I found this picture from years ago when I tried my first ferment. I knew that glass was recommended for a weight, but figured that anything food-safe and non-metallic would be fine. I had a marble mortar which seemed perfect. It fit nicely into my jar and held everything down.

Fast forward, a week, and I was pretty sure that my pickles weren't turning out properly. No mold, but a lot of funky slime. I fished everything out and was startled to see that mortar was all pock-marked. Originally it was smooth like the pestle next to it.

Took about 5 seconds of thought and then a big facepalm. Marble is substantially calcium carbonate (eg the stuff Tums are made of). I was weighing down my ferment with an antacid!

It was cool to have a demonstration of lactobacillus producing acid, but it ruined both the ferment and the mortar.

It took me one ferment grenade to realize I shouldn't pop these things open willy nilly. Put the bottle in a sealable bag and pop the top. Pour what fizzled out back into the bottle.

I came across this article. I am not a food scientist, but to my understanding it claims most fermented foods do not contain probiotics.

Can someone clarify this in simple terms? I was always under the impression (disclaimer: from youtube videos) that fermented foods are packed with gut healthy bacteria.

https://isappscience.org/do-fermented-foods-contain-probiotics/

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 know, I know, this isn’t a cannabis subreddit. But I’ve noticed something and wanted to see if anybody can chime in on this. I’ve been drinking a cup of kefir nightly for a couple of years. I also take cannabis oil in the evening to help with sleep and anxiety. In the last 3 months I’ve upped my fermented food intake. I make sure to get half a cup or so of kimchi or pineapple sauerkraut, or another ferment on occasion, daily in addition to the kefir.

What I’ve noticed is my cannabis medicine hits a little harder and I don’t need to take as much now. This started about 3 weeks after adding a daily dose of a second fermented food. My brain thinks that my gut is cleaner, healthier, and is able to absorb the medicine better. I use timed release capsules that are meant to open in the GI tract. Also my anxiety isn’t as bad since I started doing this. It’s a win/win. I just want to understand better what’s happening.

Have any of you noticed anything like this with medications or supplements or anything? I’m curious and can’t seem to find the right wording for a google search.

***Desi for tax.

I see a lot of people with MCAS or histamine intolerance avoiding fermented foods entirely. I used to worry about that too, but fermentation microbiology is a bit more nuanced.

Most microbes that dominate vegetable ferments (sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles) — like Leuconostoc, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Pediococcus, Weissella — usually don’t carry the hdc gene cluster needed to produce histamine. So histamine production isn’t just “because something fermented.” It depends on the microbes involved, and those histamine-producing ones show up much more often in protein ferments (fish, cheese, etc.). Personally, I ferment and eat kimchi regularly, plus a lot of pickled veggies, green tomatoes, tubers, and random fermentation experiments. For me these ended up being some of the most stable foods.

Curious how others here with MCAS or histamine sensitivity experience veggie ferments. Good? Bad? Neutral?

I've dabbled in fermentation experiments of late (kimchi, cucumbers and apples so far). Apples were a bust, but the other two were great. Totally addicted to homemade kimchi and pickles now!

What got me started was the vinegar-y smell in my yard waste bin after my apple tree dropped all of its apples. Felt like such a waste and I don't want to do that again next year.

Do you have a person you follow on YouTube, instagram, etc that you swear by?

I was trying to make a strawberry kvass in a gallon carboy and it was crazy active from Wednesday night until Saturday night when it went off like a bomb in the oven. the video is it just chilling out having a great time Friday night, then I strained and capped it to build carbonation. burped it Saturday morning and then 11 hours later it went kaboom.

Had a bottle of Jun turn to vinegar. I couldn't bare dumping it so I scratched my curiosity, just be cautious. 🤭

Test every few hours or at least once a day. Use a brush to see when the rust is loose. Or just use the liquid as a mild scrub. You could wet a rag and cover areas needing rust removal.

Test first and use at your own risk. Careful not to leave anything in there too long or it might also disappear. 😬 Was surprised at how potent this became.

I studied biotechnology and got very interested in the microbiology behind vegetable fermentation.

Things that look like “old kitchen tricks” often have real chemistry behind them. For example, bay leaves contain tannins that can help keep fermented vegetables firmer by interacting with plant cell walls.

If you’ve ever had questions about sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, fermentation microbes, safety, or why things sometimes go wrong, ask away and I’ll do my best to explain what’s happening biologically

Whelp, it happened. I had a ginger bug soda bottle explode.

If you are new to this (like I am) or you just didn't know - you can't use square bottles to ferment. Apparently the corners result in weaker glass and uneven build up in the carbonation.

This is one of those "you don't know what you don't know" so I wanted to share my major mistake and lesson in the event you didn't know.

Luckily it was in a cabinet so it was somewhat contained but it was definitely scary and resulted in a half hour of cleaning.

Fermenting under vacuum is pretty foolproof. She rates a vacuum lid so you can avoid plastic vacuum bags.

I thrifted a Foodsaver Jar Sealer that pulls a vacuum from a widemouth jar with a metal lid. I purposely left two cucumbers above the brine. I let them ferment for four weeks. I manually burped it several times. There was no mold or kahm. The two that were out of the brine were mushy, so I tossed them out.

Vacuuming the air away keeps the mold away.

My weights are basically submerged in the brine. I don't know how I'm actually supposed to lift them out. They are too wide to pry them out with a spoon or a fork. They are too slippery to grab them with tongs. Do you just wash your hands and pick them up with your hands? I don't plan on eating the whole glass anytime soon.

Hi guys, I had a question and I think this is the right place to ask. I made a tea infusion, the tea is made of cranberry, hibiscus, apple and ginger (all dried and store-bought). I made it yesterday morning or maybe the evening before that. I did not put it in the fridge, because I don't have space for the karaf I have put it in. So I had it on the counter. I did not put sugar of any kind in it. This morning I pour myself a cup of ambition and lo and behold my tea has become sparkling. Did it start fermenting bc of the sugar in the fruit? Can I drink it? Did I make kombucha? Can I now add sugar to make kombucha? I did not wash it in between uses (it was recently cleaned though), I did rinse it with cold water before using it again. Previous batch also did not have any added sugar in it. It was also closed off with a lid.

Mods approved this post in advance, and asked me to be explicit about the commercial and AI side so you can decide before you type. That's the section headed "Before you contribute" — please read it.

What this is. I've been building a structured knowledge base of fermented foods: variants, ingredients, microorganisms, methods, safety thresholds, regional origins. Two rules I set myself — a safety claim has to be tied to a source, and every entry records how well documented it actually is, so a well-studied ferment and a rare regional preserve are never presented as equally certain. Where the literature disagrees, the entry says it disagrees instead of picking the convenient answer.

It currently holds 118 ferments across 39 countries. Eleven of those origins are recorded as disputed, because they are.

What I'm asking for. The well-studied ferments are in decent shape. Sauerkraut and kombucha are fine. What I can't get at is regional and family knowledge — the things that live in kitchens rather than journals:

The name you actually use. In your language, in your script, including the spelling your grandmother uses that doesn't match Wikipedia.
How it's really made where you are. Especially the steps that differ from the version the internet has settled on, and why yours does it that way.
Ferments with no English name at all. I keep finding these by accident. Sinki, kabees el lift and thua nao all reached me that way, and each turned out to have almost nothing written about it in English.

What "done" looks like to you. Smell, texture, the sound, the point where your family says stop. Hardest thing to source, most useful thing to have.

Corrections. If an entry is wrong, that is worth more to me than a new one.
Comment here or reply to me, whichever you prefer. You don't need an account with me and I'm not asking you to sign up for anything.

Before you contribute — the part the mods asked me to spell out.

The knowledge base is free to read. There is a paid tier, about $7/month, that unlocks an AI assistant which answers fermentation questions grounded in this database and shows which entries it drew on. So plainly: something you contribute for free here can end up as grounding for a paid feature. I'd rather you know that now than discover it later and feel used.
The long-form articles on the site are drafted by an AI model from the database and edited by a person before anything publishes. Nothing publishes automatically, and there is no plan for it to.

Community experience is never used as a source for safety guidance. "Mine smelled like that and I was fine" is not a citation, and the retriever behind the assistant is not permitted to read community content at all. What you tell me shapes the catalogue by my reading it and sourcing it properly — not by being handed to a model as authority.

Which companies process what, and where, is set out in the privacy policy on the site. Ask me here if you want the short version.
If you want credit, tell me how — a name, a handle, a region, or nothing at all. And if you'd rather your family's method stayed in your family, that is a completely reasonable answer. I would genuinely rather you said no than felt pressured.
What I'm not doing here. Not selling anything in this thread, not linking a signup, not collecting emails. If you want to see what you'd be contributing to before deciding, the catalogue is public at https://frmnt.me and you can read every entry without an account.

Happy to answer anything about the data model, the sourcing rules, or the parts I've got wrong.

I just got this book as a gift, and it looks to be newly published as well (September 2025). If you’re looking for a new book, this might be it: it’s half easy-to-follow fermentation guide, half delicious-looking cookbook.

The author was an Ottolenghi mentee, and it shows: the recipes are super creative and delicious-looking, like miso butter elote or kimchi latkes.

He makes it all seem so easy, I was intimidated by miso since I’m not ready to set up a chamber for Aspergillus oryzae, he said just go to a Japanese grocery store and buy a tub of koji. And I did. And yesterday I made a red miso and a kabocha squash miso and I’m eyeing his beet, cumin, allspice miso that he says can be used to cure salmon. I love miso salmon, and I love hot pink beet gravlax, and I can’t wait to combine them.

He’s got some really intriguing ideas about kombucha. I’ve been using champagne yeast to kickstart non-starting cheongs and other lactoferments with mixed success (bread dough-scented green tomatoes, anyone?), but he uses a little bit of kombucha instead and isn’t reporting an overly yeasty smell. I wonder if this can save some of those non-starter irradiated tepaches we’ve all experienced?

Anyway, great book, super accessible, he writes recipes a bit like Molly Baz does where you start at basics and you’re going at warp speed in a few minutes. Highly recommend!

We really like fermented corn. Fresh corn cut off the husk and fermented with around 2.5% salt. Sometimes in brine, sometimes in a vacuum bag.

I've read a few things about bongkrekic acid risks. It seems to mention corn flour, with coconut, low salinity, or things with a high fatty acid content.

If anyone in the food science field is around, I'm curious if there are risks to fermentating corn in salt.

Hi all!
So long time lurker, enjoy fermenting and have my little experiments at home. While i was having lunch a happy idea came to mind. And wanted to see if anyone has actually tried and what were the results.

Has anyone tried fermenting in juice? And by that i don’t only mean fruit juice but other veggies, a few ideas:
- hot sauce in grated tomato/tomato juice
- sauerkraut using cucumber juice
- pickles with cucumber juice
- hot sauce using carrot juice

I think you get my point. Idk if there is any literature or videos about it but as said, wanted first hand expirience if possible!

Edit: I was specifically thinking lacto-fermenting. Or basically anything that is usually done with water to swap it out with juice. Kombuchas and ales was a given, my bad

Hello

How do we know how often we have to do it? And if I open my jar often, won’t the air in contact encourage bacteria or something like that?

Do I have to do it for all my ferments?

Howdy all! What's your craziest/best cautionary tale when it comes to explosions when dealing with fermentations?

I'll start!

When I was a kid, I remember always helping my grandma make Kimchi in the summer and winter with all the other Korean grandmas. Every year same ladies, with the giant metal bowls and visor hats, until one year a new lady came to the church that showed us kombucha. Now, this must've been in 2005 in Texas, and kombucha was NOT a thing down here until much later, but I remember we all tried it and were pretty surprised. I think her version would've been considered Jun (Honey Kombucha I think), but nonetheless all the ladies in my grandma's circle all started making Kombucha together because one of them must have said something about the health benefits.

It was fun, my grandma and I used to go check out different farmers' markets looking for exotic fruits (Texas persimmons were a banger) or different ways to flavor these things, and me a young 12-year-old, was down for the exploration. Well, somewhere along the way, I heard there was alcohol in this stuff, and you could get drunk, so it was in my best interest to drink as much of this stuff as possible. More importantly, learn how to make it more alcoholic and at home. (BTW, I'm 12 and at this point in my life I have never even tasted beer or alcohol lol)

One day, my grandma decided that she didn't want to do it anymore and gave the jar with the scoby that we had used. She told how the whole thing works and that you need to leave the jar alone and covered, and have the bottle sit for a week after and not to add too much honey, and that if I was going to add sugar, add it when you brew the tea. Blah blah blah.

I didn't listen, I started reading home brewing forums on beer, and figured, "Well, more sugar means more alcohol, it's just basic science. If I want to make it more alcoholic, then I gotta add a ton of sugar, plus it'll be sweeter!" Oh boy. Let me tell y’all. I decided that I needed to make a lot, so I asked my grandpa for one of his giant 2L beer growlers with a pop top and got to work. Added the kombucha, then added pineapple, then I added three giant spoonfuls of sugar.

I put my brew in my closet, on the top shelf, and forgot about it. For two months. One day after football practice, I found it. I told myself, "Man, I bet this thing is going be dope." I proceeded to walk down the kitchen where my mom was cleaning and pop that top. "Mom, I forgot about my pineapple komb-"

BOOOOM

It was straight out of that scene from Nightmare on Elm Street. I'm talking everywhere, mom's hair, the dishes, the photographs. I don't think we ever got the stain out of the ceiling.

Fortunately for me, it could've been much worse (an actual IED type of bad), but it was just really messy and smelled like vinegar for a week. (Mom was pissed). However, looking back, I'm really glad it went this way and not the "I'm blind now because when I was 12 I made a bottle bomb trying to make prison hooch" kind of way.

Anyways, what's your story?

 
TLDR: When I was a dumb 12-year-old, I wanted to make super alcoholic kombucha. (It didn't end well.

So there was a loud bang late last night, and this morning I found a mason jar of plum sauce had exploded all over the fridge. There were shards of glass everywhere, and I think if someone had had the fridge open at the time that they would have been seriously injured.

This wasn't supposed to be an active fermentation. The fridge is kept at 2C and this jar was pasteurized via boiling after fermentation and has been sitting undisturbed for at least three or four weeks. I thought maybe it had frozen, but none of the adjacent jars have any frost or ice built up.

Is pressure build-up enough to deform the lid like you see in the photo? Has anyone had an explosion like this before?

Are there any tricks or techniques for removing the wax exterior from lemons? I want to try some fermentation but not sure where to get lemons that aren't covered in the wax coating.

Cheesecloth can also be boiled and re-used for other batches.

I don't think it'll be great for extended ferments (months+) because the cotton can break down, but this is a quick, cheap, effective, and easy way to keep loose ingredients from floating to the top and potentially causing contamination.

I recently did a sliced pickle ferment and backslopped some fermented garlic, I didn't want the paste to flood the brine & float so I packed a grapevine leaf with that and dill and folded it into a pouch. I've recently used cheesecloth to tofu press a cheese and it just clicked, for things I don't want tannins (grapevine leaf), I could use cheesecloth instead.

Happy fermenting! 🍀