Talk:Aspergillus oryzae

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I am wondering whether "low" and "mid" importance for this article are appropriate, since A. oryzae is about as important for the Japanese culture as Bakers yeast is for us! I mean Soy sauce, Sake, and miso all are quite essential for the Japanese food culture. I just recently heard a talk about this organism by a Japanese scientist. A. oryzae definitely is essential to break down higher sugars (and other compounds) in rice, soy beans etc. during processing of the above foods. It's similar to what we do during beer brewing: while during beer brewing, we use the enzymes stored in the barley grains to break down higher compounds (by incubating the mash at temperatures ideal for the individual enzymes) and then let yeast degrade glucose to ethanol and CO2, Japanese inoculate rice etc. with A. oryzae to do this job. I don't remember anymore whether it also does the job of fermenting glucose in the end, or whether they add yeast for that. --Spitfire ch 12:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

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It is highly possible that the japanese word koji refers to the rice (or other fermentable medium) inoculated with Aspergillus, rather than the aspergillus. In the company websites, the inoculated precursor for soy sauce and sake is called koji, not the organism doing the inoculation. However, on Jeffrey's J-E Dict, it is defined as: Kouji: malt; leaven; yeast; mould used to make sake; mold used to make sake. See The dictionary and look up Kouji. I will continue to use Koji as the organism and as the inoculated base. Magicwombat
 * The organism is referred to as "Kōji-kin," as "Kōji" refers to the fermented rice-stuff they cultivate it from.--Mr Fink 23:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * oryzae -> Oryza sativa. --Abdull 09:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, I think most manufacturer in Japan rarely use A. orizae to make soy sauce; instead, Aspergillus sojae should be suitable ("sojae" means soy bean, of course). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.147.75.165 (talk) 22:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Other foods
I think this article would benefit from a list of foods that are made from koji. I notice that amazake is missing. What else?


 * Mizuame, I guess. Maybe we need to research further. 210.147.75.165 (talk) 22:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well... from what I've read now, mizuame is not really made with this microbe and, rather, it was made with the enzyme (amylase) in rice itself or malt, but it's an old method and I don't know about details anyway. Then, well, how about mirin? 210.147.75.165 (talk) 23:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Aspergillus oryzae is not a Japanese invention, but a mold in nature. Why this page about Aspergillus oryzae is all about Japan? When its oldest use was in China... where are the references to Chinese fermentation products made with Aspergillus oryzae? Or Korean ones or other Asian country's use of the mold?
 * Curiously it is said in here that not China nor Korea used Aspergillus oryzae for their fermentations but other molds and so it is a japanese exclusive thing, and funnily enough it cites 3 scientific researches by... JAPANESE authors!
 * But then in the History section they cite very old Chinese sources to refer to the ancient use of Aspergillus oryzae... Are we joking then?
 * Amazake is a japanese product made with Aspergillus Oryzae, so i guess it deserves one wiki page, and then another for the Chinese 酒酿 jiuniang and the Korean 감주 gamju all beverages made from rice fermentation with Aspergillus oryzae. So to each product it's own... But the wiki page for Aspergillus oryzae, shouldn't it include information about its use in all of ASIAN CUISINE?
 * Why Wikipedia seems to always give preference to Japan's culture as if they invented evrything in Asia when they actually didn't? This isn't the only case i have come through this situation. 139.47.89.249 (talk) 01:09, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The term qū or kōji as written in the history section refers to fermented food molds in general. It is important to note that the term 麹 is used in two ways: to refer to fermented food molds in general, and to refer specifically to Aspergillus oryzae.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 05:38, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

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"Koji" and monascus purpureus
This entry is completely wrong!! There should be a separate entry for "Koji." Aspergillus oryzae is one of two different genera of molds that are used to make koji (just like yeast is used to make bread): The other is monascus purpureus. I am an expert on this subject, studied it with a master koji maker in Japan, and have just finished writing a book titled History of Koji (300 BCE to 2012). Can anyone tell me now to create a new entry and stop the misdirect? BillShurts (talk) 20:46, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I see some degree of confirmation of this in the article called "Red yeast rice", although the article on monascus purpureus does not mention it. There is already a page for "Koji" that is separate from this article. It is what is known as a disambiguation page. Please see the article called WP:DAB to learn about that type of page. Good luck – it sounds like you may need some further help with Wikipedia editing. Please remember to add citations to reliable sources when making your edits. It may take some effort to learn how to write an article for the Wikipedia format. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

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Similarity to Penicilliums
I have tasted several varieties of this strain in miso, at first I was convinced it was a strain of penicillium, slightly stronger than roqueforti. After doing more studying to find that I was actually eating an orzae strain, I had to see the microbial structure at which point the similarities to edible penicilliums are astounding. Both species start with a stem from which is produced a head comprised of many multi-segmented microbial offshoots where the only visible difference is A. Orzae's ball like cap, where penicilliums show a more irregular flame like shape and the stem on Orzae is thicker. However from the comparison A.Orzae appears to be of the same family (penicilliums) not a different family. So I wonder if a reclassification is in order? 220.175.37.135 (talk) 13:31, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Description confuses a type of mold with a category of mold
Aspergillus oryzae is a type of mold. The description in the text is confused with the entire Aspergillus. This is probably because Koji (麹) in Japanese is commonly used to indicate Aspergillus oryzae and other edible molds.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 14:20, 25 March 2019 (UTC)


 * @SLIMHANNYA I agree. I wonder whether we should split the article into one on A. oryzae and one on koji. Bondegezou (talk) 17:14, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Synonyms
Hello Why do you think Aspergillus luchuensis, Aspergillus kawachii, Aspergillus awamori are synonyms? Our articles don't agree with that. In any case shouldn't you MOS:EGG the s? Invasive Spices (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Added information to the Aspergillus awamori page regarding the confusion of scientific name and classification with Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus luchuensis. I also wrote about Aspergillus kawachii (Aspergillus luchuensis mut. kawachii.) on the Aspergillus luchuensis page because Aspergillus kawachii is an albino mutant of Aspergillus luchuensis and it is much easier to understand if both are written on a single page.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 21:42, 9 April 2023 (UTC)