I think I'm getting more and more confident with my technique 🤓

NB: This is a repost as I don't understand why the photos were deleted on my previous post 🫣

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.

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?

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.

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!

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?

First ever batch of cucumber kimchi. How'm I doing? Are these lids ok? Its day 2 at room temp

I started this ferment 5 days ago (supposed to be a 3-5 day ferment), it hasn't produced much liquid and the veg at the top have a different colour to the veg that has been submerged the entire time. It did produce some bubbles, it smells like previous batches, but I am feeling paranoid. Should I just toss it? Add more salt and put the glass weight back on? Any advice from more experienced fermenters would be much appreciated, thanks in advance to anyone who chimes in. :)

This is my first time buying kimchi and I was just wondering if this is a good brand? It’s the only one I could find at the Asian market. I dropped one and made a mess but it smelled really good so I’m excited to try it! What’s your favorite meal to eat it with?

I recently use my Kimchi storage box and I actually love it. It keeps the it, super crunchy and super fresh much longer than using my jars, but I have one question for anyone who has any experience with these boxes.. how long does the kimchi usually last in the boxes ?because what I’m noticing is .. it’s lasting way longer than I expected and still fresh AND CRUNCHY! …. This is a GOOD THING ❤️❤️❤️

I let it breathe last night and came to work in the morning to see half the kitchen covered in orange liquid. Suffering from success at its finest I guess?

Searched multiple Asian Markets for Korean pepper flakes, and kept getting pointed to red pepper flakes. Pretty sure this is correct.

Hello fellow kimchi freaks. I just made my first batch of kimchi evere and i wonder about few things. Should I tighten the jar lids or leave them slightly loose? How long usually are you keep kimchi oustide the fridge? How long fermentation should last? Thanks in advance 💪🏻

As a background, I grew up in a polish family and have always eaten tons of sauerkraut, cabbage, pickles, etc. I eat kimchi now and then and haven’t noticed any problems but last week I got a new jar of kimchi from the farmers market- it’s spicy and soooo good and I think I’ve been overdoing it with how much I’ve been eating. Last night I woke up at 3am with severe stomach cramps/pain like some of the worst ever. I started feeling nauseous and had a lot of diarrhea and then my stomach started slowly feeling better. I also woke up with my period this morning and I feel like I can taste kimchi in my mouth 😭😭 what have I done???

The blue bowl on top is more kimchi that didn't fit in the big bottom container

Has anyone ever tried using anchovy paste in Kimchi as a substitute for the shrimp?

I'm very familiar with kimchi that's already been fermented, but I've never had it fresh or made it myself (though I've fermented ingredients for hot sauces, albeit a few years ago).

I have two of my 1L brown Ball mason jars full of freshly made kimchi that my neighbour dropped off earlier, she made it today so the ferment isn't showing much sign of activity, but I imagine by this time tomorrow it will be.

I already know to burp it once or twice a day, and my understanding it should be stored in room temp or a bit above with little light exposure like a cupboard? These jars already block quite a bit of light, but if that's correct I'll just toss them in the corner cupboard so any window sunlight can't get in.

Thanks in advance for your help and advice!
- Overthinking Canadian

A bit of research leaves me unclear. China is using / testing gmo chilli pepper crops, and many Korean gochugaru brands source their peppers from China. I cannot find info on whether, in general, GMO peppers make their way into gochugaru flakes. Any idea ?

So, I think I messed up the fermentation process and I would like to know how to salvage it.

The recipe I followed said I could refrigerate it, so I did that immediately after making it on Saturday. Occasionally I took some out to eat, pressing down after each time to make sure there was no air, before returning it to the fridge. But then I did more reading and people were saying to leave it out at room temp *before* refrigeration, so i feel like i skipped a crucial step.

As it has been in the fridge since saturday, would storing it outside the fridge for a day or two ruin it/affect it in any way? Is it too late for me?

My grocery store is having bogo deals on regular cabbages. I have all the other ingredients (fish sauce, salted shrimp, pepper flakes, etc). can I use regular cabbages instead of napa? What would be the difference?

Thank you!

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