As a daily seasoning in life, soy sauce is used very frequently, but now there are countless brands of soy sauce on the market, and there are countless types of soy sauce under various brands.
First of all, I want to make it clear to everyone that at least the brand of soy sauce on the market does not exist as a prepared soy sauce.
The so-called prepared soy sauce is like liquor, liquor is brewed from pure grains, and there are also blended with alcohol, and soy sauce is the same, but in the mainland, "National Food Safety Standard Soy Sauce" (GB 2717 2018) and "National Food Safety Standard Vinegar" (GB 2719 2018) and other standards have been introduced one after another.
After clarifying this concept, let's take a look at the soy sauce purchase skills, because as consumers, the most intuitive information we can see is the ingredient list, and the country has strict regulations on the relevant parameters of the ingredient list, which cannot be faked, so we will analyze the quality of a bottle of soy sauce from the ingredient list, and finally let the people buy their favorite good soy sauce by looking at the ingredient list!
1. Distribution list
The principle is that less is better, many soy sauces do not taste enough, in order to improve the freshness, merchants will add flavor enhancers such as monosodium glutamate and chicken essence to it, and the soy sauce with good craftsmanship often has fewer types of ingredients.
In terms of raw materials, black beans, triticale> soybeans, wheat. Among them, non-GMO soybeans and non-GMO defatted soybeans are the most common. Non-GMO soybeans refer to whole soybeans, which contain oils, taste good, and are highly nutritious, making them the most preferred. Non-GMO defatted soybeans refer to the soybean meal left over after oil extraction, which has a low cost, flavor and nutrition are not as good as whole soybeans, and is a secondary choice.
For food additives will also appear in the ingredient list, common additives include monosodium glutamate (flavor enhancer), caramel color (colorant), citric acid (acidity regulator), etc. If you have concerns about additives, you can choose soy sauce with no or less additives.
2. Amino acid nitrogen
This indicator is simply an umami recognizer for zero-added soy sauce!
This is an indicator to judge the degree of fermented products, the higher the index, the higher the amino acid content in the soy sauce, the higher the umami.
For zero-added soy sauce, we can know the umami by looking directly at the content of amino acid nitrogen
For non-zero added soy sauce, it is also necessary to combine the above ingredient list, if there are fresh-enhancing excipients such as monosodium glutamate [monosodium glutamate] in the ingredient list, it will also increase the content of amino acid nitrogen. At this time, the buyer should consider comprehensively.
The figure above gives a standard of amino acid nitrogen, which can be used as a reference
3. Quality grade
Premium soy sauce> first-grade soy sauce> second-grade soy sauce> third-grade soy sauce
The third-grade soy sauce is relatively the worst
4. Product standard number
There are now two main national standard numbers for soy sauce in the mainland,
One is brewed soy sauce: GB18186-2000, brewed soy sauce is brewed using soybeans and wheat. We can often see on the packaging of soy sauce that the product standard number is GB/T 18186, GB is the national mandatory national standard, T is the meaning of recommendation, and GB/T refers to the recommended national standard.
The other is the preparation of soy sauce: SB 10336-2000, which is a soy sauce prepared by brewing soy sauce as the main body, adding hydrochloric acid hydrolyzed vegetable protein seasoning liquid, food additives, etc.
Therefore, when choosing soy sauce, it is better to see whether the package is marked with brewed soy sauce or prepared soy sauce, and it is better to choose brewed soy sauce with the product standard number GB/T 18186.
We also saw that there are several Chinese characters in the back, high-salt dilute fermented soy sauce, which refers to the process.
There are two main production processes for soy sauce,
One is the traditional high-salt dilute process, which has a better flavor and salt content, and is brewed for a long time, about 180 days.
The other is the low-salt solid-state process of quick brewing, which is a soy sauce with a low salt content and takes about 21 days to brew.
Therefore, when buying soy sauce, it is relatively better to brew soy sauce brewed by high-salt dilute process.