Development of Pure Culture Starter for Kecap, an Indonesian Soy Sauce

In order to prevent aflatoxin contamination during the production of kecap , an Indonesian soy sauce, a white-spored mutant K-1A strain induced from an aflatoxin-negative koji mold was applied to koji making process of kecap . While kecap koji making process took 9 days by conventional method without inoculum, the use of K-1A strain as a starter shortened the process to 3 days at room temperature. The traditional koji sample contained 2.3 x 10 7 cfu/g of Aspergillu s and 5.0 x 10 6 cfu/g of molds belonging to Mucorales. The koji prepared with this starter contained 2.3 x 10 7 cfu/g of Aspergillus sp. K-1A as the dominant species and some contaminants from the environment such as other species of Aspergillus (2.0 x 10 6 cfu/g) and Mucorales (1.4 x 10 5 cfu/g). The mash prepared with kecap koji inoculated with this starter contained higher formol nitrogen (FN) and water-soluble nitrogen (WN) than those prepared with koji inoculated without any starter. These results demonstrated that the use of this starter did not only contribute to the prevention of aflatoxin contamination but also improved the conventional kecap fermentation process.