How Do You Ferment Ginger
This is going to be a reeealllly short post because this is a reeeealllllllyyyy easy thing to do!

Gather Your Goodies
Fresh Ginger
Salt
Mineral Water
It’s Action Time
Peel the fresh ginger (easiest and safest way do this – I have found – is to pop a chunk of it on a chopping board and move a small, sharp knife slowly down the skin down towards the board)
Cut it into julienne strips (that’s strips about an 2 1/2 cm long and 3 mm thick – see photo)
Pop the ginger pieces into a small jar.
The safest way to experiment when you’re first trying new recipes is to use very small jars and just a small volume of food.
That way, if you don’t like the taste of a ferment, you won’t be wasting much.
Fill the jar with mineral or filtered water, leaving a 1 inch gap at the top
Add 1% salt. (I tend to add less than 1% for ginger, because it’s sturdy and I like to use as little salt as possible.)
Pop the lid on (a metal lid is ok if you only have normal glass jars to hand – you could use an old jam jar – but keep the water below lid level as you don’t want the metal to come into contact with the metal while fermenting is happening)
Leave for three days.
That’s it!
Open the jar and the ginger should be fizzing a little bit (i.e. bubbles in the water, or the water is a little cloudy, which means the good bacteria are alive and kickin’.)
If it hasn’t started to fizz a little, it’s most likely because your room isn’t warm enough. Just leave it a little longer if that’s the case. Pop it near the boiler, in an airing cupboard, on top of a fridge or anywhere extra warm, if you keep your house below 70 degrees.
Food will always ferment, whether you leave it at 5 degrees or 75 degrees. Colder takes longer, that’s all. The average house temperature is 65-72 degrees and this will work to around the timings I’m giving you.
Juice the fermented ginger as you need to use it and add to your green drinks and smoothies to cut through the bitterness of vegetables.
A tasty way to add probiotics to your recipes.
Ooh, Really?!
- Cut a chunk of veg and lay it on top of the ferment before shutting the lid. If you cut it to the size of the jar it will weight down the veg and keep them below the level of the water. I do this with some ferments, not others. It does help to prevent mould, but I find that some ferments sit below the water just fine and others bob above the surface, meaning mould is more likely. You need to keep all the food completely submerged.
- Food will always rise in water/ferments. So long as you keep an eye on it and top up the water if the jar leaks a little, all should be fine. Even though they’re kind of air tight, the pressure can build and liquid does seep out, so it’s wise to pop them on a tray that will catch the liquid and also open the lid to top up the water every day or so if it’s needed.
See you soon!
