Aspergillus oryzae

Aspergillus oryzae, also known as kōji mold (Japanese: ニホンコウジカビ (日本麹黴), Hepburn: nihon kōji kabi), is a mold used in East Asia to saccharify rice, sweet potato, and barley in the making of alcoholic beverages such as sake and shōchū, and also to ferment soybeans for making soy sauce and miso. It is one of the different koji molds used for food fermentation. However, in the production of fermented foods of soybeans such as soy sauce and miso, Aspergillus sojae is sometimes used instead of A. oryzae. A. oryzae is also used for the production of rice vinegars. Barley kōji (麦麹) or rice kōji (米麹) are made by fermenting the grains with A. oryzae hyphae. The technique of solid-state cultivation using rice grains, soybeans, and wheat bran to propagate fungi for use in fermented foods is believed to have originated in China. However, there are two scholarly theories regarding the country that first employed A. oryzae in the production of fermented foods: one suggests it was China, while the ot......read more on Wikipedia.