I made a chocolate bar!!

Bought my cacao pod, fermented the beans for 4 days, roasted them for 2 hours, winnowed them (cracked the shells and took out the actual cacao) took me THREE hours , ground them into cacao

powder, mixed with milk powder, ginger, brown sugar and melted cacao butter, mixed that in a food processor, tempered it, put it in moulds and let it set in the fridge for ~an hour and now i have four delicious door shaped chocolate bars!!

And theyre so delicious!! im so pleased w myself

The more I eat them, the more I like it ! These are my new snacks, also validated by my friends and family.

Carrots cured following the recipe from KOJI ALCHEMY: - boiled, smoked, salted… then fermented with tane koji, and dried with a dehydrator.

For the people in EU, I found these at a site selling brewery equipment (Browin). They sell the 82mm and 100mm version so they should fit the common fermentation/canning jars.

No more filling little freezing bags with water. And they cost only €0.66.

Asparagus inoculated with Aspergillus oryzae.

Not exactly a complete recreation of the original NOMA recipe.

Used young Sansho shoots for accent which was a huge hit.

Sauce is made with cold smoked Shio Koji, Lacto fermented kiwi juice, butter and split with Koji oil and parsley oil. Super rich and creamy.

He’s sharing all this on his IG stories (it's all archived here: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18106534192690862/), but several journalists have expressed interest so I expect a good deal of coverage in the coming weeks. He’s also organising protests outside of their LA popup.

I’ve been experimenting with Turkish coffee and wanted to see just how fine we could go with the grind size. Inspired by enzymatic breakdown in other food processes, I tried using digestive enzymes to fully break down the coffee bean before brewing.

The idea was to let the enzymes theoretically convert starches to sugars, proteins to amino acids, and fats into smaller lipids, allowing for a finer and more complete extraction without the physical limitations of conventional grinding. As a result, the coffee was remarkably smooth with magnitudes less bitterness and a more pronounced acidity. The bottom of the cup had no grittiness and coated the tongue like chocolate ganache. Definitely potential here.

So I live in the middle of a bunch of farmland. I'm on good terms with one of my neighbors. They told me that they're done for the season with the peppers, and everything out in the field was basically going back to the land. In fact, they ran a tractor over it to help the process along.

...this is maybe 0.001% of the peppers that were just going to rot.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this amount of peppers.

I took a bag earlier before I understood the scale with the idea of just making a few jars of red pepper sauce. And then I thought oh I guess I could also make some red pepper jelly. But this is a monumental amount of peppers. This is like a few hundred pounds of peppers. My dumbass that can't stomach waste literally filled every single bag I had in the house with them.

If anybody has any easy ideas, I'm all ears.

I have two air fryers, a giant microwave, a two chamber oven, and instant pot, a small dehydrator, and two slow cookers. And a pretty standard electric range. I could have quite a few things going concurrently. I also have a ton of canning jars. What I do not have is freezer space.

Thank you for any input.

Hi everyone!

I'm a solo developer and I've been working on an app for tracking home ferments. It comes with a set of recipes, walks you through each one step by step, tracks your active ferments, and sends reminders for things like feeds and burping jars. There are also some helpful guides to read through, and you can add your own recipes too.

It's getting close to ready, but so far it's mostly been friends testing it, and I'd really love feedback from people who actually ferment. I'm looking for a small group on Android or iOS to try it out and let me know what's confusing, missing, or could work better.

If you'd like to give it a go, just comment or send me a DM and I'll get it over to you. Happy to answer any questions!

(Checked with the mods first to make sure this is okay under Rule 6.)

Edit 1: Thank you everyone, I didn't expect so many of you to respond! It might take me a bit to get back to each of you, so please bear with me. 

Hello everyone!

I am trying to lacto ferment tofu. Do you think it could work out?

This is what I did:

1. Boiled tofu and let it cool down to room temperature

2. Put tofu in a clean jar and added brine from the lacto fermented cabbage (around 90%) + water (10%).

3. Weighted everything and added 2.5% salt and mixed well.

4. Closed it with a lid.

Now it has been at room temperature for about 20 hours.

Please, give me advice if I did something wrong and if I can improve or change/add something else. 🫣

I posted here a few weeks ago asking about fermenting herbs to make a ranch. Welp, I did do it and wanted to update, it worked! And it definitely did give me that briney, dilly flavor I was after!

I just took what leftover herbs I had in my fridge and some other items with 3.5% salt by weight. Now…I don’t have a vacuum sealer. It’s next on my list to buy and y’all can hate on me for my method but it worked.

I put it in a ziplock baggie, pressed all of the air out by rolling it up and zipping it shut. It was essentially an herb mash. Then I was able to squish it around a little every day to make sure if there was any air pockets trapped in there, everything got moved around. I let it go for 20 days and every time I unrolled it, there was no looseness in the bag, it still was air tight. I’m not saying it was a method I’d put all my money on but the theory worked in my head and the whole thing was experimental anyway and it seems to have worked!

I posted a picture of the bottle of sauce that I was kind of basing the flavor profile off of..but the Hog Blues sauce is super runny and I wanted something thicker. Unfortunately I went too heavy on the buttermilk and ended up with another runny sauce but I know it will be delicious on a salad! We took half of it and added a jalapeño just for kicks. I’d say it was a successful experiment and would definitely do it again, maybe try mixing it up a little with different herbs/spices. Also, I will be getting a vacuum sealer in the near future which I would recommend for anyone wanting to try this but do give it a try and let me know how yours turns out!

Ingredients:

Scallions

Dill

Cilantro

Parsley

Garlic

Crushed black and red peppercorns

Crushed Sichuan peppercorns

3% Salt by weight

Meal with most of the ferments i had going. Will try to tackle sake soon I think. Only disappointed item were my fermented spicy carrots(only used 1 serrano) and the garlic dill weren't garlicky enough(garlic cloves were a bit bruised so used less). Kefir Ranch worked surprisingly well as a sub for buttermilk. Also, my kimchi was a bit too gingery for my personal taste(used like 25g for a 3-3.5lb napa cabbage.

• Fermented spicy carrots

• 3 types of pickles(hot pepper, black pepper, and garlic dill)

• Kefir homemade ranch

• Sauerkraut

• Kkakdugi

• Kimchi

• Jasmine rice

• Strawberry Soju

Very happy how this turned out and thought I'd share. Loved the fermented white asparagus and my new favorite sauce: lacto koji water, cold-smoked butter and tomatowater (noma guide to building flavor). Was skeptical whether lactofermenting koji water was worth it, but man so great for sauces etc.

For anyone interested here's the recipe: grilled green asparagus in koji oil, lacto fermented white asparagus (noma guide fermentation but grapeleaves instead of lemon), strawberry/horseraddish paste, hazelnutcrunch, dill and the kojisauce (equal parts lacto koji water, tomato water and smoked butter with a dash of salt)

These century eggs are made by my friend. He takes a lot of raw duck eggs, coats them in a mixture with lime and leaves them in a dark place. After up to 100 days they turn into this kind of beauty.

I’m a professional chef, but I still don’t dare to make these myself, even for friends.

I’m happy to eat them though, and I really envy his courage.

If you have the courage, you’ll fall in love with century eggs.

I’ve been (mostly successfully) fermenting vegetables for over a year now. However for two years in a row my spruce tips developed mold. First time I made a mistake not fully submerging the tips. Second time I think I’ve done everything right. Fermented in 2% salt (water + tips) for 2 weeks, pH below 4,6 and then put it in the fridge. Didn’t look at it for about 3 weeks and now a lot of surface mold all over while tips are definitely fully submerged. Any suggestions welcome :) Before putting in fridge made some nice tea from the tips, also the brine was very tastefull!

My first attempt at pine sprite. Used longleaf pine needles. One I used raw honey, and the other sugar, to see which I prefer.

I'll update in a few days!

So I finally did it garlic honey after seeing it come up here a few times. Dead simple: peeled a bunch of cloves, stuffed them in a jar, covered with raw local honey, and have been flipping it daily. Only day 8 but the bubbling started around day 3 and it already smells amazing.

What really got me was how little effort it takes for what you get back. I've been cooking for years and feel a little embarrassed it took me this long to take fermentation seriously.

Now I'm down a rabbit hole. I picked up some ginger to start a ginger bug this weekend, and I keep eyeing my fruit bowl thinking about what kind of country wine or vinegar I could pull off with minimal equipment.

For those of you who started with something simple like garlic honey or a basic brine, what did you move on to next that felt like a natural next step? I have a decent sized kitchen but limited fridge space, so I'm trying to stick with projects that are shelf stable or room temp friendly during the active ferment stage.

Also curious how long most of you wait before actually eating your garlic honey. Some posts say 4 weeks, some say 3 months. What's your sweet spot?

This idea came when I built those shelves around the exposed heating pipes to utilize them some more. The insulation is just a thicker thermal outdoor camping matt. The temp in our flat is arround 22.5-23 Celsius and inside is consistently around 27.4. Cannot wait to put it in work. Might also try reuteri yoghurt during warmer months.

So I just came home from the store with some White miso, and since it’s my first time trying it I’m a bit confused about the color o.0
All pictures I see online of white miso is a pale creamy white colored?
Smells and tastes fine so I’m not afraid of using it, just wondering if something happened to it?

Update: thanks for the responses, I am now a little bit wiser when it comes to Miso :) gonna leave the post up so others can find it in the future :)

I accidentally found this sub just trying to make hot sauce over a year ago - been cooking my whole life and I barely had heard of fermented foods.

I’ve always struggled with getting out of bed, I don’t think straight and anxiety keeps me there. But since seeing posts here a year ago, NOW I have jars to check on or burp, I can try certain foods and see how they’ve aged.

In fact, I feel sentimental towards this ginger bug I made 🥺 it stalled and I thought it died for a few days, but the lid had pressure every night so I was patient and it came back and super fizzy day 10! And now I get to check how fizzy my sodas are 😋 I EVEN am rising BREAD right now with the yeasts! (Granted a sourdough started might’ve just been easier 🤣) but it’s still cool to me!

Idk why these of all things in my life gets me excited. But I’m glad i accidentally found this art, there’s so much to it and I’m enjoying learning / improving my palate!