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Fermentation Atlas

Soy and legumes from Java, Indonesia

Tempeh (tempe kedelai, traditional leaf-wrapped)tempe

Dehulled soybeans are soaked until they turn sour, boiled, cooled and mixed with spores of Rhizopus mould, then wrapped in leaves or perforated plastic. In one to two days near 30 °C the white mould grows through the beans and binds them into a firm cake that slices cleanly. Made in 5 steps over 2 days – 2.9 days. The longest step, incubate, takes 24–44 h (Tünçel G 1989) and runs at 20–30 °C (Tünçel G 1989). Rhizopus microsporus var. oligosporus and Rhizopus oryzae and R. stolonifer do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24–44 hReported[tuncel1989][sic-tempeh]Incubate
Temperature20–30 °CReported[tuncel1989]Incubate
AciditypH 4–4.5Measured[tuncel1989]Soak until the beans sour
Fully documentedSoy and legumes2 days – 2.9 daysMore soy and legumesMore from Indonesia

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceTraditional makers have no fixed batch size. The water ratios and starter dose are from a Wageningen laboratory method for soybean tempe and starter cakes, built to match Indonesian practice; the Codex standard fixes what tempe may be made of.
Soybeans, dehulled · Any variety[codex-tempe]
3 times the bean weight, twiceWater · Once for the 24 h soak and again for boiling[tuncel1989]
0.3 % v/w spore suspension (laboratory dose)Rhizopus starter · R. oligosporus, R. oryzae and/or R. stolonifer on rice flour, rice bran or wheat bran; traditionally usar, waru leaves carrying mould from an earlier batch[codex-tempe][tuncel1989]
No salt and no food additives · Codex allows only processing aids that control acidity during soaking[codex-tempe]
Starterkoji/qu/mold-starter: usar (Hibiscus tiliaceus 'waru' leaves carrying mould from a previous batch) or ragi tempe powder

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days – 2.9 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a bean25 °CpH 4–4.5shapes, not to countLactic acid bacteria

What changes: Lactic bacteria sour the soak water while the beans swell

Step 1 of 5
Soak until the beans sour
Time
24 h
Reported
Temperature
25 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
pH 4–4.5
Measured
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Rhizopus spores
Rhizopus hyphae

Output: soured, soaked beans.

Flavour
slightly sour
Texture
swollen
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

lactic acid bacteria sour the water; the acid holds back Enterobacteriaceae, B. cereus and S. aureus

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

Tempeh is a mould ferment like koji, but the mould is Rhizopus, not Aspergillus, and the whole cake is the food. Unlike natto the beans are soured first and the result is firm, not sticky. No salt is used.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Tempe murniplain soybean tempe in plastic, no additions
  • Tempe mondholunder-fermented; the mycelium does not yet cover the beans
  • Tempe semangitkept a few days past ripe until soft, yellowish and pungent; used as a seasoning
  • Tempe bosok (busuk)left until dark and strong-smelling; a little flavours sambal tumpang
  • Tempe mendoanthin sheets, battered and half-fried (Banyumas); a way of cooking, not a ferment

Safety

Souring the beans in the soak holds back Enterobacteriaceae, Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus; in a Dutch survey of retail tempe, about one sample in ten carried B. cereus or S. aureus at 10⁵ per g or more. Fresh tempe should smell clean, with no ammonia. Coconut-cake tempe (bongkrek) is a different and dangerous product.

Hazards the sources name: Bacillus cereus (10⁵ per g or more in 11 % of Dutch retail tempe); Staphylococcus aureus (10⁵ per g or more in 13 % of Dutch retail tempe); Enterobacteriaceae (10⁶ per g or more in 60 % of the same samples).

History and sources

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

Shurtleff and Aoyagi trace the earliest known mention of tempe to the Javanese Serat Centhini. Gericke and Roorda's Javanese–Dutch dictionary listed it in 1875, Prinsen Geerligs first identified the mould in 1895, and Stahel wrote the first English article in 1946.

  1. [codex-tempe] Codex Alimentarius, Regional Standard for Tempe, CODEX STAN 313R-2013 (amended 2015)spec
  2. [tuncel1989] Tünçel G., Nout M.J.R., Rombouts F.M. 1989, Effect of acidification on the microbiological composition and performance of tempe starter, Food Microbiology 6:37–43, doi:10.1016/S0740-0020(89)80035-8paper
  3. [sic-tempeh] Shurtleff W., Aoyagi A., History of Tempeh, SoyInfo Centerbook
  4. [wp-tempeh] Wikipedia, Tempeh (variant names only)wiki