Equipment

You don’t really need much equipment for fermentation, other than a suitable jar or crock to put the ferment in: your essentials are basically a sharp knife, a chopping board and a mixing bowl, and measuring scales. But there are other items that are useful, and a few things to remember.

A pounder is good when you make big batches, to make sure your vegetables are really tightly packed (when making smaller batches, your fist will do the job fine). You can buy special pounders but there are things in the kitchen already that can work well – a pestle for instance, or a straight-ended rolling pin. And sticky labels are useful for naming and dating your ferments; it’s easy to forget when the jars are lined up on the shelf.