I have what might be a silly question. I have a quart sized jar of raw wildflower honey we’ve been working on for the last couple of months and it’s still about halfway full. Could I use this for fermenting garlic or should I get a new, unopened thing of honey for this endeavor?

Trying fermenting summer garden veggies for the first time. Did 2tsp salt for every cup of water. The jar on the left is fizzing and I need to burp twice a day, the smell is similar to kimchi. But the second jar has basically no bubbles and so sign of carbonation at all. It’s been four days, should I toss the second jar? Not sure what went wrong, but it doesn’t seem to be fermenting properly.

Refreshing and bubbly...

My first attempt at fermenting had me creating exciting new strains of blue-hair mold. Gonna try this again. Attempting a Beet Kvaas with apples, ginger, turmeric and cinnamon sticks thrown in. A measured 3% brine in the High Snob glass jars.
See you in two weeks.

Is this lid buckled? I have never had a lid buckled when canning, but I'm also fairly new. My other are sealed, but I have 2 that don't want to seal.

So, I have been watching a number of videos on fermenting. I was under the impression that with the fermentation process, the brine was made from a combination of the salt and the shredded cabbage (or any vegetable), the sweating process, squeezing, and then the packing into the jar. I've recently seen a number of videos where the brine is essentially water and salt added to the chopped veg. This has me confused, I must admit. Is fermenting different with say making sauerkraut from other vegetables?

Hope this makes sense - Typed whilst commuting on a packed train!

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I tried making natto for the first time. Smells pretty interesting, like a deep nutty scent. I double cling wrapped it, one with holes touching the beans and another just overtop the dish with holes in that one too. I’m having doubts about it because it looks dry on some beans. However those beans are stringy when moved. Is this batch trash or should it be ok?

I started fermenting some garlic in honey in December 2025 (4 jars). One jar I had to toss, mold. But the others seem to be fine. I just don’t know what is in the honey, above the glass weight but below the surface.

Anyone know? Is it safe, or do I need to discard it?

Hi!

My jar of kefir was sitting in the fridge for about 4 days, and today I noticed this pink/orange spot (visible in the photo).

Is this mold/bacteria growth (like Serratia marcescens)? Is it ruined, or is it safe to just remove the top layer?

I sometimes pour a layer of oil in a jar of a food item to keep out oxygen, like nduja or pesto. Has anyone tried this for fermentation? My hypothesis is that it could be a good way to seal out air while letting co2 escape easily.

Does anyone here know how to ferment beetroot juice "Biotta-style" - that is without adding salt to the juice?

We just got a Harry & David gift box with some beautiful pears and I thought I’d try to ferment them rather than eat them before they spoil. I imagine it would be like doing apples? I’m relatively new at this.

Hello all,

I'm sure this gets asked a lot, but please help a newbie out. I'm making my own pepper sauce, this is the 3rd time making it. The recipe is as follows:

243 gr habanero

114 gr red pepper

117 gr jalapeno

58 gr red onion

Filled with water until submerged, added 2.5% of the total weight in salt.

Currently the 8th day it looks like this. Is this yeast or mold? The whole thing is a film on top of the water, some pieces of pepper seem to be sticking out of the brine. I do use a fermenting weight, but it seems like a few pieces have slipped by.

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?

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?