Food - Drink
The Real Reason Soy Sauce Contains Alcohol
By ELIZABETH BLASI
It turns out that soy sauce, one of the world's most popular condiments, contains some surprising ingredients besides soybeans and salt. Most soy sauces contain gluten, since they are processed with wheat or other grains, but another unexpected ingredient hiding in your soy sauce bottle is alcohol.
Soy sauce is a fermented product, and undergoes alcoholic fermentation, the process of yeast or sugar converting into ethanol, carbon dioxide, and other metabolic byproducts. While wine's fermentation process converts grape sugars into alcohol, soy sauce fermentation converts yeast found in wheat into alcohol.
Many soy sauce brands, including the popular Kikkoman, advise customers that their soy sauce does contain traces of alcohol, and this alcohol contributes to the sauce's signature taste and aroma. Also, most bottles of soy sauce only contain about 1.5% – 2% alcohol by volume.