Have a lot ferments going on but was missing my fermented mustard that everyone loves. Took a cup each of yellow/brown/black mustard seed and then filled jar with my spicy LAB brine from my hotsauce. Always a winner. Saved my extra brine in case I need to loosen up the mustard when it’s done. 🌶️

Just determined that this batch of mustard is done. Left it on a northern windowsill for about 3 weeks, shaking every day. Started smelling..... Rough, but eventually mellowed out to a spicy acidic taste.

Started with both jars filled with cracked mustard seeds and 3% brine. Shook every day to degas and mix.

Not especially spicy, so I'd like to know how I can get that burns your nose spice in a fermented mustard

Went for it this year in the garden. Habaneros ginger and garlic on the right after one week, the rest just started. About two gallons of hot sauce from the jar since. My question is about a white film on the top of my jared beets after 1.5 weeks. No other veggies/peppers have it. No pics I'm afraid. I tossed the batch, out of concern/ignorance/a busy work schedule. Did I make a mistake? Or did I save my life?

Hi first time making fermented hot sauce, blended garlic, peppers and onions with 2.5% salt added (no brine) to a clean jar and left the lid covered but not tight to allow CO2 out, smells great, no sign of mold or bubbles from fermentation. Is this normal?

Is there any clear signs it’s working properly or is no mold a good smell all I need to worry about?

Had no way to stop tiny pepper particles from floating up so that’s what you see in the top liquid.

Are these normal? This is my second season doing this. Never noticed this before. I don’t use a weight in the jar either I just make sure I coat the top every day with brine

Also some beets we grew and store carrots. Seasoned with salt and caraway.

Hello there
I need some help and advice regarding my ph . This is my first ever hot sauce batch , it’s been in a jar for two weeks.
Salt is 3,5 % of total weight. Not sure what went wrong as pH strip showed 6.

Please can anyone help me what to do with this? Should I keep it ? Add vinegar? Is it safe to eat? Thank you

I had a pretty big parsley plant that needed to be harvested and a Lions game to watch, so I decided to do something different.

I pulled the plant out of the ground and picked all the leaves off of it. I'm going to save the leaves to make a pesto when it comes time to harvest my basil. I cleaned and chopped all the stems, along with some celery in my fridge that was going limp, and a​ head of garlic that I only used two bulbs from. ​

No plan yet for the final product, I honestly just wanted to use up stuff before it went in the garbage. The smell of everything together reminds me of the base of a chicken soup - I might process the fermented solids into a sauce to add to soups now that the season is here. Might be good on some pasta, and I could easily brine chicken with the resulting liquid. We'll see in two weeks or so.

The numbers;

26 grams Garlic, crushed

278g Celery, chopped

1g Bay leaves

8g Black Peppercorns

253g Chopped Parsley Stems

11g Salt

And for those curious, I wound up with 165g of Parsley Leaves.

Here's hoping bacteria witchcraft blesses me with something tasty. Happy fermenting, folks.

Hey everyone,

Like a lot of you, I get an absolute headache every month trying to accurately track running production totals, map out Small Producer Relief (SPR) bands, and translate everything into the exact box orders HMRC asks for.

To make my own life easier, I built a web utility called Duty Sorted to calculate the math automatically. I’ve made a standalone version of the calculator 100% free and un-gated for the community—no sign-up or card required:

👉 [\[Link to your free calculator page\]](https://dutysorted.co.uk/spr-calculator/)

To show you how it breaks down messy edge cases, here is an example of it calculating a 5.5% draught beer batch (1,000 litres) for a producer nearing the threshold:

Tax Type Code: 356 (Beer from 3.5 to 8.4 percent, eligible for draught relief)

Pure Alcohol: 55.0000 litres

Full Rate: £19.45 per litre of pure alcohol

Duty Due: £1,069.75 (rounded down to the penny)

It even triggers alerts if your annual production crosses the 4,500 hl limit so you know exactly when SPR stops applying.

If you're a small cider maker, brewery, or distillery filing these monthly, I hope this saves you some spreadsheet math this month.

Check it out and let me know if you notice any weird edge cases with your specific tax codes—I want to keep updating it and making it better for the trade! 🍻

Anybody got any suggestions on how to ferment pears and what to use that for? I've seen online salt brine ferment, honey ferment and one with some kombucha starter tea. Any suggestions are appreciated

1/4 cup ginger bug and 4 fresh squeezed grapefruits

Decided my big jar (https://www.reddit.com/r/fermentation/s/0MCD8v5GMA) was ready to decant. Got three quarts plus a little for quality control, plus more pickled beet morsels than I know what to do with. Added a little rock sugar to the jars for a little effervescence before they go to the fridge

Hello! I am about to do sauerkraut and was curious if anybody had some really good additions or combinations, especially unusual ones. I’m trying to change it up from plain or caraway seed.

Periodically I spoon out a few cloves and eat. So delicious!!!

I’m not sure if it’s an issue that it seems like it’s stopped producing gases. It also is in a jar that doesn’t seem to create a tight air seal, is that going to create problems?

Thank you in advance

Behold! Red on top, green on bottom. 1 week in.

Hello- so I had a ginger bug some time at the start of 2025- it may have even been earlier than this. it was doing pretty well and then ADHD struck and I’ve completely forgotten about it at the back of a cupboard. remembered about it today and THIS is what I found. Now I’m not opening this bad boy but before I throw the ENTIRE jar away can someone please tell me what has grown because I’ve searched and searched and cannot find anything even remotely similar to this🤣

Im pretty new at the fermentation game. I tried to prep sauerkraut, but can't seem to ever pull out enough water from the cabbage to submerge the cabbage in the fermentation jar. I've salted the cabbage and sort of kneaded the salt into the cabbage. Then let it rest for 20 mins. The leaves were definitely moist, and there was some water at the base of the prep bowl, but not enough to submerge the leaves completely in the fermentation jar. So I resorted to mixing a water/salt brine and then poured it in to the jar to submerge the leaves.

How do you guys get the natural juices out enough to submerge the kraut? Or was 20 mins just not long enough of a wait?

Did a practice run with store bought as I just started a bunch of cabbages for fall/winter growing in Florida.
Tart, crisp, refreshing. 3 weeks total. Bubbles slowed/stopped past few days.

Cabbage, water, salt, mustard seed, caraway seed

Fermented from 9/17-10/11/2026. Various peppers, garlic, shallots, one carrot, added cinnamon stick for first 2-3 days, pepper corn, cayenne around 6% salt by pepper weight. Tastes good can definetly smell the cinnamon though don’t think it makes a taste difference

Some garden cherry tomatoes with 2% salt, been going for about a week

Got a food saver from the thrift store, and these little guys are aboard its maiden voyage under my roof. Didn’t expect them to be quite so active so quickly.

P.s. are we calling tomatoes fruit here, or is that too annoying