Hey guys, so I fermented my ginger bug and the bug was bubbly, and on day 3 I decided to make my bottled drink. I used 3cups of black tea and 60gm of sugar with 4 tbsp of Apple cider vinegar, I used a 1L glass. I used like 1/2 cup of ginger bug. I wanted to make an apple cider vinegar drink. Well, it’s been 2 days and no signs of fizziness. Did I so anything wrong? What are your thoughts? What do I need to improve? Is adding acv a bad idea?

My fist bottle was barely fizzy. The second one (after feeding the ginger bug a couple of times), exploded from the base on day 4 (I was leaving it fermenting a bit longer due to the first one not being super fizzy). Thoughts?

How often do you use chopped ginger in your beer? I reuse mine so as not to waste it.

I made a batch of tepache about a month ago; didn’t have enough bottles for it all, so I left it in the jar. I may have added more water and sugar to cover the pineapple. I just took a look at it this morning and there seems to be a mother. Tepache does have Alcohol so could this really be a vinegar mother.

Forgot about coffee grounds I was using for plants, they stayed hidden behind a pot for a year or so. Here is what I found, accidental SCOBY?

How should I dispose of this safely? or how can I save it?

How long does a lactoferment like pickles, sauerkraut, etc last after the jar is sealed? I know people keep these jars closed without canning but I’m wondering if the bacterial activity is actually halted within the jar? Is canning a good option to preserve a lactoferment and make it shelf stable?

https://preview.redd.it/n5vwxg9g1bde1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84f3007697ecffed9f01bca72312fd934e53336a

Doing a lacto-fermentation of whole grapes in a vacuum bag with 2% salt. This is day 2.

I noticed these black spots on the skin that weren't there. Having had a look around the whole bag, these usually are around areas that are bruised (which I didn't manage to notice and pick out). I wonder what these are and if they are still safe to eat. Thanks in advance!

Picked from a local orchard. Idea inspired by Noma's guide to fermentation.

Anyone here ever made a sichuan pickle jar?

I just bought a jar a don’t know where to start lol

I've got this on the top of my apple cider. Not sure if it's mold.

Hi everybody,

Just wanted to see if there is anything I should do to take care of these peppers that have been sitting in the jar for nearly 3 months now: https://imgur.com/a/fJ6720D

Everything has been going well so far. There is a lot of white fluffy mass below the glass weight (dead lactobacillus?) and the brine has significantly darkened. The aroma is still the same smokey, funky heat that it has had from the second week, but deeper and more complex. I'm very happy with how this is progressing!

However, while cleaning the jar this evening, I noticed that the brine has become very thick and goopy. I haven't seen this before and immediately worried that the ferment was contaminated, but after a bit of digging I'm pretty sure that this is pediococcus - harmless, and apparently a phase that will pass as it will eventually be consumed by other bacterias.

I guess my question is - where should I go from here? Should I wait it out? Should I add some fresh brine and move it to a larger container? Should I process it into hot sauce as-is? (I would be significantly diluting the brine, so the viscosity might not be an issue.)

Curious what other's experiences have been with pediococcus goop!

Has anyone here successfully done this? If this is something that works, please share the process

Never done this before, fermenting some peppers for a hot sauce. Did 3% salt brine, some Serrano, bell, habanero, and onion. Been going for about 2 weeks, not much in the way of bubbles except for when I jostle the jar some float up to the top. Peppers seeped out their bright color in favor of this more muted green. Do these look done? I’ve never eaten a fermented pepper before so I don’t know what to look out for as far as a taste test goes.

My daughter said she'd pick up some daikon for me so I could ferment them. She came home with purple daikon which were almost as big as rutabagas.

I julienned them and mixed them with salt, cilantro, and dried yuzu. I tasted a little bit and they are sharper than ordinary daikon but not as sharp as Western radishes.

Smells amazing.

Has anyone used purple daikon before?

basically the title. I know the honey part will get less viscous over time with the garlic in it. But will it ever actually go bad? Like if I just keep using up the garlic and then adding in new garlic without doing anything to the honey.

What makes the honey less viscous over time? Is it just water coming out of the garlic? Or something else?

Hello! Note before I start: This is my first time fermenting anything. I did it for fun and because I wanted to try carbonated coffee. The reason I’m sharing this is that I couldn’t find much information about people trying this, so now that I have, I wanted to post my experience to help others.

As the title says, I made a coffee soda using a ginger bug. I wanted to try carbonated coffee, but is'nt available where I live. (To compare, I ended up spent 50$ to ship four cans of "La Dolce Vita" carbonated coffee to me. After testing both, I honestly couldn’t tell much difference. Both had the same flavor and a light fizz. I personly was hoping for a stronger fizz and tought mine was week becuase of my recipy.) My version didn’t have any ginger flavor, so if you follow my recipe, yours shouldn’t either. However, it did have a slight alcohol taste in the background. I did play it safe when making this, and with a bit of research, I found that cold brew coffee should only sit at room temperature for two days to avoid issues. So that’s exactly what I did since I also wanted to minimize alcohol content, but anyways here’s the recipe:

1 Ginger bug: if you don't have one yet just follow any online recipe that's what i did.

2 brew coffee: I went with cold brew because it made the most sense to me and letting hot coffee cool down would affect that flavor. BUT i did use a snickers flavored coffee and i did that for 2 reasons. 1: it's what i had on hand. 2: i was worried about a strong ginger flavor based off what i heard from others. I used 2 cups of distilled water (chlorine can kill the yeast in the bug) and 1/2 cup of coffee. After that, i let the coffee brew in the fridge for 2 days.

3. Prep the coffee: After two days, I filtered the coffee grounds out and added four tablespoons of sugar. By the time I was done filtering the coffee, it had warmed up a bit, so I just added white sugar and shook it until it was dissolved.

4 add ginger bug: Let the coffee fully come to room temp (I made the mistake of adding the ginger bug to the coffee right from the fridge, it didn't affect it too much but i would let the coffee warm up.) Then add 60 mL of the ginger bug, ofc strain out the gigner.

5 ferment: I kept the coffee in my room for 2 days, but the longer you let it sit, the more CO2 and alcohol should form. I personally kept my room at 27c, but I made sure to burp it every day. After that was all done, I threw it in the fridge.

I have some jars of very tasty salted lemon peel, but in a couple of them, tiny little growths, have appeared. They are button shaped, very uniform, just a bit bigger than a pinhead, and pretty much salted lemon peel colour. I assume these are mould of some sort. Quite sparsely present in the mass as well as on the surface. The batches are various ages, but at least 6 months old. Anyone know if they’re worth worrying about. I must say, I’m inclined to just treat them as part of the product, but of course, I might be wrong.

hi all,

I have been trying to make malt vinegar with a relatively dry porter using the generator method. Everytime i get it going though the acetobacter are evetually muscled out of the way by lactobacilus. why does this keep happening and what can i do to keep it acetobacter??

TL;DR: AAB (acetic acid bacteria) converts both alcohol AND sugar to acetic acid, it just converts alcohol faster.

I've been fermenting for years now—I've read The Art of Fermentation, The Noma Guide to Fermentation, obsess over fermentation in books and channels like Chinese Cooking Demystified, CookingBomb 袁倩祎, Dianxi Xiaoge, and Maangchi's content. I even have "Acid Trip: Travels in the World of Vinegar" on my shelf (haven't read it cover-to-cover yet) and grow koji.

However, I just recently learned that AAB (acetic acid bacteria) converts both alcohol AND sugar to acetic acid—not just alcohol. I've since read that this isn't preferred because the process is slower.

So, it turns out that backslopping with 20% raw vinegar from a previous batch is enough to transform sugary liquids into vinegar without needing to rely on yeast fermentation first.

It's obviously still recommended to dissuade pathogenic bacteria and fungi by starting with wine whenever you are relying on wild bacteria. However, this additional route is just good to know in general. I incorrectly worried that vinegar which did not bubble—or didn't display a noticeable development of yeast—was dangerous. I've had koji vinegar barely bubble, yet still acidified and formed a thick mother. Additionally, yeast can have a significant impact on flavor which is entirely avoided through routine backslopping.

Also—just a few fun facts to disseminate more uncommon information:

1. Fruit flies can carry—and be a vector for—AAB. I read that about a year ago.
2. There are strains of Brettanomyces, Saccharomyces, and Acetobacter which are abnormally acid-tolerant and extremely uncommon in nature. However, they thrive once naturally introduced into industrial vinegar and kombucha production. This is why wild vinegar doesn't always reach an extremely low pH even with added sugar.

Hi all! New to the continents of fermentation (made some kimchi and have a kombucha brewing) and got this bad boy here for Christmas (together with a 5l glass bottle). I wanted to ask for recommendations on what to try and set up this weekend. Looking for something easy, preferably non-alcoholic (or low in alcohol as I don’t drink); links with detailed recipes also welcome! Cheers in advance and all the best!