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Vinegar from Northern China

Glutinous-millet divine vinegar (秫米神酢法) and its two variants秫米神酢

A 6th-century Qimin Yaoshu vinegar of wheat yi starter soaked in water, with twice-steamed glutinous millet added all at once and stirred to a gruel. It is stirred once on days 7, 14 and 21 and is very ripe after one month. Two variants follow it in the text, and all three are pressed in a hair bag in the 10th month.

Fully documentedVinegar30 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe text's general proportions (大率), scaled up until the jar is almost full. 1 dan = 10 dou.
Wheat yi starter (麥䴷)1 dou (斗)Soaked in the measured water first, then broken up finely with no lumps[qmys-ws]
Water1 dan (石)[qmys-ws]
Glutinous millet (秫米), washed clean and steamed twice (再餾)3 douSticky proso millet (黏黍米) serves when there is no glutinous millet[qmys-ws]
Starterkoji/qu/mold-starter (wheat yi)

Total time across the recorded steps: 30 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a grain

What changes: The wheat starter soaks in the measured water in the jar

Step 1 of 5
Soak the wheat yi in the measured water
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Saccharomyces sp.
Acetobacter pasteurianus
Acetobacter oryzoeni
Acetobacter pomorum

Output: soaked starter.

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

A 6th-century Qimin Yaoshu vinegar of wheat yi starter soaked in water, with twice-steamed glutinous millet added all at once and stirred to a gruel. It is stirred once on days 7, 14 and 21 and is very ripe after one month. Two variants follow it in the text, and all three are pressed in a hair bag in the 10th month. Made in 5 steps over 30 days. The longest step, ferment under silk floss, stirring on days 7, 14 and 21, takes 30 days (Jia Sixie 2026). Saccharomyces sp. and Acetobacter pasteurianus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30 daysReported[qmys-ws]Ferment under silk floss, stirring on days 7, 14 and 21

What makes this one different

Unlike the great vinegar, the starter is soaked first and the steamed millet is stirred in hard to a gruel. It uses far more water to starter (1 dan to 1 dou, against 3 dou to 1 dou), and the brew is pressed in a hair bag instead of being ladled off.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Three-feed foxtail-millet version (又法)1 dou wheat yi, 3 dou water and 3 dou cooked foxtail millet (2 dou in the Siku edition). The millet goes in as three parts, the first at the start, when it boils that same night, the second after 21 days and the last 3 days later. Silk floss only, with no knife and no added water; if it foams over, a steamer ring is set on the jar [qmys-ws, qmys-siku].
  • Wheat-flour version (又法)1 sheng wheat flour (麥麵), 9 sheng water and 9 sheng cooked foxtail millet, all at once; ripe in 21 days [qmys-ws].

Safety

The text's own rules are that the rice-washing water is poured away so dogs and rats cannot get at it, and that no one may eat the steamed millet [qmys-ws].

History and sources

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

Qimin Yaoshu (6th century, Jia Sixie), juan 8, ch. 71 作酢法, 秫米神酢法 and its two 又法 variants. The Siku edition says "two kinds" where the Wikisource base text says "three kinds" are pressed, and the end rather than the middle of the 10th month [qmys-ws, qmys-siku].

Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [qmys-ws] Jia Sixie, Qimin Yaoshu (6th century), juan 8, ch. 71 作酢法, 秫米神酢法, transcription on Chinese Wikisource (齊民要術/卷第八), read 2026-10archive
  2. [qmys-siku] Jia Sixie, Qimin Yaoshu, Siku quanshu edition, juan 8, transcription on Chinese Wikisource (齊民要術 (四庫全書本)/卷08), read 2026-10archive
  3. [haruta2006] Haruta S., Ueno S., Egawa I., Hashiguchi K., Fujii A., Nagano M., Ishii M., Igarashi Y. 2006, Succession of bacterial and fungal communities during a traditional pot fermentation of rice vinegar assessed by PCR-mediated denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, International Journal of Food Microbiology 109(1-2):79-87 (abstract)paper
  4. [yang2025] Yang L., Yan Y., Shen J., Xia Y., Lang F., Chen C., Zou W. 2025, Metagenomic insights into microbial community succession and its functional changes during the stage of acetic acid fermentation of Shanxi aged vinegar, BMC Microbiology 25:374paper