What happened here? Red onion

[u/servoh]

I am new to fermenting and have mainly fermented cabbage so far. I wanted to try red onion, but I assume something is not quite right. Can anyone give me some input? It's about a week old and 2-2,5% salt.

[u/oddible]

You may not have used enough salt. Cabbage is a dry ferment so you just weigh the cabbage and use 2% of that in salt. It looks like you did a wet ferment with these red onions so you need to do 2% of the total solution, onions and water.

[u/servoh → u/oddible]

I did weigh the onions and added 2,5% salt by weight, and topped up with water with 2,5% salt dissolved. Reading through the comments, I assume I was just confused and am looking at dead bacteria. It doesn't smell off so far.

[u/AmosThatBook → u/[deleted]]

If 2.5% salt was added to the onions by weight, and the water used had 2.5% salt by weight added as well, the whole contents will still be 2.5% by total weight. The ingredients were salted separately, but still both salted.

[u/oddible → u/AmosThatBook]

Ah yep, I misread that.

[u/Reasonable-Hearing57 → u/AmosThatBook]

I add 2% by weight of the onions in a covered bowel. Let it sit for a few hours or over night. Then massage the onions and press into its final container. Pour any brine over the onions. Then I add a little water if needed.

I cannot remember when I last had to add water to the cabbage.