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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore

Tapai / tape ketan (fermented glutinous rice)

Glutinous rice is soaked, steamed, cooled and dusted with powdered ragi, a dry starter cake of moulds and yeasts. Wrapped in leaves or covered, it ferments for two or three days into a soft, sweet, slightly sour and alcoholic paste with its own juice. Made in 5 steps over 9.6 days – 14 days. The longest step, keep cold, takes 7–10 days (Darniadi S. et al. 2023). Rhizopus (about 83 % of fungal reads in tape ketan) and Mucor and Amylomyces rouxii do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step7–10 daysReported[darniadi2023]Keep cold
Temperature98 °CReported[darniadi2023]Steam
AciditypH 4Reported[fao1999]Wrap or cover and ferment
Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks9.6 days – 14 daysMore alcoholic drinksMore from IndonesiaMore from MalaysiaMore from Singapore

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts for black tape ketan from an Indonesian process description; household tapai uses no fixed amounts.
Glutinous rice, white or black[darniadi2023][abubakar2026]
0.27 % of the rice weightRagi tape (dry starter cake), powdered · Level given for black tape ketan; ragi is rice flour with moulds, yeasts and spices such as pepper, garlic and cinnamon[darniadi2023][delva2022]
Banana or rubber leaves, or a lidded plastic box · To wrap or cover the rice while it ferments[abubakar2026]
Starterkoji/qu/mold-starter (ragi)

Total time across the recorded steps: 9.6 days – 14 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a grain

What changes: Water soaks into the glutinous rice grains

Step 1 of 5
Soak the glutinous rice
Time
12 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Rhizopus
Yeasts
Lactic acid bacteria
Rhizopus about
Mucor

Output: soaked rice.

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

What makes this one different

Tapai is eaten as a sweet paste, not pressed or strained into a drink. Mould and yeast work together on the steamed rice in two to three days, while rice wines go on for weeks.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tape ketan hitamBlack glutinous rice; the product carries 25.7 mg of anthocyanins per 100 g.
  • Tape singkong / tapai ubi / peuyeumCassava instead of rice; peuyeum is a drier Sundanese form.
  • Tapai nasiWhite non-glutinous rice.

Made the tapai / tape ketan way

Safety

Tapai contains alcohol, which rises to about 7 % in two to three days. Keep it in the fridge and eat it within about a week.

History and sources

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

  1. [fao1999] FAO 1999, Fermented cereals, a global perspective (FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 138), chapter 3, Asia-Pacificgov
  2. [darniadi2023] Darniadi S. et al. 2023, Impact of hydrocolloid and foaming agent on the physicochemical, microstructural and bioactive characteristics of foam-mat freeze-dried tapai (fermented black glutinous rice) powder, Food Sci Nutr 11:578–589, doi:10.1002/fsn3.3098paper
  3. [wicaksono2026] Wicaksono W.A., Zukancic E., Zlatnar M., Suwanto A., Berg G. 2026, Traditional fermented foods of Indonesia harbour functionally redundant but phylogenetically diverse taxa, FEMS Microbes 7:xtag005, doi:10.1093/femsmc/xtag005paper
  4. [abubakar2026] AbuBakar H. et al. 2026, Comparative effects of plastic, banana-leaf and rubber-leaf packaging on fermented glutinous rice (tapai), J Sci Food Agric, doi:10.1002/jsfa.71081paper
  5. [delva2022] Delva E., Arisuryanti T., Ilmi M. 2022, Genetic diversity of Amylomyces rouxii from ragi tapai in Java Island based on ribosomal regions ITS1/ITS2 and D1/D2, Mycobiology, doi:10.1080/12298093.2022.2028436paper
  6. [WP:Tapai] Wikipedia, Tapai (outline and variants only)wiki