In this study, the quality characteristics of 30 kinds of long-term matured soy sauce collected from all over Korea classified according to ripening period were analyzed. The longer the soy sauce had to matured, the closer the pH was to neutrality. Acidity decreased as the ripening period increased. Total nitrogen and amino nitrogen content increased as the soy sauce matured. Moisture content decreased with the increasing soy sauce ripening period, and the content of pure extracts increased in proportion to the ripening period. The numbers of bacteria, fungi, and yeast increased in proportion to the maturation period. The content of P was highest in all soy sauce analyzed, followed by K, Ca, Mg, Fe and Zn. Mg and Ca contents decreased with maturing, whereas K increased with maturing.

In this study, 30 kinds of long-term and mature Korean soy sauce were collected and classified by the fermentation period, and the components related to taste and sensory characteristics were analyzed. A total of 4 kinds of organic acids were detected. The total organic acid content was in the range of 97.2~341.6 mg%, but did not show the tendency to increase or decrease in proportion to the aging period. The total free amino acid content was within the range of 3,001.0~3,834.7 mg% and showed a tendency to increase in proportion to the ripening period of the soy sauce. The contents of aspartic acid and glutamic acid subsequently increased in the long-term matured soy sauce. The ratio of essential amino acid to total amino acid was 31.6~35.7%, and the ratio of glutamic acid to total amino acid was 19.6~23.9%, respectively. The panel of 20~29-year-old indicated that the longer the aging period of soy sauce, the lower the preference while the panel of 30 or more years indicated that the longer the aging period of soy sauce, the higher the preference. This study was the first to investigate the quality of long-term matured soy sauce in more than one year.