Thanks for your inquiry!
The manufacturiung of soy sauce is quite involved, and most of the
online resources I've found tend to discourage those who wish to
embark on home-brewing their own soy sauce. Aside from the
difficulties of making your own soy sauce, there are also a number of
varieties of soy sauce. Foodnotes breaks down the various types of soy
sauce as follows:
"Varieties
While true tamari or shoyu is an aged product, most of the commercial
soy sauce sold in the United States is a nonfermented synthetic
product made from defatted soybean meal and grains mixed with
chemicals. Real aged tamari or shoyu has a different flavor than
commercial, synthetic soy sauce. In Japan, synthetic soy sauce is not
recognized by the government, which allows five different types of soy
sauce to be labeled as shoyu. Among the synthetic brands,
reduced-sodium soy sauce is available."
Foodnotes - Soy Sauce:
http://www.gnc.com/health_notes/Food_Guide/Soy_Sauce.htm
However, I did locate detailed step-by-step instructions for brewing
soy sauce (or Toyo as it is called by Filipinos) at the following
site:
How to make Toyo or Soy Sauce:
http://www.esprint.com.ph/food/cocosoy/soysauce/soysauce.htm
Please bear in mind that this recipe is for a smaller quantity of soy
sauce than I imagine you would be attempting, as your question implies
you are interested in making soy sauce in commercially viable
quantities. However, this should give you a good idea of the process
involved on a smaller scale. The process, paraphrased from the above
site, is as follows:
You willl need to produce two base materials for the process, a mold
starter and a yeast starter. The Mold Starter is made from rice
kernels and "pure culture Aspergillus oryzae or Apergillus sojae"
(these last two ingredients are fermentation products). You wash and
steam the rice kernels, spreading them over a tray (make sure the tray
has holes to pass air) and subsequently 'innoculating' the rice with
the fungal cultures (sounds dangerous, eh?). After innoculating the
molds, cover them with paper and let dry for 15-20 hours. Once the
molds are dry, you grind them up and put them in a clean bottle. Store
them until you are ready to prepare your soy sauce.
To make the yeast starter you need pure cultures of Pediococcus
halophius, Saccharomyces rouxii, and Torulopsis versatilis and Potato
dextrose broth mixed with 10% sodium chloride. (The exact quantities
are a bit vague) Mix these ingredients together and you have your
yeast starter.
Once you have these two base materials created you are ready to
prepare your soy sauce.
The website referenced above lists the following materials and
ingredients for this recipe:
a. whole soybean meal or residue
b. wheat flour
c. salt
d. starter culture
e. bamboo tray
f. perforated tray
g. fermentation vessel
h.oven
i. stirrers
j. pressure cooker or autoclave
k.containers for soaking
l. stainless steel presser
m. casseroles
n. aging tank
o. funnels
p. siphons
q. bottles with caps
You can see that this is probably not the sort of thing you're going
to whip up in your home kitchen.
Soak the soybeans for 16 hours, changing the water twice to prevent
the growth of bacteria. Remove the soybeans from the water and
pressure cook them for 1 hour. You will need to prepare the wheat
flour depending on what kind you have; if using wheat kernels, roast
the kernels with sand, separate the sand, and then crush the kernels
into wheat. If using prepared wheat flour, steam the wheat for 30
minutes. Prepare a brine solution with 18% sodium chloride.Mix the
soybeans and flour until each soybean is covered in flour. Add the
mold starter. Spread the soybeans on a bamboo tray and cover for 5-7
days to allow the mixture to ferment. After fermentation, take this
product (called 'koji') and place it in a glass jar. Add the brine (1
part brine for every 1 1/2 parts koji). Ferment this mixture for 1
month. After fermentation, add the yeast starter (1% per volume of
koji/brine mixture). This mixture must then be fermented between 6
months and a year, depending on taste. Stir it once per week to speed
up the process. After this fermentation is complete, strain the
mixture through a presser. The liquid is your soy sauce. Place the soy
sauce in a bottle and pasturize it for 20-30 minutes. Congratulations,
you now have soy sauce!
As for the materials to manufacture soy sauce on a larger scale, check
out the links below:
A list of bottling equipment manufactureres can be found at:
http://www.professionalbrewer.com/Content/bottlingmach.htm
Specific Mechanical is a company that specializes in stainless steel
equipment for the brewing industry, and could probably supply much of
the equipment necessary to set up a soy manufacturing center:
http://www.specific.net/index1.html
To find suppliers of soybeans, check the United Soybean Board website
at:
http://www.unitedsoybean.org/
(They have a large list of links that will lead you to suppliers of
soybeans and soy seed, should you decide to plant soybeans yourself.)
Kikkoman has a nice walkthrough of their brewing process here:
http://www.kikkoman-europe.com/e/04/04-02/index.html
You may also want to check out this entertaining website, a virtual
walktrhough of the Yamasa soy sauce factory. It's clearly aimed at
kids, but is entertaining nontheless, and gives a nice graphic
representation of the soy production process:
http://www.yamasa.com/english/plant/keenter.htm
Good luck!
-musashidam - ga
Suggested search terms:
soy sauce manufacturing process
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soybean suppliers
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brewing equipment
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