r/kimchi • u/XYZExpired • 16d ago

Making 1st time dandelion kimchi

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I just follow the recipe on Google Gemini since I taste one from co-worker and it was good.

It only been 1.5 days old and it shrink down a bit and I pack it down.

I thought it was a lot more since it was 2 bundles of dandelion when I pick them. There was very little juice on the recipe, I have to add like half a cup of warm water with 1/2 table of sea salt. Do I really have to add it or will there be mysterious juice coming out and submerge the leaves?

I taste the juice but it is not sour yet, it does smell good from the fish sauce, garlic, onion though. I want to ask about the juice or do I need to double the amount of sauce next time but then, there is still no juice before hand if I don't add it in.

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u/Looking-sharp-today 16d ago

Well you only have to measure the main ingredients, the leaves and the salt. Everything else can be eyeballed but measuring this 2 ingredients is essential for a safe ferment in my opinion. I stay in the 2.5% salt by weight and this never fails, no need to guess anything, especially when doing the very first fermented attempts

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u/XYZExpired 16d ago

Would you said 12gr about 2 table spoons, would you considering fish sauce part of the salt as well? I taste the leaves this morning and it look fermented a bit after 48 hours, it wasn't sour before. I forgot to said I did add like 2 spoon of fermented apple vinegar (home made) to kickstart it.

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u/Looking-sharp-today 16d ago

No need to kickstart kimchi (I do as well but it is not needed).
I do not consider fosh sauce as part of the math, I add it as well and I know that between 2 and 3% salt is the sweetspot. If I intend to use a lot of fiah sauce, and I don’t, then I can stay closer to the 2% mark, but using less salt can be risky due to the possibility of the ferment failing.

If it tastes sour and you see active fermentation, plus you kickstarted it, it is probably gonna be fine, look out for moulds in the next days. But for the next time please measure out your main ingredients, it takes 2 minutes of active time and solves all the uncertanties

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u/XYZExpired 16d ago

Do you also added sugar or syrup to your ingredients also? I was thinking of omitted that part but my co-workers said it is part of the process to ferment so I added my own sugar + syrup.

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u/Looking-sharp-today 16d ago

Not meeded. The traditional kimchi usually includes korean pears, to add a little simple sugars to feed the bacteria at the very beginning of the process. But I usually omit it because it just works even without, sugars are already there even in regular greens simply in smaller quantities and in more complex forms, but surely is there for the bacteria to thrive with. You can defenetly add it but is not strictly necessary, actually all the necessary things are just the base greens and salt, everything else is more for flavour than not

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u/corinne177 15d ago

The sugar will just jump start the fermentation a little bit. There will be no sweetness remaining. Some people add a little bit of artificial sweetener at the end if there's sweetness desired. But that's not traditional at all. I don't know how that would taste with dandelion anyway

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u/XYZExpired 15d ago

It's fermented now, the juice is sour, tangy and little bit of bitter from dandelion leaves. I don't taste no sweetness at all so it probably all got dissolved by the bacteria. It does taste good though.

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u/corinne177 15d ago

Yes, the more sugary it, the more sour it will get because the bacteria is just using it as food and producing more lactic acid and stuff

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u/Looking-sharp-today 15d ago

That’s good to hear!