Ok. Was just checking this. get a double seal baggie. put some water in it. squeeze all air out. seal. put in second baggie. squeeze all air out. seal=weight.
I read that , too. I tried it and it did not work at all well for me. It was ridiculously hard to get the floppy baggie with the water fitted into the top of the jar, and it needed quite a bit of water to weight down the sauerkraut properly. For me, the rock worked better; but I definitely recommend getting the glass jar weights. They are the perfect size and heaviness to hold everything under the brine and fit right up to the edge of the jar perfectly. It only costs once, they last forever, and all of the frustration of using other methods is gone.
If your jar/crock has a big enough opening, you can use a saucer or a plate as a weight. You just want to hold the vegetables totally submerged in the brine. As far as the burping tops, you can use a clean dishtowel, any plate/saucer, or a regular lid that's loosely closed to allow the gases to escape. You just don't want to seal the jar tightly while actively fermenting or it could explode.
Yippee!! My fermenting kit arrived late yesterday; it looks really nice. I also got a jar filling funnel and some wooden tongs. I've been scanning the instruction/recipe book and plan on fermenting "Gingered Carrots" and "Fuchsia Fermented Turnips" as my first attempts. The book also has a White Kimchi recipe that looks easy.
Today I made my first fermenting project, the ginger carrots. Except for prepping the carrots and ginger, it was extremely easy. Now to wait 2-4 weeks for the finished product. I found that my grocery store had pickling cucumbers so I ordered some in yesterday's delivery. The pickles are fresh and crisp but larger than I expected so I'll cut them into spears and then put them in the fermenting jar. So dill pickles next, then the turnips/beets. I guess we are experiencing another "food hysterics" situation because the wide-mouth quart jars are sold out everywhere, and the few places that still have some are asking ridiculous prices. I checked two local Walmarts and both were sold out of the wide mouth jars. So I ordered some jars from Amazon; I only wanted a few but the case of 12 was just a little more than buying 2 or 3 jars separately.
Forgot to add the picture of the gingered carrots. This is a 1-qt jar and it took a pound of raw carrots.
Today, I set up some honey fermented garlic. Eggs here are very expensive so I went to get some from the guy who sells me my hay for Thanksgiving desserts. He has bees, so, local raw honey! Got a goodly quantity of garlic and now I have super food, in the making. I tried using a clean used jar from olives since the garlic did not require traditional canning but the seal was not complete and in turning the jar upside down, as is recommended, I found the honey would leak in the process. So, I transferred the contents to a canning jar. My daughter once sent me a sample of the fermented garlic she had gotten at a healthfood store. It was yummy! Everywhere people are saying we need to eat garlic. I can't eat raw garlic. Not only because it is way too strong. But it causes me to leak garlic smell from my pores. This garlic is supposed to be great for our immune system. Unfortunately I should have started three months ago for cold season.
You are the only person I have ever met who has “my hay for Thanksgiving desserts”, @Mary Stetler …….
I found this article about adding salt to fermented veggies tucked away in a bookmark on my iPad while I was looking for something else https://www.fermentationrecipes.com/using-measuring-salt-fermentations/1014
Now I'll spend half the day googling "honey fermenting." Thanks, Mary! I have my pickling cukes in an ice-water bath right now; they will be going into jars in a little while with dill and garlic. I ordered some calcium chloride from Amazon after reading that a tiny amount will keep pickles crisp. It won't be here till tomorrow so I'm wondering if it can be added to the ferment as an afterthought...?? Anybody know?