak them 7–14 days in brine, and reduce the extract for hours over wood fires before adding palm sugar.

Related ferments

Safety

The national standard for kecap manis, SNI 3543.1:2013, sets pH 3.5–6.0 and limits moulds to 50 colonies per gram and total aflatoxin to 20 µg/kg. Mould grown on the beans is the risk. Aflatoxin producers have been isolated from Indonesian soybean koji, and one survey found aflatoxin B1 above 5 μg/kg in about 47 % of 32 kecap samples (Sulistyo and Nikkuni 2006). WHO says most mycotoxins survive food processing, so boiling cannot be counted on to remove it.

History and sources

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

Saad Wangsawidjaja started Maja Menjangan in 1940 and built a separate factory in 1960. Its peak output was 80,000 to 100,000 litres a year, and by 2018 it made about a tenth of that. Only 35 Majalengka kecap factories were still producing in 2013. A 2011 report counted the Maja Menjangan manager's firm and 36 others in Majalengka, most run from homes, with 3 to 15 workers each, and dated the town's kecap industry to the 1940s under Dutch rule.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [sulistyo2006] Sulistyo J., Nikkuni S. 2006, Development of pure culture starter using a white-spored mutant of koji mold, K-1A for kecap, an Indonesian soy sauce, JARQ (Japan Agricultural Research Quarterly) 40(2):171–175paper
  2. [who-mycotoxins] World Health Organization, Mycotoxins (fact sheet)gov
  3. [detik2018] Pasti Liberti, Nasibmu Kecap Majalengka, detikX Intermeso, detik.com, 18 June 2018web
  4. [kontan2011] Kontan (Grahanusa Mediatama), Sentra kecap Majalengka: Mengecap hasil kecap sejak zaman Belanda (1), 12 December 2011web
  5. [suri2024] Suri M. et al. 2024, Pengolahan ampas tahu sebagai bahan baku pembuatan kecap, Bioma 9(1):76–86, Table 1 reproducing SNI 3543.1:2013 (kecap manis) and SNI 3543.2:2013 (kecap asin)paper