Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Fish and seafood from Thailand

Koei-namเคยน้ำ

Koei-nam is tiny planktonic sea shrimp mixed with sea salt at about ten parts shrimp to one part salt and fermented for 3–7 days. The ferment is short, so some shrimp stay whole in a pink, salty, slightly sour liquid. It is a home product of southern Thailand.

Fully documentedFish and seafood3 days – 7 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe proportions given by the JIRCAS Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand; no batch size is given.
Planktonic sea shrimp (Acetes erythraeus), washed and drained10 parts by weight[jircas-koei-nam]
Sea salt1 part by weight[jircas-koei-nam]
Rice flour (optional)A small amountAdded in some provinces for a better flavour[jircas-koei-nam]

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 days – 7 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Starting material: tiny sea shrimp, washed and drained

Step 1 of 4
Wash and drain the shrimp
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
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

Koei-nam is tiny planktonic sea shrimp mixed with sea salt at about ten parts shrimp to one part salt and fermented for 3–7 days. The ferment is short, so some shrimp stay whole in a pink, salty, slightly sour liquid. It is a home product of southern Thailand. Made in 4 steps over 3 days – 7 days. The longest step, ferment, takes 3–7 days (JIRCAS). Salt is 10 % (JIRCAS). Lentibacillus salinarum, L. amyloliquefaciens, L. kimchi and L. juripiscarius, Macrococcus caseolyticus, Staphylococcus sciuri and Alkalibacterium kapii were among the dominant taxa, depending on the product, in kapi, a related Thai fermented shrimp paste (Chanthaburi study of seven products); no study of koei-nam names its microbes does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3–7 daysReported[jircas-koei-nam]Ferment
Salt10 %Reported[jircas-koei-nam]Mix with sea salt, about 10:1

What makes this one different

Koei-nam is fermented for only 3–7 days, so some shrimp stay whole in a pink liquid. It is eaten like ka-pi, the Thai shrimp paste, but stays a wet ferment.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Koei-cha-loo (เคยฉลู)Same 10:1 shrimp to salt, packed in a glass jar and fermented for only 2 days; JIRCAS lists a storage life of 1 month.

Safety

No source found gives a salt or pH limit for koei-nam. In a 2026 study of seven kapi, a related Thai shrimp paste, two products (one wet-market, one community-enterprise) held high microbial loads including Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus and Clostridium perfringens, and the authors link salt level and hygiene to microbial and histamine risk in shrimp ferments. Koei-nam is salted at about 10 % (JIRCAS). That is salt as a share of the shrimp's weight, and no source gives the salt in the food's water. The FDA says Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Clostridium botulinum (type A and proteolytic strains) can still grow at up to 10 % salt in the food's water, and Staphylococcus aureus at up to 20 %, so a salt level of this size cannot be assumed to stop them. Steaming it, as JIRCAS describes, does not remove histamine (FDA).

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus and Clostridium perfringens, in high microbial loads in two of seven kapi products (a wet-market bulk one and a community-enterprise one), and Jeotgalicoccus halotolerans, which the authors name among histamine-producing bacteria, found in three (the most abundant species in one); kapi is a related Thai shrimp ferment.

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.
Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [jircas-koei-nam] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Koei-namgov
  2. [jircas-koei-cha-loo] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Koei-cha-loogov
  3. [mahidsanan2026] Mahidsanan T., Srinamngoen P., Sittisart P., 2026, Unraveling microbial diversity and physicochemical hazard level in Thai traditional fermented shrimp paste (Kapi), PeerJ 14:e20864paper
  4. [fda-app4] US FDA, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, Appendix 4, Bacterial pathogen growth and inactivation, Table A-1gov
  5. [fda-ch7] US FDA, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, Chapter 7, Scombrotoxin (histamine) formationgov