Journal
Two percent salt
Everything begins with weight, not volume. Two percent of the weight of the vegetables, in salt, dissolved into the brin…
Temperature decides everything
A cool room makes a slow, sour, long-keeping ferment. A warm one is fast and sharp and spoils sooner. Eighteen degrees i…
Keep it under the brine
The single rule that matters most: everything must stay beneath the liquid. What floats grows mould, and mould on the su…
The starter
Feed it the same hour each day and it becomes predictable — doubling in four hours, smelling of apples and bread. Skip t…
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 the counte…
A year of jars
A loose record of a year: the spring radishes that were ready in three days, the summer beans, the autumn cabbage that f…