Salt brine ferment/pickle something - PEP BB food.sand.salt

I used this recipe from the kitchn: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-homemade-sauerkraut-in-a-mason-jar-193124

Ended up using a bit more salt, adding some water at the end of top off the jars, and included some cloves of garlic, and lightly crushed mustard and cumin seeds. Saved some of the outer leaves as someone had mentioned earlier in the thread to cover the tops of the jars and make it easier to push everything back down as it bubbles. I had another head of cabbage to be fermented, but ran out of jars, so I’ll probably just make a veggie soup with that one!

I brined green tomato pickles.  My own recipe.

Cut green tomatoes into wedges.  Use only the firm ones that have not begun to change color at all.

Place some mustard seed,  raw whole garlic, lovage seed, and a serrano pepper in bottom of clean jar.

Pack in the tomato wedges.

Cover with 10% salt brine (or a bit weaker next time,  as I think these were too salty for my taste.).

Scrunch a grape leaf on top, and weigh down if needed to keep tomatoes under brine.  Check every week or so and discard and replace grape leaf if it gets moldy.

Pickles are ok at 3 weeks,  better at 5.

1-1/4 teaspoons salt to 1 cup water
Hot peppers
Sweet peppers
Garlic

I started the lacto-fermentation of some chopped carrots and grated beets using a salt brine, with the guidance of content found on the forums and some additional research.

Preparation
Salt Brine: 2 Tbsp salt per 3 cups of filtered water, mixed at room temperature
Vegetables: Carrots and beets
Seasoning: Dill, sage, and garlic cloves for the carrots; Dill, mustard seed, hot pepper, and minced garlic for the beets

Method

Peel and chop carrots, grate beets

Lightly pound beets with seasoning to incorporate

Pack vegetables into sanitized jars

Fill with salt brine to fully submerge vegetables (I used a piece of leek for weight)

Cover jars with cloth and tighten (I used a coconut-based cloth)

Ferment for 1-2 weeks, tasting throughout to determine your preferred results

This was my first attempt at using salt brine for fermentation; so simple and makes a happy gut! My recipe yielded just over 1 qt total.

I've been fermenting for a while - sauerkraut, ginger carrots, green tomatoes, and last year my daughter and I made pretty authentic kimchi, which was a whole thing, but I don't have the requisite pictures of that process.  So, I will share a very simple ferment with you: kvass.

Kvass can be several things, but I'm using it to denote simply fermented beets.  I always end up eating the chunks of salty beet pickles, but the main product is the deeply colored liquid.  It's so deeply colored that just a little bit makes a whole glass of kvass, and it's not even salty when you dilute it that much.

So, it's just chunks of red beet in a salt brine.  I make the salt brine by putting a couple of tablespoons of salt in a measuring cup, then add very hot water to dissolve, then add cold water to dilute to, um, medium salty.  More salty than chicken soup, but not crazy salty.  Then, I take my organic beet that I've washed and cut into chunks, load up a jar, add enough brine to cover and add a weight to keep the veggie chunks submerged.  A lid with an airlock lets it breathe, and then you wait.

When it's ready, you just pour out the liquid a little at a time and drink it greatly diluted.  It's a great thing for my daily fast (I eat OMAD - between 6pm and 9pm, generally) as it's quite low carb/low calorie but very flavored.

The sunchokes here have gone dormant for the winter, so this morning I dug some to ferment.

My bowl of harvested sunchokes.

Grating scrubbed sunchoke pieces.

I'm out of wide-mouth quart jars, so I used a half-gallon jar instead.

Packed down, the grated sunchokes exceed 2 pints.

For my brine, I use the sauerkraut brine recipe from Nourishing Traditions.

Recipe calls for 1 quart of filtered water, 1/4 cup of whey, and 1 tbsp seasalt.

The whey makes the brine a little murky looking, but I like how it helps ferment the veggies.

Contents weighted and jar sealed with a fermentation lid.

Can't wait to eat some!

Pickled Giardiniera

Handful of basil leaves in the bottom of the jar
Fill jar with cut up vegetables of choice
Whole garlic cloves to taste. ~3 for me

Pour over brine solution to top the jar.
Brine is 1 Tbsp salt to 1 cup of water.

Keep in a cool dark place for 2-3 weeks or longer.

Hi!
Here's my recipe for bok choy kimchi.
Recipe (from my blog): Kimchi Recipe

Here is my submission for the Food Prep & Preservation Aspect - Sand - Salt Brine Ferment Cabbage & Carrots BB.

Here is a photo of my fermentation kit (glass weights, airlocks, and tamper) for wide-mouth mason jars.


The kit provided about a dozen recipes including sauerkraut and ginger carrots.  My sister was intrigued by the ginger carrots and asked me to make some while I was preparing the cabbage.  

Sauerkraut (quart jar)
about 3 pounds of cabbage
1.5 tablespoons kosher salt (I used pink salt)
I skipped the caraway seeds and added 2 oz water to top up the liquid about 5 hours
I like to pack/tamp/pound cabbage into a pint jar first then transfer to a quart jar and tamp again.  I find that if I pack into an empty quart jar then I bang my hand on the rim of the jar - ouch!

Ginger Carrots
3 largish carrots
1.5 teaspoons of ginger paste
1.5 teaspoons salt
water to fill jar (about 1 cup)

To document the completion of the BB, I have provided the following:
 - Post a description/link to the recipe you used (above and photo)
 - post a picture of the ingredients chopped or ready to be packed in jar (including my process)
 - post a picture of the filled jar

Here's some fermented pickle spears I made for this badge bit. As it's the height of summer, they only took a couple days to get done! Tasty, if somewhat softer than I prefer.

[edit to add forgotten recipe]

- Cucumbers cut into spears
- Dill seeds
- Crushed black peppercorns
- 1-2 allspice berries
- a clove
- garlic
- 1/2 a bay leaf
- 1 tbs homemade calcium citrate
- 1 grape leaf


Put spices into bottom of jar. Pack spears into jar tightly. Add brine (1 c water to 1 tbs salt) until covering the spears. Top with a grape leaf to protect tops of spears.