Fermentation Notes

Fermentation Notes

A kitchen log: cabbage, cucumbers, bread starter, and the patience each one needs.

From the journal

Two percent salt

Everything begins with weight, not volume. Two percent of the weight of the vegetables, in salt, dissolved int…

Temperature decides everything

A cool room makes a slow, sour, long-keeping ferment. A warm one is fast and sharp and spoils sooner. Eighteen…

Keep it under the brine

The single rule that matters most: everything must stay beneath the liquid. What floats grows mould, and mould…

The starter

Feed it the same hour each day and it becomes predictable — doubling in four hours, smelling of apples and bre…

Cucumbers, dill, a little time

Small firm cucumbers, a head of dill gone to seed, a clove of garlic, and the two-percent brine. Four days on …

A year of jars

A loose record of a year: the spring radishes that were ready in three days, the summer beans, the autumn cabb…

From the gallery

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