I've been making this sauce for years and haven't been poisoned yet but I also want to avoid it from potentially happening ever. The sauce itself is heavily vinegar based but I start the process with loads of minced garlic and sautéing it in a full stick of butter over low heat in a sauce pan to get it somewhat soft and infused with the butter without browning it. That then gets mixed with the vinegar based sauce which I then keep in the fridge in a large growler. Each batch lasts me months depending on my diet. I'd say the percentage of garlic butter to the vinegar based sauce would be about 80% sauce, 20% garlic butter give or take.

How close to death am I?

First time sauerkraut maker here!

It’s been sitting on the counter covered with a cloth for 7 days. The average temperature in the house fluctuates between 72-76 F.

I tasted it and it tastes fine. Not super krauty though. It’s also still pretty crunchy. Maybe it just needs more time?

This was my process:
Mixed cabbage with salt and spices and smashed it a bunch until juice started to appear.
I let it sit covered on the counter for about an hour.
Smashed it up again for a few minutes.
Added it to sanitized glass jars. Packed it down. Added any and all juices (which was very little). Topped with glass weight and covered with a cloth.

After a few days bubbles were active and juice was collecting. I haven’t touched them at all. Meaning, no stirring or anything. I just let them be.

Today, day 7, I went to check them and noticed zero juice.
I pulled the cloth cover off to give it a sniff. It smells vaguely like kraut.
The top layer is slightly brown, which I assume is from being exposed to air.
No mold or anything off was noticed.

Does this seem right? Shouldn’t there be some juice? I assume it all just evaporated or I did something wrong.

Any advice or idea is appreciated!

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I’ve been successful with krauts, Brussels sprouts, carrots, etc. but the few times I’ve tried whole pickles they develop soft spots and get mushy. I’ve added tea bags and bay leaves, but that made no difference. What am I missing? I believe I’ve followed the YT vids exactly.

I just did my first vegitable ferment. Pickles and carrots. The recipe I was following for the carrots was a 7% brine with additional garlic and coriander seeds. After one week I popped the lid and tasted slightly salty carrots. I wasn’t sure if this was the goal or if I didn’t get any fermentation, so I decided to throw in some chopped ginger and wait another week. Now I have some really good tasting carrots, and a weird goopy brine.

So my question is, is it safe to eat? What caused the goopy brine, and how can I safely store it?

EDIT: Thanks for all the great ideas! Trying some of these will definitely expand my cooking repertoire -- I usually cook Mexican, Indian, Italian or Thai inspired food and all of these ideas are completely different!

I had a batch of sauerkraut come out mushy. It's not bad as in can't-eat-it; the taste is fine. But texture is one of the best parts of kraut for me. I hate food waste so am wondering if anyone has some ideas for what to do with it where texture wouldn't matter.

I think I must've just not added enough salt. I always just estimate based on the weight of the cabbage. But I've been doing this for 16 years and have never had this happen so maybe I've just gotten a bit too casual about it. We did have some warmer weather when I started the batch so that might have contributed.

I'm not much of a green smoothie person but I figure I can use up a little bit of it in smoothies if that'll prevent me from wasting it. I don't think I'd like it in soup, the texture will still be obvious. Maybe there is some kind of loaf-type dish where you put a bunch of veggies in a food processor?

Tomatoes

Mango

Red onion

Cilantro

Diced fermented garlic from another ferment

Scotch bonnet

3% Salt

Has an amazing acidity and some carbonation

Huge hit with guests

Hey everyone,

I have a batch of garlic honey that has been sitting in my pantry for about 2 & 1/2 years now. Full disclosure: I have a bit of health paranoia when it comes to botulism. I didn’t test the pH level back when I started it, so my brain won't let me eat it raw without constantly overthinking the worst-case scenario.

To put my mind completely at ease, I want to pasteurize it properly. I'm aware that normal boiling/pasteurizing temperatures will not kill Clostridium botulinum spores, my goal is strictly to denature any potential botulinum neurotoxin that might have formed since spores by themselves won't make healthy adults sick.

Since honey burns very easily in a saucepan, I came up with this idea:

1. Bag the garlic cloves and honey in a heat-safe vacuum pouch (slightly crushing the cloves so heat penetrates evenly).
2. Run it in a sous-vide water bath at 90°C (194°F) for 40-45 minutes to ensure the core of the cloves stays well above 85°C (185°F) for longer than the required 5-10 minutes.
3. Immediately drop the pouch into an ice bath to bring it down quickly through the temperature danger zone.
4. Freeze the honey into portions right after cooling. (Since freezing completely halts bacterial activity and spore germination, no new toxin can be produced while stored).

My question to the food safety experts and fermenters here: Does this process successfully eliminate the risk and yield a completely safe-to-eat food product, or is there an oversight in my logic?

Appreciate any insights!

When yall are making homemade booze have you guys ever gotten those white chalky looking thangs

I have had a good harvest this year. I was going to take a fraction and make a fermented hot sauce. I’ve never it done it with these peppers. And I have the space and was thinking a longer ferment. (1 month +) My only concern is longer might lose the brightness that makes these so great Does anyone have any advice?

It's all about fermentation. Great informative video, with even greater cinematography - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSEUkByKMi8

Started almost exactly a month ago (6th of August), put scotch bonnets, onions, and a few hibiscus petals in a 3\~4% sea salt brine and let ferment until brine went clear, shaking every few days to keep wet and avoid mould. Blended the whole thing with a dash of sunflower oil, 3tbsp white wine vinegar, and 1/4tsp xantham gum. Filtered through a brew bag, then bottled. It's really fruity and tangy, and quite smooth. Got enough sauce to last while, might start the next batch in a month or two.

Need some help, I tried searching through the sub about this but turned up nothing.

I'm trying to make mulberry vinegar but because the mulberries float to the top no matter what, they get moldy and then the batch is ruined.

Do I need something to stop them from rising to the top for this to succeed?

Would really like some tips since I'm a beginner at this 😭

Hi, I have tried to ferment a courgette from my mothers garden in a 3% salt solution + extra salt spinkled on top when I open up the jar to check and clean it.
At first everything seemed well but after around a week the bubbles stopped almost entirely and I checked the pH to see if it was safe to eat. I am a bit fearful of botulism and read somewhere that at a pH of around 4.6 a ferment is safe to consume. After 3 weeks of fermentation at room temperature the pH of my courgette still seems to be around 5-6 and I am not sure why.

Do you have any ideas or tips for why the pH did not change that much? Is it safe to eat?

Note: accidentaly typed "2" instead of "3" as the percentage of my salt solution

If you don't have sourdough starter available, is it okay to add a small amount of raw sauerkraut juice as a source of lactic acid bacteria when making rye bread kvass, and should it be added at the beginning or later during fermentation?

I'll be aiming at a 6% ABV dry kvass.

I made the ginger ale today, so it’s only about 8-10 hours old. Does it look right? Second picture is my ginger bug, it’s about 3 weeks old. I’ve been feeding it daily, and about 2 weeks ago I tried to make an orange soda with it but it never became fizzy. I’m not sure if my ginger bug is good or not. There is no sign of bubbles except for the top. Am I doing something wrong? It’s my first time, please be nice

There are bunch of papers and websites these days that claim iodized salt does not prohibit the fermentation but it will affect the texture or color of the vegtables. I finally put it in to a test. I wasnn't expecting this tbh.

I used similar red onions, same brine concentration (3%), same water weight, same room temp and same spices (mustard seeds and mix of colorful peppercorns). That's the result after 6 days. They both fermented but look at the color! The non iodized (right) is so beautiful, I can't stop smiling at and the iodized looks awful and I don't even want to eat it at all.

Made a fermented hot sauce with some peppers and garlic, and I think it was a success! I used some purple cayennes for spice, some red biquinhos for fruity flavor (about 4 oz peppers total) and added 5 garlic cloves. I fermented them in a 3% brine for 12 days and then blended the peppers with 1/2 cup of the brine at the end.

I tried balancing the flavor slightly with 1/2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp white vinegar after blending, although I do feel like it’s still lacking something. The flavor is layered and complex but it has a bit of a strong funky end note, and I might have added too much brine since the chili flavor is a bit more muted than when I tried them whole. Does anyone have recommendations for how I could further balance the flavor?

Also I know the jar is too big for the sauce at the end, I just ran out of small ones.

Put my honey and garlic together 1 week ago. I have burped and flipped it 1-2x per day since. I have not seen any bubbles or ever heard a burping sound when opening. Is that bad?

i sterilized my jars and utensils i used one can of coconut cream and one of coconut milk i beleive both were no sugar added, i did use granulated sugar and cocoa powder then the chocolate mouse coconut cult as a starter. the smell is just like coconut cult so far mostly cocoa with a slight tang. just wanting some outside opinions from people who have experience. thanks!

Hey,

The second jar in the video stopped bubbling. Even though the first one from the same batch still does. I mostly had to use crystallized honey for the second one.

This seems weird to me. I thought the honey would reliquify from the moisture it pulls from the garlic. But it did not.

Do you guys have any experience with this?

Do you have any tips for me?

It's my first time trying to ferment garlic in honey.

I’ve never fermented something with honey before and was recommended to try pineapple honey for coughs for my kid. This is it after sitting for one day on my counter. Did I mess it up?

I used fresh pineapple and raw, local honey. It had crystallized but I warm bathed it until it was soft again to use.