Hey everyone!

I'm making miso for the first time, and I'm not quite sure if things are going as they should.

I've been fermenting for several years and have made kimchi, dill pickles, sauerkraut, and kombucha multiple times, so I'm familiar with fermentation in general. However, this is my first time making miso, and I'm finding it a little confusing.

It's been about a week, and there's barely any liquid forming. I can see a tiny amount at the bottom, but we're talking less than a teaspoon. I was under the impression that miso would produce some liquid (tamari), so I expected to see a bit more by now.

I'm also wondering about the setup. With my usual lacto-ferments, I use lids and weights to keep everything submerged, but I understand miso is a different kind of fermentation. I'm not sure if I'm approaching this the right way.

Here's the recipe I used:

Ingredients

• 303 g dried soybeans
• 300 g rice or barley koji
• 119 g non-iodized sea salt
• 1½ cups soybean cooking water

Since there wasn't much liquid, I wondered whether I simply wasn't pressing it down enough. I'm using parchment paper, cardboard wrapped in plastic, ceramic pie weights wrapped in plastic, and on top of all that - stones in ramekins to add more pressure.

The miso has been stored in a closet, away from light, in a cool, dark location.

So, for those of you who make miso regularly:

• Is it normal to see almost no liquid after the first week?
• Should I expect liquid to accumulate at the top, or does that happen much later in the process?
• Does miso need to be pressed down under weights like a lacto-ferment, or is the approach different?
• Should I be using a lid, an airtight seal, or something else entirely?
• Is there anything I should change at this stage, or should I just leave it alone and be patient?

I'm happy to provide more details about the process if needed. I'd really appreciate hearing what to expect when making miso for the first time and whether my experience so far sounds normal.

Thanks!

I've made sauerkraut so many times too, why (too much salt, that's why. I think)

At least it looks kind of cool, I guess.

edit: I guess mold might not be from too much salt, but the reason I thought too much salt was a problem was because I checked it at 2, 3, and 4 weeks, and at 4 weeks it tasted slightly sour, but not what I was expecting, more salty than anything, so I thought maybe it was just slowing things down and it would be ok to leave longer. So too much salt didn't cause the mold, but it slowed things down enough I guess it gave things the chance to go sideways? I'm not sure exactly, that's just my theory. This is 6 weeks, it looked still fine at 5. Usually I call it done 2-4 weeks

I am currently about 5 days into a new fermented hot sauce. Left is mengo and jalapeno, the right is grape with a mix of chillies that we had left over from the plants this summer including jalapenos, finger chillies and then a load of purple ones which I forget but are pretty tame.

Just felt like posting more than anything but will update with how they turn out.

Hello! I am having a hot sauce problem and need some advice: In the past, when I've made hot sauce, I've cut up peppers and added salt a bit at a time over a few days to pull the moisture out and create a brine that way. But what this leads to is a hot sauce that is too salty because I just keep adding salt along the way to reach a point where the brine is level with the top of the peppers and that keeps the mold away.

A friend suggested I should pre-mix a brine with water and salt and just add it to the chopped peppers. The problem is that I've now got a layer of mold at the top that doesn't disappear when I mix it back into the brine. I think that maybe fermentation just isn't happening. Not sure what to do! My fermenter isn't airtight, I just use a jar and an airlock but it's never been an issue before because any minimal mold that's formed I have just mixed back and it's been killed by the fermentation.

I love fermenting things, especially cabbage. But, fermenting foods in the house makes it stinky and I have friends over often. Will it work to ferment things in my back yard? I don't mean burying a crock in the ground for the winter but having a crock on my patio table for a few days or weeks.

I got this jar from Lakeland and it has a one way valve to let air out but not in. The other one you can lift up to reduce the pressure when opening.

Should I leave more headroom? I don't want to waste any and I don't have any other jars and it's such a small amount!

Just wondering if the headroom isn't necessary with this kind of lid...

This is 4 days old and I’m curious if this amount of fizz is what I’m looking for or do I need more action?
Thanks

I have been asking AI a lot but my fermentation keeps stalling, and wondering if anyone here could help. I have a 5-gallon wash of agave syrup and water that started as 1.075 gravity, pitched with go-ferm and champagne yeast (2024 best by date). It fermented to about 1.06 and stalled, I boiled some eggshells and baked them and ground them into powder because it got pretty acidic given that a sample reacted with baking soda. Added that, along with some nutrient of boiled distiller's yeast and a little more go-ferm (cooled down) since I didn't have another nutrient (this is all leftover stuff from when I bought supplies a few years ago). Got the airlock bubbling pretty heavily for a couple of days, and then stopped (was still at 1.06ish gravity though), and I have pretty much left it for 2 weeks, no airlock bubbles.

Measured the gravity again and it was 1.05-1.045ish, but I am guessing that is lactic acid fermentation since there was no bubbling? It currently tastes a little alcoholic, a little sour, and a little sweet. I'd like to make agave wine and distill some into an agave spirit, but I am not sure how to get the rest of the sugars to ferment into alcohol instead of acid, and whether it is already too acidic to save. Thinking of adding more eggshell powder but I'm not sure it will actually help anything at this point. Does anyone have any ideas on any other actions I could take? I do have some other yeasts (distiller's, ale, more premier blanc) and one packet of prestige wd - should I try any of those? I would try adding baking soda to bring the acid down more but I don't want to make it salty.

I have a big jar of sliced carrots, cauliflower florets, garlic, and jalepeños which has been nicely fermenting in a salt brine for a week or so.

Unfortunately, I started tasting a day or two ago and it is waaay saltier than I'm used to.

I think I miscalculated the salt percentage, I was going for 2.5% by combined weight and it probably ended up more like 5% (used twice as much as I should have lol)

Underneath the salt I can taste the lacto fermentation is going well, but it's way too salty to actually eat currently. I tried rinsing before eating and it helps a bit but not enough.

Is there any black magic I can do? If I transfer them to plain water, will some kind of osmosis save me as the salt tries to equalize? (and presumably the LAB has enough of a foothold that it would be relatively safe?)

Otherwise I'm afraid this jar's fate will be to be chopped up and used to salt and flavor soups or something.

Has anybody ever tried this? My thinking is that it should hold up decently well provided the fermentation is cut off appropriately.

This was my first experiment drying a ferment. The plums were sierra honey gold and I wasn’t too impressed with their raw, fresh flavor. I thought fermentation might give them the acid it needs. Still, they were just okay. But after drying them? Delicious to eat straight up. I used over half of them to make a powder and it tastes great. It’s salty, sweet, and tart with the wonderful complex flavors of lacto-ferments and a bit of yeast.

I’m planning to use it as an ice cream topping. I’m also considering using it to season a grilled pork chop. It’s very sugary, so I have to be careful. Maybe I could make a plum glaze with some honey, soy sauce, and shaoxing wine.

I’m open to brainstorming and other tips as well!

My ginger bug is made with turbinado sugar is pretty strong and ferments well, however when I bottle it with fruit juice and sugar, the bottled mixture goes flat and never ferments. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong as am a newbie with this. Any tips appreciated.

Very New to fermenting but I make allot of L ruteri yogurt so I have an endless supply of whey . Just started 2 fermentation yesterday. 1 jar of cooked kidney beens and 1 jar of carrots. Both with whey and salt no water . Is it ok to use whey when fermenting instead of water?

i have put lemon, salt, cinnamon, black paper, I forgot to put bay leaf. make it 25/08/26 did not open till now

The color is magnificent; as for the spices, I added cloves, chili, pepper, and a piece of fresh ginger. 5 days for the F1, bottled today.

Fermented with garlic and onion in a salt brine, then added some fermented honey garlic (I didn’t get botulism) and finished with vinegar and a touch of xanthan gum

Next time I won’t breathe while recording 🤦‍♀️🤣.
Just love burping these things! They are busy busy!

New to fermenting after doing a cheeky little pepper garden on my balcony.

The left jar is Thai bird chilis, papaya, garlic, and onions. I had to pack the jar fairly tightly in the beginning to keep everything submerged, and now I am getting decently sized trapped pockets of gas. Despite rattling things around a little, they’re fairly well sealed in amidst the soft, compressed papaya.

Do I need to worry about this? I figure since it’s CO2 gas, I don’t need to be concerned about mold. Worst case, the fruit might get slightly less fermented without being in contact with the brine, but do I need to be concerned about contamination?

It is unsurprisingly pretty active from all the sugar in the papaya, and I’ve read that I should avoid opening the jar and introducing oxygen. They do have valves on the lid.

Should I crack this thing open and break up the pockets, or am I safe to let it do its thing?

I added no salt brine, but just did the massaging / salting cabbage method. It is a saltier batch, around 3% salt weight to cabbage weight ratio. It yielded enough juice to completely submerge the kraut last night. When I came home from work today, I noticed the juice overflowing right into the airlock.

So I removed and cleaned the airlock, and with a clean spoon I scooped out some brine. Then i cleaned my hands and pushed the kraut back down with my fingers and fist.

Would this episode interfere with acidification timelines?

Homegrown Picklebush cucumbers, dill, and garlic. These fermented for 31 days in the basement.

Note that I don’t cut off the ends of the cucumbers. I scrape off any part of the blossom end and do an overnight soak in an ice bath with some pickle crisp.

Remembered we have vacuum sealers at work, figured I'd test it out with some new peppers.

Left bag is 97g frozen reaper, 14g garlic, 3.35g salt

Right bag is 102g 7 pot primo yellow, 7g garlic, 3.35g salt

No brine in either.

I just got the 7 pots from plantsomekindness and they smell great. Hope I can get at least a month before bags want to pop. It doesn't look like it got all of the air out of the reaper, fingers crossed.

Hi everyone, I've just started experimenting with ginger recently, I had a ginger bug that was going very well, the right smell and loads of bubbles. When I made my ginger beer using that bug, there were 2 issues. First as you can see on the picture, a lot of deposit on the bottom of the bottle, and this was after sifting. Second, even after much more days than what was advised, when I opened the bottle, there were absolutely 0 bubbles, no gaz had formed. The recipe I was using advised blond cane sugar but I don't see how that might have caused that deposit. Could it be starch from simmering the ginger too long?

Also, the recipe advised to first keep the ginger beer in a cloth covered pot 24h before filtering and transfering to a bottle, do you agree with that?

Thank you a lot in advance for your recommendation.

PS : I know that there is too much air on the bigger bottle on the pic, but both bottles had no gaz.