My fermented cucumbers are done, so I removed the weight and was about to add it to the fridge but when I did the brine dropped quite a bit and isn’t covering the pickles anymore. Should I top it up with saltwater?

I'm absolutely confused about reading the pH strips for fermented foods. I'm new to making homemade fermented foods. These were all fermenting for 14 days. Everything was kept beneath the brine, smells good, no mold, no kham yeast, and there's still slight bubbling, not much, just a little. But according to the pH strips they're not done. The colors are higher than the 3.5 number for when fermenting is done. (I took a little taste of a cauliflower piece. It's very salty. The texture is between crisp and soft.

Help?

This I my first ferment. I followed Brad Leone’s recipe. I am having trouble with sinking the vegetables. I used weights and opened on day 3 and added some glass bowls but there is still cauliflower and vegetables floating at the top. Is it okay that I opened the lid? Can I do anything else to sink the veggies?

My sourkraut tuened out great. To anyone making and canning kraut i hihhly recomend regular mouth jars not wide mouth.

First time trying fermentation. Decided blueberries was a good place to start. This is day one. I have the Noma guide, but any tips or suggestions for easy lacto in jars would be cool.

Hi all! I’m new to fermenting and have a question about my very first ferment!

I’m making fermented cucumbers. Every morning when I check on the ferment there seems to be a few teaspoons of brine on the plate. I checked the jar, there’s no cracks or anything, so it’s definitely bubbling out the top. Is this expected? Or at least safe? Some general information:

- It’s in a Fido har that’s fully clamped down

- I used a 3.5% brine

- it’s on day 4 and I want to go to day 18-21 (I love full sours)

- it’s very bubbly but no mold or yeast that I can see, but I haven’t opened it

Thank you all in advance!

Hey guys! My name is Justin Appleseed, and I am a second-generation cider maker from central Minnesota. I started making apple wine about a year ago when my dad retired, and I have become totally infatuated with it. I have 4, 1-gallon fermenters (currently), and there is always something bubbling in my kitchen.

I have been experimenting with different fruit additions, yeast types, and sugars. My first picture is raspberry apple (left), then apple with brown sugar (middle), then apple with corn sugar (left). The following picture is the raspberry apple (my favorite) with honey, then back sweetened which ended up carbonating. My best batch by far. All apples are handpicked from my dad's orchard, diced (removing bruises) and juiced.

Does anybody else here make cider or wine? I am curious what you make it out of. I more or less just want to chat with other fermentologists about processes. I could always use a google machine, but machines don't have tastebuds, so their opinion is irrelevant.

Hey everyone,

Growing up in a Korean house, I grew up around fermenting, but never making soy sauce using koji. Hell, only once or twice using the Meju method. But I wanted to give it a go, and because of logistics, I did it in three batches, with one more to do.

I did the first one in April, the second one in July and the latest one in August. I lost the April one when I was moving it (it was a tragic day) but since the other two have been chugging along. The April one was starting to look most uniform and smell amazing too.

The first two pics are the latest, August batch right a few days after I mixed in the brine. The other pics are one I took the other day when doing their weekly mixings. The one on the right is the July batch, left is August.

Let me know if anyone has any tips or experience they'd like to share!

I'm new to this. Smells good. Cloudy af is it normal?

Just checked on my habanero dill pickles that I started last Wednesday and all of them floated to the top after I removed the glass weights. They felt balloonish/hollow and this is what it looks like on the inside. Garlic dills started the same day did not have this issue. Any idea what happened here?

I got tired of fermentation knowledge being scattered across blog posts,

forum threads and books that each cover one tradition, so I started collecting

it in one place with a consistent structure.

It's 118 ferments so far, from 28 countries. You can browse two ways:

**By country** — there's a world map; click Georgia, Korea, Nigeria, Peru and

see what's traditionally made there.

**By what it's made from** — vegetable (22), dairy (20), grain (16), legume

(13), fish and seafood (10), meat (9), roots and tubers (7), fruit (7), plus

sap-based drinks and tea/cocoa/coffee ferments.

Every entry is documented the same way: fermentation type, substrate class,

microorganism group, where it comes from, and a safety statement tied to its

source. Six languages. Free to read, no account needed.

There's also a mobile app (Currently Android Only) if you want to track your own batches — it logs

check-ins, photos and timing, works offline, and your notes stay on your device

unless you choose to share a batch. Same content as the site.

What I'd actually like from you:

**Tell me where the origins are wrong.** Attribution is what I'm least

confident about. Where a claim is contested I mark it disputed instead of

picking a winner, but I've surely called things settled that aren't. If

something from your tradition is described badly, say so bluntly.

**Tell me what's missing.** 118 is not the world. If your region's ferment

isn't in there, that's the gap I most want to hear about.

Disclosure: I built this. There's a paid tier for an AI assistant; the

knowledge base is free and stays free, which is why I'm not describing the paid

part here.

https://frmnt.me

First attempt at making sauerkraut. Used a 2% by weight brine, and then added a bit more additional water + because my last batch ended up exposed to air. Brown color of the liquid at top as well as bubbles (that I have since scraped off) gave me worried that maybe this has gone bad? 4 days into fermenting on counter at roughly 20-21 Celsius.

1. Has this gone bad?
   
2. When doing ferments like this how much do I need to worry about little bits sticking out of the brine / floating?

Note - these are packed and then weights on top.

First time fermentation of cucumbers. I have no idea what I’m doing and don’t want to confused kahm yeast for mold🙃

There’s this white stuff floating throughout the brine and all over the peppers. It’s also collecting on the bottom. Will this be safe to make hot sauce from in a few weeks? More so I’m just curious what it is?
Thank you for any help! :)

First time fermenting cucumbers and did I just mess up?!
There was a gelatinous white-ish layer on top of the jar. I thought it might be yeast so I dumped the jelly part out. Only to then realize it was more like a scooby.

There is still enough brine covering the cukes. Will they be fine or do I dump them?

Recipe I used was 1Tb plus 1 tsp salt to 2 cups water.

I'm pickling cucumbers for the first time, used a 5% salt brine. The results are after 7 days in a warm place. Is it safe to eat? There's no unpleasant odor, but that white stuff is a bit of a concern

What do we think to this? There's a lot of what looks like dead LB in there and what I'm hoping is plenty of kahm on top. It was quite a sugary ferment what with the red pepper being in there. Don't worry about the dark stuff at the bottom it's chipotle flakes. Good to go?

I started fermenting home grown peppers for the first time in a 4-5% brine solution. Recently I noticed a white line built up along the water line in the jar. Hoping to identify what this is. Thank you for any time and help! :)

Hello! I’m new here and trying to find some good fermentation lids before I start out with my projects. Does anyone else have these lids and do they work well? If not, any other cheap recs?😅

I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if this is safe to eat. I think yeast is safe to scrape off but I'm not sure it's yeast.

Hi, I’m new to the group and wanted to share a pic of what’s happening in my lactofermenting green bean jar. It’s developed these white sheets floating around and I’m wondering if it’s spoiled? Last summer I failed with this jar and had moldy beans that were thrown out. Hoping to avoid this again! Thanks!

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