Assuming the goal is 2% minimum:

1. If you're making a mash or kimchi/sauerkraut, where the veggies make their own liquid: 2% salt by weight of ingredients alone.
2. If you're fermenting very watery veggies (cucumbers, tomatoes, etc) veggies in brine: 2% salt by weight of ingredients and water together, to handle the osmosis and prevent dilution to less than 2%.
3. If fermenting everything else, usually denser veggies, use 3% of weight of water. Reason is denser veggies will still leach out some liquid to slightly decrease salinity, but not enough osmosis to put it below 2%.

Is this a good way to approach this?

EDIT: seems I've overthought it. Keep away from veggie weight when using a brine.

I have these fermentation jars:

Jars here

I'm pretty gung ho on the idea of making garum from mackerel.

From what I understand the stench from this process is absolutely god awful. Unfortunately I live in a place that will get extremely cold within the next couple of months, so I don't think a shed or garage is going to slice it - of course, if I want garum by Christmas or early in the New Year.

My questions:

1. Would the jars that I bought be enough to minimize the smell? It seems like the only times I would really need to break any air seals is to fill up the silicon air filter with water every now and then. From my understand it is not entirely necessary to stir the garum if you include the fish guts.
2. If these jars would still release significant smell, what could I try as a strategy to reduce the stench, or at least heavily confine it?

Any and all advice is welcome. Thank you!

We're opening a sandwich shop with a big focus on Pickles, Misos, garums, ferments ETC. We want to build a huge collection of ingredients to work with.

What are some of your must make recipes that would work well for us?

Been having this for about 3 weeks now havnt fead it in over a week white stuff floating at bottom is that normal or start over

What would your top choices be of ferments which:

1) Have a long shelf life without refrigeration
2) Provide nutrition & or energy
3) A tasty treat in a world of otherwise tinned foods, home farmed foods & foraged / hunted foods.

Am I the only one whose fermentation hobby has also turned into a resilience project?

Even if the most likely scenario I’m preparing for is extended powercuts & or a breakdown of international supply chains, having 10 jars of kimchi in storage just makes me feel better about the prospect!

I have roasted tomatoes, onions, garlic and jalapeño, to which I will add fresh lime juice,, cilantro, and salt. If I add some of the brine from my Chinese perpetual fermenting jar, would this roasted salsa be good to ferment? Has anyone here tried anything like this? I love the flavor of the roasted salsa and it's a great way to use my abundance of garden tomatoes, and this is more a curiosity question; but I'd be willing to try out a small portion of my salsa if I could improve both the flavor and added health benefits by fermenting it.

First time and day of making fermented honey garlic

I bought raw honey from a local beekeeper (unheated)

I bought garlic from a local farmer; the garlic was very dry and very hard.

Then I peeled and cut the large garlic cloves in half and crushed them one by one with a large knife (I didn't cut the small ones in half, but crushed those too).

And finally, I put a lot of honey on it

I am going to turn my pot every 12 hours and take the lid off once a day for 1sec

If anyone has any more tips and tricks, just let me know :)

My garlic honey is showing a pH of 7. Is it trash?

Garlic paste fermenting since sep 15, u guys think its ready or one more week?

Tell me what you would do with them.

Hey y’all Can you ferment eggs Korean style and still have a runny yolk? Like 1 minute boil and then maybe brine and then ferment? Tia

I put together bell peppers from the garden and whole peppercorns in a 2.5% pickling salt by weight brine. PH was 3.5 after a week, which was a bit sour for my taste, so It lives in the fridge now.

This is my first time starting a sourdough starter, I don't really like sourdough but I do like how universal the starter is and I also wanna prove that I can make one

I started off with way too much starter and wasted it unfortunately 😭, but I kept 64g to start off with.

Yup about month ago (25/8/26) doing an apple mead (Cyser) but with twist of peach and rose!

Right now it’s start from OG: 1.65 There's of course half gap of headspace due to between space of the apples itself but not to worry I will add more honey and water after fermentation's done.

I will make recipe once made update as I do most brewing related posts stay tuned!

Pretty self explanatory. I'm trying to make garum but reduce the stench as much as possible. It is my understanding that protein does not off-gas nearly as much vegetables do. Curious if just a big Fido jar filled halfway with mackerel fish guts and salt would suffice?