Processed
Aspergillus sojae Koji
A tier
Aspergillus sojae koji uses the soy-sauce specialist mould rather than A. oryzae. Sojae is typically more aggressively proteolytic and is the classic organism on wheat-and-soy shoyu koji. The cake smells deeper, more soy-sauce-ward, less of chestnut-sweet rice. Miso can be made with it, but the flavour leans tamari-dark. Do not treat tane-koji of sojae as a swap for a sake rice strain. Spore colour and growth habit differ; follow a shoyu or tamari incubation, not an amazake one. Food-grade spore houses sell sojae separately for a reason.
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Characteristics
Preparations
Traits
History
Soy-sauce breweries selected moulds later classified as A. sojae for wheat-and-soy koji.
Mycologists separated Aspergillus sojae from oryzae as the shoyu specialist.
Industrial shoyu standardised sojae or sojae-oryzae mixes for protease profile.
Craft tamari and shoyu starters listed A. sojae explicitly for export fermenters.