Hey everyone I used dried dill in my fermented watermelon because didn't have fresh and even though I added it to the bottom it floated up since it's tough to pack watermelon tightly. I get anxious about floaters and cannot get these to go below the brine.

I dumped out brine to carry them out until there were a lot less (after I took the pic) and then re added brine but there are still dill floaters. Do you guys just roll with it or do you have advice?

Making pickled watermelon and fermented scotch bonnet hot sauce.

So i have never tatse a gingerbug beforw beside the one i am making (tatse abit sour, Sweet,tard and ginger) idk if that supposed to tatse like or what

I made some jalapeno kanzuri type paste from my patio garden in Tokyo.

Halved, deseeded, and froze the jalapeno as the matured. When I had about 300g, I added 10% dried koji, 3.5% salt, and vacuumed sealed it. After 10 days the bag was about to burst. I burped and resealed and waited another 5 days.

I then added 10% yuzu zest and juice and blended it all smooth. I added salt to bring the final salinity to 4%.

It’s surprisingly a lot milder than I was expecting based on the jalapeños when fresh, but still delicious. I’m curious to see how it will mature in the fridge overtime. True kanzuri can be aged for years but I don’t think this will last that long.

Can someone give me an idiot proof guide to fermenting cucumbers with them? Tried twice with other vessels and both times went mouldy, I'm not wasting another fucking pack of mini cucumbers

My sauerkraut is done and I’ve been thinking about storage options. I realized that I don’t ever eat sauerkraut without cooking it. So whether I end up killing off the bacteria during canning or during cooking I’m still killing off the bacteria. Right? Do some people eat their sauerkraut without cooking it?

So I don't like doing things normally and this might be my next monstrosity. I actually want to keep the peel but separate it to be candied. I don't want to add any water like this lady just sugar, peel, fruit and kool-aid

Pictured is a vinegar that’s coming on 6 months from when I made the beer from Koji Barley to now. I have misplaced where my actual recipe is. When initial alcohol fermentation completed I racked to a new vessel and I added 20% raw acv to turn it into vinegar. As you can see in the photo a lot of the scones sunk to the bottom and there was more dead yeast and sediment left after racking than I expected. It tastes very bland not a lot of flavor but if you k ow what you’re tasting the koji barley flavor is definitely there. The issue is it kind of smells like funky cheese. Any insight or advice people have is welcome! I also plan on trying again with a mix of koji barley and rye in the hopes a fuller flavor comes through. Also considering aging this in an oak barrel. Thanks again for any help.

Anybody else go through this?

Hi all,

I started a ferment with ginger and garlic in honey around a month ago. I had a self-burping lid on it the first few weeks, then switched to a normal lid as it does not produce much gas anymore. I tested the PH recently and it was about a 5 so I added some ACV and let it do its thing, that was maybe two weeks ago. It is now testing at around 4.5 but im still nervous to consume it! Any info on if it looks okay or not? I want to let it continue to sit on the counter to get the garlic to soften more, but should i put it in the fridge??

Hello!

I finally got my pH meter. The brine tested at 3.62 which means we're good to go!

Now to figure the game plan, I never got this far in my initial plan before I started this project. Breaking through the top layer revealed bright colours below. For those of you who have made mustard before, what did you do to the seeds post fermentation?

I'm thinking just blending with a stick blender or food processor until ''smooth''. I haven't decided on if I'll include the onion/garlic at the bottom yet in the final product.

Thanks!

What do you think? Is this a problem? Yay or nay? tomatillo peppers with jalapeños, three table spoons kosher salt cold filtered water from fridge 5ish days on counter for the first two I didn’t have the weight and the jalapeños at times floated up
Edit: photos in comments

*On accident. I drank half of a gallon out of a soft cider that was at its expiration date. Closed it up and noticed it was expanding. So I loosened the cap and left it like that for 9 days and wound up with my first batch of hard cider! Is it common for people to discover cider brewing (or other types of fermentation) like this?

What’s your favorite way to be creative with your “fire cider”?

Today I made fire cider with:

Thai basal
Cilantro
Mandarin
Thai red chili peppers
A green chili pepper
Galangal root
Turmeric root
Ginger root
Horse radish root
Garlic
Green onion
Yellow onion
Peppercorns
Coriander seeds
Fennel seeds
Star anise
Apple cider vinegar

… wish me luck, staying weird over here

Not shooting for shelf-stable or for it to last particularly long (short months at most), do I really need to bust out the test strips and titrate it down below 4.5 if it's going to live in the fridge anyways?

Making Fresno peppers for the first time it’s been about week and this is growing at the top, on the weight, and on some of the submerged peppers.what is it?

Something that I decided to try.

It is done in a 3% salt to veg/water ratio

Broccoli, garlic, purple onion, red pepper, carrot, and celery.

Added black pepper corn, red pepper flakes, And yellow mustard seed. It is now sitting in its overflow tray next to my other babies.

I'm excited to see what she does.

Lacto fermented for 17 days in 3% brine with mustard seeds as a spice and mulberry leaves rich in tannin to preserve the crunchy side of the nasturtium seeds

Hey all, I bought a couple of these jars from hmart and was making some sauerkraut in them

One batch is doing fine but the other one in this jar had mold growth. I think that might have partly been due to a poor submersion of the bits, but I want to get input on this airstopper in case it's the cause.

I figured this stopper (basically a rubber plug) would let co2 out but no let air back in. Do people see an issue with this for sauerkraut? (I'm also looking to do more ferments like cider or carrots/cucumber)

I’m making my first batch of ginger beer using a ginger bug. I’m using a 16oz plastic test bottle (with 1.5” air at the top) and seven 16oz brown swing top glass bottles (with 2” air at the top— the space is narrower).

After 3.5 days, the test bottle is quite firm, though not rock hard. I can still squeeze it and it has some give. I’ve burped one glass bottle each day as a test (three of them so far), and none has shown any sign of fizzing, etc. I tried a sip of one today (the same bottle I burped on day one), and it had a nice flavor but no carbonation.

It seems like fermentation is happening, since the plastic bottle has become firm. I don’t suspect that the swing top bottles are leaking air, since they‘re new and from a fermentation supplier.

Am I just being impatient, and I should wait longer for them to carbonate?

And should I put them in the fridge now, or give them more time at room temp?

I have like 30lbs of tomatoes I need to prep tonight or else they'll go bad. I was thinking of making a lot of fermented salsa, among other things.

I have many wide mouth mason jars, pickle pipes, and a few weights. I have a lot of tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, garlic, and green pepper.

I'm seeing varying directions online. Some recipes call for a brine. Others call for just juicing the tomatoes and using the tomato juice as a bring. Some say ferment only between 2-5 days, others say you can ferment for over a month.

Looking for some clarify and tips/tricks.

Anyone has some crazy suggestions what kind of misos or other applications I could make with this ?

Excited to try this method for making syrup that I will add to my kombucha for 2F.

One is cranberry basil, the other is cranberry ginger, cardamom, cinnamon.
Had a bag of frozen cranberries in my freezer forever-glad to finally have something to do with them!

Would love to hear about your cheong successes.

Hi guys, after teaching about probiotics in my natural health community, I wanted to show them the basic steps of fermentation then realized I didn't have a weight. I had glass in the past but its been a while..

I put together a few ferments, 2 of which needed a weight, so I just grabbed my daughter's little silicone snack cups, that are flexible. It seemed to do the job and its been a week, the ferment looks fine, smells right but...

what's your thoughts on the silicone being in there while it cultivated? Could it disrupt the process, prevent certain strains from thriving or cause chemicals to leach in??

I definitely instructed them to use glass weights.

Okay so I've been doing hot sauce and sauerkraut for about a year now. The actual fermenting part is fun, but I'm honestly so tired of dealing with them after they go in the fridge.

Every time I open a new jar, I screw the original lid back on as tight as I can, but my whole fridge still ends up smelling like vinegar and garlic lol. My partner is kinda losing it. I even tried those cheap plastic lids once but they didn't really do much.

I’m not trying to buy some crazy expensive setup, just wondering what normal people do here. Does anyone actually use a vacuum pump thingy for their jars, or is that just overkill? Or am I just doomed to have a smelly fridge forever?

Looking for practical setups that actually work. Thanks!

Left: Dill pickles
Mid / right: Habaneros
Both 3% brine by veg + water weight.

Cucumbers have been going a little longer (~7 days), peppers about 5.

The airlock on the cucumbers (2nd photo) is working fine, the gas expelled has lifted the cap and it’s venting properly. The chilli’s however are not behaving the same. It’s not super obvious from the pics but there is a few cm of headspace between the top of the glass weight and the bottom of the airlock.

I’ve made hot sauces before to great success, but have done it a little differently, leading to a few questions:
- this is the first time I’ve fermented only peppers, I usually have an inclusion such as onion or some fruit, however this time I’ve decided to add any extra flavours in at the end after fermentation.
- I tried a new “cleaning method“ to sanitise the jars before use, on some advice I sprayed the inside with some antibacterial spray before giving a thorough rinse. Could this have an effect? It looks like it’s fermenting normally (the brine is clouding like normal)
- or am I missing something and the airlock is just broken (or I haven’t done it correctly).

A curious follow on question, does pepper hotness (capsaicin qty) correlate to how active a fermentation is?

Thanks all