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Home Fermenting Starter Kit: Everything I Use for Sauerkraut, Kimchi and Pickles
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items I started fermenting because I hated throwing out half a cabbage. These days there is always a jar going on my counter, and the whole setup cost less than a single takeout dinner. This list is the gear I use, ordered the way I would buy it again: one...
Sections
3
Your first jar, and nothing more
When one jar stops being enough
Knowing when it is working
Your first jar, and nothing more
Everyone overbuys at the start. You need a jar, a way to keep the vegetables under the brine, a way to let gas out, and the right salt. That is it. Here is the shortest path to a jar of sauerkraut this weekend.
If you buy one thing on this list, buy this. It bundles the silicone airlock lids, the glass weights, a tamper and a recipe book, so you skip the part where you order four separate things and wait for them all to arrive. Starting here is cheaper than...
Masontops Complete Mason Jar Fermentation Kit
Wide mouth, always. Regular mouth jars are miserable to pack cabbage into and worse to get it out of. A 32oz jar holds about half a large cabbage, which is the right amount for a first attempt you might get wrong.
Ball Wide Mouth Mason Jar 32 oz 12 pk Mfr# 67000
Vegetables above the brine go fuzzy. These sit on top and hold everything under, and the finger notch means you can fish them out of a full jar without tipping brine down your arm. The starter kit above includes a set, so buy this pack when you have ...
Wide Mouth Pickle Pebbles Canning Weight, 4PK
The one ingredient people get wrong. Iodised table salt can stall the ferment and the anti-caking agents cloud your brine. This is pure salt, it is cheap, and one box lasts a very long time.
Morton Canning & Pickling Salt, 4 lb, White
Fermenting is one recipe: 2% salt by weight of vegetables. Once you weigh instead of guessing with spoons, your results stop varying batch to batch. Any scale that reads to the gram will do, so buy the cheap reliable one and spend the difference on c...
Taylor Digital Kitchen Glass Top 11lb Food Scale Black
When one jar stops being enough
This is the stage where you stop experimenting and start planning. You have made sauerkraut three times, it worked, and now you want bigger batches and a go at kimchi. These are the upgrades that were worth the money.
The upgrade that changes the routine. The water channel around the rim seals the crock by itself, so there is no daily burping and nothing gets in, and it holds enough cabbage to last a month. This is the one I actually use, and the wooden stomper th...
Lehman's European Style Fermentation Crock Set with Stomper and Weights
Kimchi in a mason jar is a mess. This has an inner lid you press down to keep the vegetables submerged, so the brine stays where it should and the smell stays inside the container rather than in the rest of your fridge.
E-Jen Premium Kimchi Sauerkraut Container 1.7L
Shredding a cabbage by knife takes fifteen minutes and the pieces come out uneven, which means they ferment unevenly. A mandoline does it in two minutes. Use the hand guard, I am not joking.
OXO Handheld Mandoline: White Kitchen Slicer, Dishwasher-Safe, ABS & Silicone, 11.3" Height, 1 Blade, 2 Pieces
For the ferments you want to look at. Glass lid, rubber gasket, no metal anywhere to corrode, and they stack in the fridge properly once the ferment is done and moving to cold storage.
WECK 743 Mold Jar, 27oz Wide Mouth Glass Jar
Once you are fermenting vegetables you will end up making hot sauce, and hot sauce needs bottles that seal. These hold pressure without leaking, which matters if your sauce is still slightly active when it goes in.
YEBODA 16oz Clear Swing Top Glass Bottles, 6 Pack
Knowing when it is working
The two questions every beginner asks are whether it is meant to smell like that, and whether they have poisoned themselves. These two answer both.
Buy this one first. It is the practical book: sixty-odd vegetables, what to do with each, and a troubleshooting section that tells you the difference between kahm yeast, which is fine, and mold, which is not. That section alone will stop you throwing...
Fermented Vegetables: 10th Anniv Edition Recipes
Below 4.6 and your ferment is safe from anything nasty. Strips cost almost nothing and they turn I think this is fine into a number. Worth it for the first few months, until your nose knows.
pH Test Strips for Kombucha Brewing 0-6 Kit