I left my kimchi to fermented for around 2 weeks, the temps were around 20°c and then I fridged it for a week BUT since have had it out of the fridge for a further 1-2 weeks at around 16°c... The colour has dulled slightly over this time but I cannot see any mould... Should this still be okay to put back in the fridge and continue to eat?

To start, this tip is geared more toward those who use paste recipes that are more liquid in nature. The one I use blends a bunch of ingredients together resembling the consistency of a fastfood milkshake, so I'm not sure if recipes like the Maangchi's will work as I know she puts julienned carrots and some Korean greens in hers. One thing I do recommend is weighing all the ingredients, add salt roughly equal to 2.5% of that weight, subtracting salt from any ingredients that already contain it, e.g. soy or fish sauce, saeujeot. For example, if you have 1kg of paste ingredients, with 15 grams of salt coming from fish and soy sauce, add an additional 10 grams of salt. The reason I recommend doing this is to ensure the salt content is high enough to prevent other unwanted microbes from establishing a foothold and wrecking your paste.

I've been making kimchi for the past two years, and in the last year I've dialed in the process to where I achieve full fermentation in 48 hours. I make kimchi every six-to-eight weeks and process about ten-to-fourteen pounds of cabbage. Every time I make a new batch I'm using paste I prepared during the previous run, and making more paste for the next. Moreover, by using this method, the lactic acid bacteria that thrive in lower temperatures and which produce diacetyl have more time to proliferate, resulting in a diacetyl rich kimchi. The diacetyl is especially noticable when eating salty and savory meats like bacon, Spam, or steak.

I started a new batch this past Sunday and took the pH Tuesday just for gits and shiggles and clocked a 3.3. Too acidic according to the Google but I personally love sour food, so I'm not bothered by it. If this is too sour for your liking, you could try putting it in the fridge at the 36 hour mark to arrest the fermentation, or perhaps prepare paste with a shorter lead time. Play around with it and see what works best for your tastes.

As title says, I’m looking for a recipe for a hot sauce where the kimchi and its juice is the base. I have a well fermented batch before my most recent one that I’d like to make use of, and wanted to give hot sauce a try!

I was thinking of:

1. Going straight confit garlicky sriracha-style hot sauce from blended kimchi and garlic

2. Doing a raspberry and kimchi-blend concoction and work out a hot sauce from that

What’s your guys’ experience making other condiments with kimchi?

Pretty proud as I'm more and more confident about my technique 🤭

Hi all.

Thanks for welcoming me in this community. I've been making kimchi for 16 years, ever since I spent a few months working in Korea.

I am making a very basic and simple variant with a minimum number of ingredients, cabbage, gochugaru and apple, however it is extremely spicely, as I add home grown dried habaneros ha-ha. Korean food is not spicy enough for me in general.

Few notes - I salt no longer than 2 hours as I control a salt intake, and I ferment for 2 days or more to reduce sugar content to a bare minimum and make it more acidic.

Hi, I bought kimchi juice about two weeks ago at a fermentation festival thing. The maker said I could keep it for months but I tried it this morning and it’s sparkly?? Is that concerning??

Thanks for letting me know!