Do I need to refrigerate douchi?

January 9, 2013 9:52 AM

Do Chinese fermented black beans (douchi) need to be refrigerated after you open the package? I bought a half-pound cellophane package of them recently, but of course I only used a few of them when I made a recipe with them last night. Various websites seem to differ on whether or not they need to be refrigerated or whether an airtight container on a shelf will suffice; the package said nothing about storage, one way or the other. I'm generally short on fridge space, so if I can safely avoid refrigerating them, that'd be preferable. Does anybody have experience with this?
posted by Johnny Assay to food & drink (5 answers total)

I don't refrigerate mine. I'm not sure if that is appropriate food safety practice or not but those things have so much salt in them I have a hard time imagining that any sort of bacteria or fungus could grow on them.
posted by nolnacs at 10:09 AM on January 9

Are they the ones that came in sauce, or dry? Saucey ones I put in the fridge. But the dry ones I put in a glass jar in the cupboard. I haven't bought a new package in years and use a bit every few months or so. Haven't died yet.
posted by typewriter at 10:47 AM on January 9

I have the ones in sauce in a glass jar; those I put in the fridge. But I think as long as you're reasonably careful about cleanliness (i.e. not using dirty spoons) I think you can leave the dry ones out, as they'e pretty heavily salted/fermented
posted by andrewesque at 10:50 AM on January 9

No. Only the FDA will tell you to store it in the fridge.
posted by kalessin at 11:10 AM on January 9

The ones I have are the dry kind — no sauce. I was also assuming that they had too much salt in them to act as a growth medium, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't insane for leaving them in a jar on the shelf. Thanks, everyone!
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:33 PM on January 9