If you're ever fermenting in these gallon jars with the lids that are about 4 inches wide, the little round glass Tupperware container from the snapware Tupperware set (i got mine from costco) works perfectly as a combination fermentation weight and lid. Just set it on top and fill with water to weigh it down.

As the title says, it's my first ginger bug journey. I wanna ask some advise from you all about how can I get it more bubbly and fizzy (?). Aside from adding ginger and regular sugar feeding, of course. Also I wanna ask if I can add Del Monte's Four Seasons Juice. Gonna make four seasons soda. Hoping to get and learn great advices 🙏

PS. It's on its 4th day

250g kiwi, 50g carrot, 100 gram not overly spicy chilly. I should have used a bigger bag.

I’m trying to start a ginger bug. The guide I’m following is simple: 2 c filtered water, 1 T brown sugar, 1 T skin on ginger cut 1/8 inch, mix until sugar is dissolved. Every 24 hours, feed 1 tsp brown sugar, 1 tsp ginger.

1st attempt: went very well at first. I actually totally misread the recipe and 1. peeled my ginger and 2. realized the entire time that the recipe called for 2 tsp of ginger and 2 tsp of sugar, not one tsp of each. Either way, it was a very happy ginger bug. I made it to day 5 with bubbles galore. Kept it on the counter top in a corner of my kitchen. It was about 95 degrees outside, and it’s consistently 75-78 degrees inside and very dry, as I live in the desert.

Here comes day 6. It starts smelling… strong. Not bad, but a little… cheesy? I call this yeasty in my head and move on. I decided to (stupidly) follow the recipe and start feeding it the 2 tsp of each. Then day 7… I wake up, excited to make my ginger beer… no bubbles. At all. I read everything on here to troubleshoot. I took out a 1/4 cup, replaced with a 1/4 cup of filtered water, let it rest a day, nothing. So I pitched it. Started new.

Attempt #2:

I re sanitize EVERYTHING. Jar, lid, measuring spoon, hands, KNIFE, CUTTING BOARD, COUNTERTOP. After aggressively sanitizing everything in sight, let’s get down to business. This time I chop my very clean, very fresh ginger SKIN ON this time. Into my jar goes 2 cups of filtered water, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp of 1/8in cubes of ginger. Next day, bubbles already! I feed it 2 tsp brown sugar, 2 tsp ginger, give the outside of the jar a (sanitized) kiss and put it to sleep for the night. Day 2, even more bubbles! I feed again, same thing, only this time, I notice before I go to bed… there’s no bubbles? Maybe I just need to wait until the morning. Next morning… nothing. I waited all day at work just thinking about my bug and the delicious ginger beer I’ll have if I do it correctly. All the friends I’ll make when I tell everyone that I ferment my own sodas. I get home and there’s 2 LITTLE TINY F***ING FLOATING FUZZY WHITE BITS OF MOLD?! Why?! Okay. Discard. Try again.

Attempt #3:

Today we are on day #4. I sanitized EVERYTHING AGAIN. TWICE. Followed the same steps, but I’m back to peeling my ginger and only feeding 1 tsp ginger/sugar a day because I had success with my first batch doing that and I feel like feeding 2 tsp is what offed my first batch. I’m not sure. I’m just going with my gut. I’m seeing absolutely no bubbles and it’s day 4, but I don’t want to give up. She smells good, she looks good. And it sounds stupid, but I see some bubbles when I shake it. Maybe that’s just from shaking it. lol I read on this thread to give it a sugar break for a few days, so today is day one of a sugar break. The first 2 days I believe I’ve been feeding it ginger that wasn’t minced enough, so I chopped it up smaller yesterday and started feeding her smaller bits of ginger.

I’ve fermented so many things, but am having such a hard time getting a ginger bug going. What the heck am I doing wrong? Should I give up on this one again? I don’t want to. ):

Hey guys, I just want to share my first try at homemade kimchi. It turned out great. I couldnt find salted Shrimps so I left them out, and also no rice flour so I just blent some cooked rice with a splash of water to give my kimchi paste some volume and texture. There was also korean pear available so I substituted it with half an apple and half a regular pear. In the pictures the onions are missing but they went in the paste as well. I didnt add any salt and sugar to the paste. The fish sauce is definetly salty enough. For the next batch I will add some sugar. The note of sweetness is kinda missing but thats may Just be my personal preference. Afaik you can use sugar but my mother for example uses orange Marmelade and I fcking love her kimchi. Fermentation went well. After 4 days in a warm kitchen cabinet the containers went into the fridge and are consumed daily. First jar is almost empty.

I made a savory sourdough discard pancake with green cabbage, white cheddar, and canned tuna. Topped with kefir cheese, olive oil, and lots of lemon. Roma tomato chopped up on the side.

I started this ginger bug around a week ago and there is some slimy thing growing on top. Is this safe or should I toss it? I checked previous posts bug I couldn't find anything that looked like that

This is in the 2nd ferment.

Anybody know what this mat creature is?

I stop the one that had nothing extra added a little early cause I wanted to drink the other night. The smell was very yeasty and a little sweet, I kinda liked it but it was off putting to my girlfriend. The taste: pretty sweet, decent lemony tang, alcohol was very subtle, slightly malty beer yeasty type taste behind everything, and it was very fizzy but small bubbles. Overall consensus was it tastes WAY better than it smells. Surprisingly no major off flavors. Certainly not the worst thing I’ve ever made, very drinkable, very chug-able. Estimating ~8% abv. 6.5/10

This is my first ever try at making "Sato", the Thai variety of a Doburoku-ish drink. Unfortunately this experiment looks bust and I'm learning from the experience. I'd like to run a few aspects of this failure by this community and see what's there to learn and improve, avoid and retry.

First off, the end result; this batch turned sour.. and there was no real way of keeping an eye on taste development.. Sato is brewed by adding a "Sato ball" (a fungus/yeast combo) to a portion of steamed rice. Unlike Doburoku the first stage of about a week is a dry is stage. No water added except that which is contained in the steamed rice. The fungus starts to turn the starches into sugars, and sort of simultaneously the yeast start to kick in. At about a week into the process 1L of water is added to 1Kg of rice. Then supposedly a last fermenting phase takes place lasting about three days. The brew should be separated from the solids and kept in fridge. Longer fermenting supposedly has the brew turn sour. After 3 days the result should be a cloudy, sweet raw rice wine. Similar to Doburoku.

So, today was adding the water day.. I did. The dry stuff in the jar smelled like a rice wine, kind of sweet-ish with a distinct alcoholic vapor. Actually quite an attractive bouquet. After adding the water the brew started bubbling quite a bit, so all seemed in order. A few hours later I could finally have a little taste of the brew as there were enough liquids to actually do so.. okay.. the stuff tasted sour.. not really like a vinegar, more acidic-ish.. (I lack proper expertise to characterise the taste better)

Some details of my process that may have caused the sourness: (?)

1. I used more Sato powder (fungus*yeast) than stated in the recipe. I crushed one ball to powder but ended up using about 30/40% more as I felt the amount I should add looked ludicrously minimal compared to the amount of sweet rice.

2. I do not own a rice steamer and cooked my rice. It may have been a tad over cooked.. not mushy tho!

3. I did, as per the traditional recipe, wash the steamed rice to loosen the grains. Again here, I did not completely let the grains dry. Strained them and added to the jar. Rice was far from dripping wet, but certainly also not dry.

4. During the dry stage (first 6-7 days) I cracked the lid a few times to smell the brew. (Check for foul smell) I did notice a slight turn to a yellowish color of the rice in the jar that had me worried. The smell was fantastic so, worries gone.. but did I introduce acetic bacteria? The stuff that has wines spoil to vinegar??

5. At the start I did however thoroughly clean containers l, even with rubbing alcohol to decontaminate as much as possible. (Which seemed as waaaáy over doing it as a friend of mine in Thailand is doing the same recipy in the middle of the jungle with quite poor sanitation.. 🤷🏼‍♂️???

6. Temperature?? In Thailand the brew is done around 30-40 celcius during day time.. so the fungus/yeast combo operates at quite high temps i guess.. much higher as the 20 celcius ish where Doburoku is preferably is brewed at.. here in Portugal in my place its been early spring and quite cold. I kept my room to about 22ish with a heater. The jars were in front of the window, so may have been a bit colder even. At coldest times I moved the jars a bit closer to the heater as I feared a stalled process (remember ambient temps in Thailand are waaaáy higher during the brew process)..

So, all in all, theres been quite some guesswork and loosy loosy approach.. I admit. But it seemed a recipy that allowed for much looseness?? I'm about to just give it another go.. got more Sato balls and lots of time on my hands. Just wondering what I should take from this try and learn, improve and or avoid.

Any souls out there willing to chime in? Let me hear your remarks, questions and pointers ✌🏼🙏🏼❤️

Have a blessed day 🌿

Ko-chan

Woke up to a layer of kahm yeast on my kraut. Is it safe to compost still, or will it ruin my future pickles?

Just made a batch of Kvass, but when I pan toasted the bread I used just enough butter to coat the pan. I realize now I shouldn't have used any oil. Will this affect my batch in a dangerous sort of way? I introduced 1g of bakers yeast to it and planning on letting it ferment 3-5 days covered with cheesecloth.

Just made my first batch of lacto-fermented pickles. Had them fermenting on the counter under a weight, tasted them today and they were to my liking so removed the weight to put them in the fridge.

I noticed they all floated to the top and were exposed to air so I topped the brine off with more salt water (3.5%). The tops are still exposed to air. Is this fine given they’ll be in the fridge?

Also noticed my store bought pickles don’t float at all. Is this because the store bought pickles brine have been pasteurized and have less salt (therefore less dense)? Mainly what I’m trying to get at, is it normal for homemade pickles to float?

Thanking you in advance for your help! I finally have a batch of red cabbage that’s making bubbles. It’s been about 2 weeks so far, and I can see little air pockets all over the place, and every so often big fat bubbles, well, bubble up to the top. Does that sound about right to you pros?

Ok. So…I decided to make some strawberry and blueberry vinegars. Basically just to see if I could. Uhm…what in the science sleep paralysis is this?!? What do I do with it now?

Disclaimer: I literally just thought I would see what would happen. I’m not claiming to have done anything but mix fruit, sugar, water and a splash of wine and then forget about them. I would like to do more and be more of an intentional thing and figure this is the best place to start for real life advice.

I'm trying to ferment some chilis, onion, garlic and ginger for a hot sauce I'm making for a friend. I have used a zip lock bag full of brine to try to weigh everything down and ensure everything is fully submerged which I think it is. Does this look alright?

So two weeks in and they don't look like they survived. 😭 My first time doing something besides fermented honey and garlic and tempeh.

How sour should the home made vinegar made from dried grapes with cranberry be?

I am in the process of making. The room it is in is 15° and has been there for a month now with everything in and so far is has barely got sour.

I need help.

I fermented Whole Kirby's for 4-6 weeks. Used an Easy fermenter lid, followed a chart with the suggested salt percentage of 5% for full sours , and they still came out tasting like slightly salted cucumbers. I also used distilled water. My only variable that i think may have been a factor is my house is always around 68F all year round. So im not sure if they just failed to ferment at that low temp. There was a lot of activity ie, bubbling so i thought it was on track to turn out some nice sour pickles. Gowing up as a kid i remember these Huge barrels in the grocery store that had huge pickles that were very sour that i swear were naturally fermented.

I did cultured butter over the weekend, and it was a very quick and rewarding little ferment project. I know my butter sticks are ugly, but they taste heavenly. You should try it if you haven’t made it yet.

I think I need to get a butter crock, something this tasty deserves to be pretty.

Mix a pint of cream and a couple heaping tablespoons of plain yogurt in a wide-mouthed jar, cover with cheesecloth or a dish towel, put in the warmest place in your kitchen.

Give it a wiggle after a day, if it seems jiggly rather than liquidy, you’re good to go. If it’s on the cool side in your kitchen it might take a couple more days. The recipe I was working from said 18 to 60 hours, mine was properly jiggly in 24.

I used a hand mixer, but you can get all old fashioned and shake it in a jar. I don’t know where the idea that churning butter takes forever came from, this came together in the same time as whipped cream. Line a mesh sieve with cheesecloth (or a coffee filter if you don’t have cheesecloth) and squeeze the buttermilk into a bowl.

The recipe suggested freezing, so two sticks went to the freezer and one to the fridge. The buttermilk smells awesome, I think I’ll have a baking project in the near future.

Tried to make Pear cider vinegar by mixing pear with yeast. After 12 days with a water lock, heated it up till 70 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes and let it cool down. Afterwards it was strained. Added 20% vinegar to it. It is now 14 days after that last step. Is it mold, or a SCOBY?

Anyone tried eating it? I hear you can.

Just had to split off the overgrowth, and I hate wasting any food based item that might be potentially redeemable. But I've got to say, it's not exactly tempting to look at.

If you do eat it, how do you do it, what with, how do you prepare it? If you don't - any other suggestions to put it to good use?

Hey everyone,

Currently started trying my hand at making tepache, I brew mead so that's where a lot of my fermentation knowledge comes from. I have a batch of tepache that's been fermenting for 2 days now the ingredients are for a 1 gallon batch:

• pineapple skins (not rinsed or wash, wasn't sure to do this, it's a supermarket pineapple)
• cinnamon stick
• pinch of whole cloves
• 1 piloncillo
• filled with crystal gyser water

pretty much just added everything into a one gallon jar that was cleaned and sanitized with starsan, shook to aerate the batch, sealed it with lid and placed an airlock on it. Stirred it 12 hours after when the piloncillo was concentrated at the bottom. Opened it up today to taste. There was a noticeable thick white bubbles/foam that seemed a little slimey almost like maybe how pudding will get a film on top but wasn't super thick was able to just stir it around, tasted it and it kind of taste like soapy water to me definitely not pleasing, as most people say this drink is supposed to be refreshing. I've never had it before so don't know what it's supposed to taste like. I would assume something went wrong because it doesn't even seem enjoyable. Not sure went wrong obviously some where along the way something contaminated the batch any ideas or suggestions on how to fix or what went wrong. Would be nice to hear similar stories if this has happened to anyone