A Study on the Traditional Jang Made in Korean Temples

This study investigated the preservation and succession of the temple culture of making jang in Buddhist temples across the country. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 117 temples. The questionnaire included queries with respect to general information, ingredients for preparing jang, difficulties, and processes of making jang, and the various types of jang. Of the temples surveyed, 35.9% made their own meju. Most of the temples(99.1%) used sea salt to make brine. Also, 67.5% of the temples used groundwater or mineral water, and 65% of the temples used a method of floating eggs in the brine and using buoyancy to measure salinity. Most of the temples(95.7%) added supplementary ingredients such as charcoal, dried pepper, and dried jujube. In 63.2% of the temples, monks directly supervised the process of making jang, and 85.5% began making jang in the first lunar month. The meju was separated from jang within 60 days in 43.6% of the temples.<br/>Among the temples surveyed, 40.1% boiled liquid(ganjang) and stored it after separating it from the solid(doenjang), while the rest stored it as raw ganjang without boiling. The results of this study can be used as basic data for research on traditional Korean jang, which could include documenting temple jang recipes and conducting additional research