Since we’ve been getting a farm share from our local CSA at Appleton Farms ( https://thetrustees.org/place/appleton-farms/ ) , I’ve been learning how to ferment things to preserve them ( you can only eat so many beets in one week ). I’ve gotten pretty good at various varieties of pickles and sauerkraut variants based on this very good book Fermented Vegetables: Creative Recipes for Fermenting 64 Vegetables & Herbs in Krauts, Kimchis, Brined Pickles, Chutneys, Relishes & Pastes by Amazon.com Services LLC ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KLNAJ0C/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_HS-lFb6ZBKYVZ )
I had initially gotten a ceramic crock for fermenting, but I found that after a while the salt from the brine would leech into the body of the ceramic because it had un-glazed edges and would crack the glaze from inside. This made it so that you couldn’t really sanitize the crock and mold would get into it and would infect your product. I ended up having to discard the crock.
Now I use glass jars, quart wide mouth jars, and this works great and additionally everything is already in a jar and you can just apply lids and refrigerate when the fermentation is done. The only challenge is having a proper seal and keeping the fermenting vegetables submerged in the brine. I had been using plastic bags filled with water which provided both functions, however it wastes plastic bags… So I found two options for glass “followers” (that is what these weights are called) one is a set of solid glass disks made to fit inside wide mouth jars, and the other is using the jam size ball jars which also fit inside filled with water. Both can be adequately cleaned and are reusable. I use a primary follower of parchment paper ( not having fresh grape leaves handy ) then the weight on top, cover everything with a towel to keep the light out.
I have a batch of beet, carrot, onion, cabbage sauerkraut and some dill pickles going now using both methods. I have high hopes, they were both a lot easier to use than water bags…. I’ll report back…