Reply To: Doenjang

If I know I won’t use a lot I buy the smallest tubs. That may help a little. I’ve never experienced mold yet and I’ve had my gochujang sit for a long time once before. However I noticed the slight hardening and change in coloration over time in both pastes. I put a plastic seal on top before closing the lid to help because I notice the lids are not airtight. So far it seems to help. Maybe also try changing the location of where it sits in your fridge too. I have a bottom freezer fridge. I place both my pastes on the top shelf in the fridge kind of close to the ice maker. I notice some things tend to freeze near my ice maker so maybe having my pastes close to it keep it even cooler. I’ve never thought of freezing my pastes because I use them all the time. It’s worth experimenting with a little bit though especially if your experiencing mold issues. Hope that was a little helpful.

Update on my homemade doenjang…once I took them out of the hay box there was absolutely no difference so I knew they were ready for the brine. So for my Idaho climate, it only took half the time to dry than Maangchi’s recipe (6-8weeks). Everything’s looking good and it is so worth the investment to get the Korean ongi. My Kimchi has been even more amazing (I use Maangchi’s recipe for that too). Proud to say I would make a good Korean housewife. ;)