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Starters and koji from Sabah, Malaysian Borneo

Sasad (Sabah ragi)

Sasad is the rice-wine starter of Sabah, the local form of ragi. Rice flour is mixed with plant materials such as chilli, garlic, ginger, pepper or tobacco, shaped into flat cakes or balls, coated with powder from an older batch, briefly fermented and sun-dried. Crumbled onto cooked glutinous rice, it ferments tapai and lihing over several weeks.

Fully documentedStarters and koji14 days – 28 daysFamily: Ragi (ragi tape, Indonesian/Malay starter cake)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceNo fixed recipe for the cakes is published; the thesis lists only their ingredients. The wine amounts are the thesis's lab method, based on earlier tapai studies.
Rice flour[koay2023]
Chilli, garlic, ginger, pepper or tobaccoThe plant materials vary by maker[koay2023]
WaterSugar-cane juice or coconut water may be added[koay2023]
Powdered sasad from an older batchCoated over the new cakes[koay2023]
Ground sasad, for a lab-scale wine3.8 % (w/w)[koay2023]
Cooked glutinous rice, for the lab-scale wine500 g or 3,000 g per container[koay2023]
Starterback-slop: cakes coated with powdered sasad from an older batch

Total time across the recorded steps: 14 days – 28 days

Start
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What changes: Rice flour and spices are shaped into cakes and coated with old starter

Step 1 of 5
Mix rice flour, plant materials and water, then shape and coat
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds
Yeasts
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: raw cakes coated with old sasad.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
circular flat cakes or spheres
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

Sasad is the rice-wine starter of Sabah, the local form of ragi. Rice flour is mixed with plant materials such as chilli, garlic, ginger, pepper or tobacco, shaped into flat cakes or balls, coated with powder from an older batch, briefly fermented and sun-dried. Crumbled onto cooked glutinous rice, it ferments tapai and lihing over several weeks. Made in 5 steps over 14 days – 28 days. The longest step, mix in ground sasad and ferment covered, takes 14–28 days (Koay Meiwei 2023). Mucor and Yeasts Saccharomycopsis (24.49 % in one sample, most likely S. fibuligera) and Wickerhamomyces do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step14–28 daysReported[koay2023]Mix in ground sasad and ferment covered
Temperature30 °CReported[koay2023]Cook the rice and cool it
AciditypH 3.6Measured[koay2023]Mix in ground sasad and ferment covered

What makes this one different

Sasad is Sabah's own ragi. Three market samples differed widely, two led by Mucor and one by Rhizopus, and the wines they made differed in alcohol, acid and pH.

Related ferments

Safety

The 2024 sequencing study found Kodamaea (mainly K. ohmeri) at 1.44 % of fungal reads in one of three market sasad. Earlier research reported it as a possible opportunistic pathogen in Chinese rice-wine starters, able to cause systemic infections in immunocompromised patients. The authors say starters with defined microbes and quality control would reduce the safety risks.

Hazards the sources name: Kodamaea (mainly K. ohmeri), 1.44 % of fungal reads in one of three market sasad; earlier reports call it a possible opportunistic pathogen in rice-wine starters.

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.
  1. [koay2024] Koay M., Fan H.Y. and Wong C.M.V.L. 2024, The common and unique microbiota in Sabah's traditional rice wine starter cultures (sasad), Sains Malaysiana 53(2), pp. 307–319paper
  2. [koay2023] Koay Meiwei 2023, Identification of microbial communities in rice wine traditional starter (sasad) and fermentation of rice wines, Masters thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sabahpaper
  3. [WP:Tapai] Wikipedia, Tapai (outline only)wiki