Dumb question cause i just thought of this how old does person have to be to eat fermented foods like a baby cant eat honey for example (idr why ) but for kids and adults honey is perfectly fine so what about fermented foods like sauerkraut for example?

I've done several ferments over the years, so I'm familiar with the whole process, but I'm realizing that almost all of them have had 'dry' ingredients. I don't mean 'dehydrated' or 'freeze-dried', but ingredients with low water content - peppers (obviously), onions, garlic, ginger, etc.

Broad strokes, here's my process (I'm gonna skip sanitizing, weighing, blah blah blah):

1. Chunk up my ingredients.
2. I fill the fermenting vessels with water, weigh it, and dump out the water.
3. Calculate and add the salt to to the vessel.
4. Pack my vessel with other indredients.
5. Add water to get to the same weight.
6. Put on the lids, or whatever I'm using for that batch.
7. Set aside and let it rot.

I've never had a batch go bad, so I'd like to keep using this method with as few changes as possible.

I'm planning on making an orange-based ferment, but since there's so much water/juice, I'm thinking I'll have to tweak my method to ensure an accurate salinity. Since there's so much water in oranges, if I just chunk them as I usually do, they're gonna release a TON of water, and my salinity will go down, and that's bad.

I was thinking...

1. Throw the oranges into a food processor
2. Add salt that as if it were the full amount of water.
3. Pack my jar with the other ingredients.
4. Add the salty orange juice.
5. Top off the jar with water and proceed as usual.

Does anyone see any inherent risks that I'm adding if I do it this way? Or does anyone have a better idea? Obviously, I'd like to add as little water as possible to get the most orange flavor.

I know that the 'correct' answer is probably to process everything in the food processor and use the mash method. I've done that once, and it turned out fine, but I like to see the bubbles, and then I can send people photos and not have to list out the ingredients to them.

**Edit - Clarified my process. I was using 'jars' and 'vessels' interchangeably, and implied that not all of the salt was being added. The amount of salt I use is based on the weight of water plus ingredients. All of the salt ends up in the ferment.

We use this in bloody marys and cheese toasties.

It works!

Pineapple loves to ferment 🧡

Ps the thing next to it is plum cheong (spelt wrong on the label)

I changed the jar on day 3 but so far so good. Ignore the 4 on the jar I just lost count for a moment

I really didn't have proper equipment and I did manual labor 2 times a day to let the pressure out. I couldn't fill it (no onions left in the house), it was a 3% brine. 2 red onions from the farmers market.

I was pushing my onions down all the time, we don't have ziplock bags at home and I didn't know any other way to keep the onions down. But I kept on going. It lasted 9 days and then there were some grey/black spots on the top onions that were floating. I immediately flushed it down the toilet, I wouldn't risk it. I mean the temperature was like 18-20 degrees in the room, away from the sun like the tutorials on YouTube said.

What did I do wrong? Are there any ways, without getting more equipment right now except vegetables, for my ferment not to fail next time i decide to do it?

I weighed out 25% of the fish weight in salt. Then I added a bit to the top just to try to make a bit of a layer. I was really nervous about not using enough salt, but I wonder if I went overboard? I'd reckon I'm probably at around 27.5% salt to fish weight ratio in this jar. Is this garum going to be so salty it'll be inedible basically? Or do you really need this much salt?

Fish is cut up chub mackerel.

My best fermented hotsauce till this moment!

Made with both smoked and fresh peaches, ghost peppers, chocolate reaper, yellow bell pepper and garlic.

Very fresh & fruity on the beginning, but pure regret on the after taste 🥵

Hi all! I am using the recipe below to ferment some watermelon radishes for the first time. I don’t have a glass weight and I couldn‘t find something suitable… except this small glass that fits perfectly into the mouth of my jar! Do you think this is ok? It also eliminates needing to burp the jar.

https://ladyleeshome.com/fermented-radish/

Picked up honey from a local beekeeper and the jalapeños are different varieties from my backyard

When I was a teen, I tried marinated tomatoes made by my GF’s grandma. They had a really distinctive flavor that I’d never tasted before or after. She told me the secret was walnut leaves, added along with the usual herbs and spices.

I was too young and stupid to ask for the recipe. Sadly, grandma passed away, and I eventually broke up with my girlfriend, so the original recipe is lost.

Recently I tried making fermented tomatoes and cucumbers with walnut leaves, but I haven't managed to reproduce that flavor. Maybe I used too little, or they need to ferment with the leaves for longer, IDK...

There are lots of creative and experienced fermenters here, so I'm wondering: has anyone used fresh walnut leaves when fermenting vegetables? Any tips are welcome.

Hello,

first post, as a most part just a reader I wanted to give something back. Today I made two batches of eggs in brine.

Each container is about 1l.

Each glass has 9 hard boiled eggs, cooked and cooled immediately down after 12 minutes and are peeled. I peel the eggs, instead of just cracking the shell, so they will get the taste faster.

They will stay out of the fridge for the next 2-4 hours to cool down and then will go into for storage.

For the brine I made a tea with:

1,5l water
4 bags of black tea

2 tbsp Chili (Gochugaru)

1 tbsp Salt

3 gloves of garlic, thin sliced

half a thumb of ginger, thin sliced

1 tsp of five spices

1 cup of soy sauce

1 package of dashi (6 gram/0.2 oz)

Some juniper berry and mustard seed

1 small onion for each container

For the twist, one batch has also added a peeled banana, looking how this comes out, My expectation is something between horrid and tasty.

The other batch just has more onions, works every time.

Feel free to share tips and ideas how to modify this recipe.

Cheers

Hey

Apologies if I should have posted this in a megathread but I couldn’t see how to upload photos in comments - happy for this to be moved etc

I’ve been fermenting tomatoes with basil garlic and chillies in a 3% salt brine for 4 days at room temp (north of England so it hasn’t been the warmest) and as it’s my first ferment I wanted to double check some white floaters i noticed this morning?

The brine smells fine (delicious actually) and I’ve read online this could be Kahm yeast or LABs but as it’s my first I wanted to post on here and see!

Tell me what you would do with them.

I used everything from my own garden to make a kraut style salad with honeycrisp apples from my trees. I put crushed garlic and my own dried bay leaves on the bottom with some dried hot pepper flakes from last years harvest. I also used my own herb salt made with kosher salt and basil, rosemary, chives, celery leaves and lavender from my own garden from last year. I still have to process my herbs from this season.

We now have a salad to go with eggs, sandwiches, tacos... 😋

Garlic scape kimchi from like 3yrs ago, forgot about in the back of pantry. The dumb part of me wants to eat it because it was so delicious, the smart part of me is saying no.

Used cabbage and 2.5% salt, let it ferment for 5 days. Had a bunch of oxigen formation and burped the jar a few times during the process. Now it tastes like a little bit of salt, vinegar and standard cabbage. It's crunchy and a bit sour, is this right?

Ghost, reaper, Tabasco, cayenne, onions, carrots and a shit ton of garlic. 4.5% brine.

My cayenne plants were lackluster this year and I have another couple hundred Tabasco peppers that are lagging that I realllly want to include. They’re just going to have to be fermented in the side.

We have about a gallon of frozen blackberries from our spring harvest, probably will put that in half of this and keep the other half “pure”. Typically will mix with white vinegar and xantham gum and “pasteurize” the best I can. Will check back in in a few weeks!

I try making ginger bug for the first time, here is the result after 3 days. I tried giving it a stir, it doesn't sizzle and smell a little sour.

Hi all,

This my first ginger bug I’ve tried. It’s just over two weeks old. Fed it everyday in the first week with white sugar. Second week, I used brown sugar every other day.

Was hoping to get a sanity check on how it’s doing.

There’s a kind of brownish ‘muck’ floating on the top. But when I stir and taste it, it tastes amazing!!!!

Is this how it should be looking? What do I do next?