Yu Ding Xing

原汁壺底清油

Name: Vat Bottom Soy Sauce
Brand: Yu Ding Xing
SKU: YX010400
Price: 19.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5.0 (9 reviews)

Vat Bottom Soy Sauce

$19.00

(9)

Quantity

Just One

Just One + Pour Spout (Save 5%)

Set of Three (Save 7%)

Taiwanese soy sauces are brewed in terracotta barrels, relying on consistent sunlight to create the perfect environment for fermentation. The sauces are left undisturbed as they ferment, and naturally separate into layers. The soy sauce at the very bottom of the earthenware containers is cherished as the best part of the brew. Only a small amount of this barrel-bottom soy sauce can be extracted from each ferment, due to the tapered shape of the earthenware barrels. This soy sauce is the most flavorful and lightest in viscosity and color.

Yu Ding Xing makes their soy sauce with black beans and salt. After 180 days of fermenting in earthenware barrels (which impart a flavor of their own), the bottom layer is extracted. This type of soy sauce is lightest in color (it won’t color your food as heavily), but is also the most concentrated in salinity, fragrance and flavor.

Tasting Notes and Usage

salty, fragrant, full

We recommend using it in soy-based braises to season and to deepen the color. Measure out less than usual, as the salinity is higher than most commercial soy sauces.

Ingredients and Instructions

Water, non-GMO black soybeans, sea salt, sugar.

Gluten free.
420ml.
Shelf stable for 2 years from printed manufacturing date. Keep refrigerated after opening.

About Yu Ding Xing

Based in Xi Luo, Taiwan, Yu Ding Xing 御鼎興 is a family-owned soy sauce brewery founded in 1947. They hand make their soy sauces and soy pastes the traditional way: sun-brewed in giant earthenware vessels (many of which have been in use for decades), then cooked slowly over a wood-burning fire.

While tradition is their foundation, under the leadership of third-generation operators Yi-Cheng and Yi-Che Hsieh, the brewery blends inherited know-how with experimental impulse and collaborative spirit to expand the boundaries of soy sauce production. Think soy sauce brewed with Taiwan-grown pineapples or soy paste mixed with local miso.

As with coffee or wine, Yu Ding Xing's ethos and practice illuminate how technique and terroir contribute to the flavor and body of a soy sauce. Learn more about their history and production process in our mini-documentary Time, Terroir, Taiwan.

SKU: YX010400

REUSABLE POUR SPOUT

FOR A NO-MESS POUR

Save $1 on a single pour spout for each bottle of soy sauce purchased. Discount applies automatically in cart.

Not suitable for soy pastes, which already flow slowly.

STARTING WITH THE RIGHT BEAN

Taiwanese soy sauce begins with the black soybean. Compared to yellow soybean, its higher protein content produces deeper umami flavor when fermented. Yu Ding Xing also produces soy sauce in the Chinese and Japanese traditions using a blend of soybeans.

INTRODUCING KOJI culture

After the soybeans are pressure cooked, Yu Ding Xing inoculates them with koji culture. For Taiwanese-style soy sauce, they add toasted rice bran to assist the koji with fermentation, whereas for Chinese or Japanese-style soy sauce, they add wheat.

Fermenting Flavor in Clay Vats

Following a few days of initial fermentation, the beans are rinsed, mixed with sea salt and water, then packed into a terracotta vat to ferment under the sun for at least six months. Many vats at Yu Ding Xing are decades-old.

ROASTING OVER A WOOD FIRE

The brew is extracted from the vat, pressed, then heated over a wood fire to stop the fermentation process. Although labor-intensive, slow-cooking the soy sauce over a fire enhances its flavor.