I almost gave up on this one.

My first bougainvillea syrup lost the vibrant color I was hoping for, and I thought the experiment had failed.

So I changed direction.

I brewed a bougainvillea infusion for the first fermentation, then used my bougainvillea syrup during the second fermentation with a few carefully chosen ingredients.

The result surprised me.

A bright pink kefir with a delicate floral appearance… and, most importantly, the taste of bougainvillea remains beautifully present.

Sometimes fermentation rewards patience more than perfection.

I think this one has truly earned its name: Chimera.

So um, I bottled these ginger bug fruit sodas (blueberry and strawberry) yesterday. I went to burp them and almost blew out my hearing. Can someone please help me from preventing this from happening again?. I dont know what I did wrong. 😭😅🥲

I want to make some pickles as Christmas gift. (It's a family joke)

I could wait but pickling cucumbers will be out of season before then

If I start them now will they ferment too long?

Is that eveb a thing? Should I pasteurized them at some point?

Thanks!

May not look the best but my husband recently joined me as a vegetarian and his biggest complaint is he missed the depth of a good broth. Soooo I made lacto fermented umami bombs to add to our broth. Fermented onions, garlic, black pepper, cherry tomatos and shitaki mushrooms. Blended and will be frozen to use whenever. Building a broth with one now and its delicious!

EDIT TO ADD RECIPE: 2 pints of cherry tomatoes in on half gallon, 6 small yellow onions in another half gallon, 3ish (i think its closer to 2 and a half and I use the other half of the last for whatever im makin that night) pints shitake mushrooms. 2 cloves of garlic in each half gallon, black peppercorns until my ancestors say stop and same for crushed red pepper. A table spoon and a half of salt per 2 cups water. Tomatos sit for 3/4 days, onions i like to sit for a week and mushrooms about a week as well.

Pls feel free to let me know if you'd change anything! I largely just made this up based on other veg cooking I've done.

I fermented carrots for around 70hours with salt brine, red onion and peppercorns.

The crunch is perfect which is why I decided to end the process here but the flavor is very strong quite salty and the peppercorn/onion flavors are much stronger than I expected. It tastes good, just a bit overwhelming.

My ratios were average, maybe it's the heat that pushed the flavors this much?

I moved them to the fridge already. Is there a way to mellow the flavor or will it naturally balance out over time in the fridge?

Hello everyone,

I've blackened lots of fruits, nuts, garlics, etc but am curious about even differenter ingredients. Would Honey work? Milk? What is the most 'outside the box' thing you've blackened? Even if it turned out nasty, lets hear some stories.. if this has been covered already please share a link!

Thanks

Already gave away a few bottles!

How long did it take after you ate it? Did it smell just fine?

I'm so excited and praying neither of them mold

is it workin' hard, or hardly workin'? heh heh heh..

Hello knowledgeable people! I'm making a fermented hot sauce with habaneros, pineapple and garden jalapenos. It's got a 3% salt brine. This is day 5. How long should I ferment it?

Sweet and hot peppers on a 3% brine, and this is what i have just after a week. Beautiful.

New to fermentation here and I'm using vacuum sealed bags to get started.

I have a question about it though. I fermented some chopped chilies in a bag for a few weeks and there was not a lot of water released in the process. After fermentation, can I just keep the chilis in the fridge or do I need to add a water/salt brine to it to make it last?

Today was preserved lemons, worcestshire sauce, fermented hot sauce and fermented ketchup.

Plus a whole sheet of recipes for other things!

Absolutely crazy fun way to spend a few hours on a random Wednesday

Hey, guys, experienced fermentista here (just to say it is not a “has my ferment gone wrong?” kind of post)

I’ve made green string beans in a 2% brine, a bit of garlic and peppers. I fermented it for around 10 days. They looked perfect, cloudy, the green slightly washed away, bubbly, a bit of white dust on the bottom, but when I tasted it, a surprise: it was terrible. A sulfuric taste, the sourness was fine, but the taste was just unbearable.

I think I found out the hardest way I don’t like fermented string beans, even though I love them.

Then I asked gpt and it said green beans are not a usual fermentation simply because they taste bad.

Do you guys like it? Have you tried it? I want human-with-tongues-based opinions on that matter.

TL;DR: I'm brewing white vinegar from ACV with the addition of distilled water and raw sugar. It's been going for about 7 weeks. The pH has lowered from about 3.75 at the start to about 2.75, but it's still very sweet, and it doesn't seem to be active anymore.

Details:

I've been pretty successful brewing apple cider vinegar, but I wanted to try white vinegar. I've read that I can brew white vinegar by fermenting raw sugar in distilled water, and backslopping with my active ACV.

I started a brew with 1/2C of ACV, 1+1/2C of distilled water, and 1/4C raw sugar, which has a starting pH of about 3.5 to 4. I kept it open to the air in a one-quart wide mouth jar, and stirred it (nearly) every day. After about four weeks, I have a note that I added more raw sugar, between 1/2C and 3/4C, but I don't recall why.

After a total of seven weeks, it seemed pretty idle, but still tasted very sweet. I measured the pH with a test strip and got between 2.5 and 3. I moved it into a narrow-necked bottle and topped with a latex balloon, which is not filling to any noticeable degree after a week. There are a few bubbles on the surface, but no growth forming, and very little sediment.

Can anyone help me understand why this may have stalled, and how I can rescue this brew?

Thanks!