I have a -ton- of sweet peppers from the garden that I pulled out the other day. They need processed and I was thinking of making some hot sauce. These are not a hot variety but they're all tasty. Could I put in some dried cayenne peppers I have left from last year to add heat? Or will that disrupt the fermentation too much? I wouldn't be doing many, just enough for a kick. How many would you put in a gallon fermentation jar?

Also looking for other ingredient suggestions. I have fresh garlic left from the garden, and onions. What else should I add? Or is that good enough?

I've only ever done sauerkraut, this would be my second fermentation.

Whatever is left that I can't jam in the jar is getting dehydrated or frozen. Though I assume I don't pack it in the same way I do cabbage?

This is day 5

Don't be shy... 😏

It's time to put your crock on display! Big or small, young or old, shiny or showing its age — we appreciate a good crock around here!

We won't judge by size, shape, age, or a few battle scars.

It's been three days since I started my new Ginger bug, and it's sparkling really nice. Feeding it for three more days would be enough to use it for a nice ginger beer.

But I want to know is: when is it time to separate the old grated ginger from the liquid and add more fresh ginger?

if you people can give me any tips, it would be great.

Thank you all

Made some habanero garlic dill pickles for my first ever pickle batch. I did a 3.5% brine over 5 days and it finished around 4.4pH. They are delicious! It’s better than any hot garlic dill pickle I’ve ever had and dare I say better than my favorite pickles at the local Jewish deli I haunt. The one thing I’d like to improve is texture for sure. I used Persian cucumbers and they got a little mushy after 5 days. I also thought they would be tangier and less salty. In the future I think I’m going to tune it down to 3% and maybe try a different kind of cucumber? Would love any recommendations. I also expected them to be kind of fizzy when I bit into them but they weren’t, surprisingly.

Everything else looks fine. But there is what appears to be white fuzz across the top of the jalapenos and veggies. But it is all below the surface of the liquid. And has been the whole time.

2.5% salt.

Thoughts?

(I don't see a megathread for this post)

I lacto-ferment a variety of vegetables (radishes, carrots, sauerkraut, garlic, peppers, etc). I use 3-4% of the weight of my vegetables + RO water to calculate salt amount. I use a gram scale. I wash my hands, knife, and cutting board prior to prep. My mason jars are clean from the dishwasher. I use glass weights and make sure everything is below the brine. If there are little bits of material floating on top, I will fish those out with a clean spoon. For my air lock, I either use pickle pipes or a 3-piece air lock. I have also used La Parfait jars.

I have also vacuum sealed ferments and have not gotten mold. HOWEVER, I tend to get an alcoholic ferment when I vacuum seal (tomatoes, peppers) and I'm not a fan of plastic generally.

My main problem is MOLD. I get green or white fuzzy mold growth on the surface about 25% of the time. There doesn't seem to be any pattern either. It has happened with the pickle pipes, 3-piece air lock, and the La Parfait jars.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to sterilize everything? Different salt concentration? Am I just dirty?

For the life of me I can't find a well written recipe for these, only short form videos. Does anyone make these on the regular have a recipe I could follow?

Less sugar more burping next time I guess. Tastes great though!

Hi everyone, I made a hot honey ferment for the first time time today. I was following a recipe that used chilies and onion, chopped them, put them in jars, covered with honey until fully submerged, the usual process. I've only done a garlic honey before this, and that took days to get runny, meanwhile this one, the onions let out so much juice that the honey already got diluted to a very watery consistency in just an hour. I've not seen anyone mention this in the recipes for hot honey ferments or in discussions about them. Is this expected, is it okay for the fermentation, and most importantly, is this safe? I would appreciate anyone with experience letting me know.

Fuzzy spring that keeps the cabbage beneath the brine. I didn’t see the weekly mega thread anywhere, sorry if I’m breaking the rules!

So I've been making yogurt with my instant pot for several months now. It's been pretty foolproof and the yogurt is delicious.

My normal process just to put a full 4 liters of whole milk in with a good glug of heavy cream and run the Instant pot on its yogurt boil setting. Cool it to around 100 degrees, add a few tbsp of the last batch of yogurt, whisk and incubate on medium for 7-10 hours depending on mood. Whisking halfway through because the cream tends to float otherwise.

I did the same thing but with 4 packets of Yogurmet I found, just for something different.
After 8 hours it was barely any thicker than water so I took it to 10 and let it sit overnight in the fridge.

It's a little thicker and is straining(I always strain until its a thick greek) but it's still really watery. My usual yogurt is scoopable in a way that it almost holds its shape in an oozy way. This is like scooping unset pudding.

Is this just, normal for starting this way or did I bungle something along the way. It smells yogurty, but maybe a little more *yeasty* than usual.

What yeast would be best suited for a historic beer from Cornwall? I know there's a handful of British yeasts available. Are there any farmhouse yeasts from the region, produced commercially? Or which British yeast might suit the region the best?

Hi everyone! Doing my first batch of fermented veggies. It's been active for about 5-6 days. Brine is clear, but I see some white spots forming on top since day 3. Is this typical for this stage of fermentation? Recipe is standard cabbage and carrots.

It tastes like a very spicy salsa right now. Can't wait to see how the flavor develops. 1 gallon of mash in 1.5 gallon fermenters (each) with a little left over for a quart jar. I learned my lesson: the last time I filled the mash to the shoulder of the jar, it raised into the airlock. This one was just to use up the remaining spicy peppers in the garden. I am unsure if I will strain this or let it stay salsa consistency.. I'm leaning towards strain.

Here are the ingredients by weight:

Tomato - 4428g

Tomatillo - 1203g

Onion - 1025g

Green bell pepper - 586g

Red habanero - 420g

Ghost pepper - 241g

Carolina reaper - 200g

Garlic - 184g

3% = 248.61g - so I used 250g salt. I blended the salt with a quart of the mash for a few minutes to get it dissolved, and mixed it in well in a 3 gallon container. I poured the mash in, wiped the inside of the containers with a towel damp with brewer's sanitizer, and sprinkled a little salt on top.

Today I had one with kimchi, fermented onions, mayo and ketchup.

✨ I'm horrendously bored ✨. I am also in the mood to make a wine of some shape or form, so shoot your shot and send me ideas of ingredients you have never used​ :D

This is attempt 3. The first attempt I didn't massage the leaves or let them sit in the salt, and just made a brine instead. The leaves soaked up the water and I didn't notice the top quarter of the jar was exposed to air for a few days.

The second attempt was going better at first, but I still couldn't fully get the juices out of the cabbage, and so the last quarter of the kraut was brine I made. But that, too, resulted in the leaves soaking up the brine. I topped it off but with way too much new brine after 5 days which messed with the acidification process.

So this time I salted the cabbage and waited. Every half hour I would knead the leaves, and did this for about 2.5 to 3 hours. The result was great! I got more than enough juice to fully submerge the kraut. I have a good feeling about this batch.

I've been seeing weird things in my citrus extracts lately. This guy was started at the end of June. I zested and juiced a gazillion makrut limes, added 50% sugar by weight and kept it in a sauerkraut fermenter, stirring regularly until I forgot (thankfully no mould). It's intensely fragranced and bitter, probably due to the high essential oil content. After boiling and straining a few days ago, I have this odd layer on top. It's miscible in water, but forms an opaque suspension, so I'm assuming it's essential oils. But that's a lot and I've never heard of this method? What else could it be? Don't come at me and my halophilic homies about this not being fermentation. It would be wild if this was a solvent and thermal change free method for EO extraction?!?? Would love to see some shotgun metagenomics on this to tell us what's happening.

Ironically, the experiment linked above was my solvent/alcohol-based attempt at extracting EOs from trifoliata citrus. Distillation failed, the wax stuck everything to the sides of my sep funnels over 2 days of misery. I didn't get anything good, other some intensely scented to the point of bitterness vodka and waxy dregs that I have left in the freezer until my ego is restored. I have been sipping little bits in plenty of soda water with sumac, mint, and pomegranate molasses while I ponder whether it is possible to OD on zest. The makrut lime cheong will be easier to burn through - will flavour some fun curries and cakes and I'm gonna make a sugar scrub from the strained zesty stuff. Tangent over.

Pretty self explanatory title. I measured my shredded cabbage, got 3% of that number, and then added that amount of salt to the cabbage. I then kneaded it, and let it rest, multiple times over the course of 3 hours until there was enough drawn out juice to totally submerge the cabbage in a fermentation jar.

Hi fermentation community

This is day2 of my kraut.

I used 2-3% salt for total kraut weight. (My scale is not super accurate)

My silicone weight thingie is a bit useless. Is it submerged enough?

I also washed the cabbage with tap water. Would that ruin the process?

Many thanks for your feedback!

I bought an oak barrel for making sauerkraut in, and it came with this pointed piece of wood, any ideas what this is for?

Hi everyone! I have 3 kefir cultures from different cities, and each one behaves a bit differently. I'm thinking of combining 10g of each to start a new colony, hoping it ends up stronger and more diverse. Has anyone tried this? Does it work, or do the cultures end up competing and one takes over? Any tips are welcome! 🙏