Our Tropical Soil

Fermenting vegetables is a great way to preserve your harvests. I love it because it keeps the food in its raw form. This means there are higher nutrient levels in the final product than other preservation methods like canning or dehydrating. Most times when you ferment you need to use something to hold your vegetables down under the brine. There are many products online for this and some simple things you can use that you already have on hand. In my humble opinion, I think I have found the best fermentation weights.

Experimenting with Different Fermentation Weights

When I first began fermenting vegetables I tried using cabbage leaves and cups as fermentation weights. The cabbage leaves work well. However, I don’t always have cabbages at hand in order to use some of the leaves as a weight. The cups got the job done but there was one major drawback. The height of the cup made it so that I would have to leave my ferment uncovered with the cup partially sticking out of the jar. The other option would have to leave a lot of headspace in the jar so the cup would fully fit. In a pinch it works but it is not ideal.

My (Almost) Fermentation Disaster

One time, I was fermenting tindora to make my tindora “pickles.” I used a glass cup (pictured on the left) that was almost the same exact size as the opening of the jar (BIG MISTAKE). The cup got stuck in the jar! I had a few very stressful minutes as I was visualizing myself breaking the cup and having to throw the whole batch away. Thankfully my mother was able to pull it out. How she did it I do not know, but mothers always come to the rescue. After this experience I was reluctant to use a cup for fermenting again, so I went on to find a better solution. 

I did some research online for different options on fermentation weights. I liked the glass weights best because they are easy to clean and do not impart any flavors to the ferment.  However, I found a few drawbacks to the popular glass weights. The first being that they really only come in two sizes (wide and regular) that only work for mason jars. The second drawback was the price. Each weight would have cost me a few dollars each. Lastly, I had read numerous reviews online of glass weights cracking during the ferment, which led me to question the quality of the glass used for the weights.

What I Was Looking for in a Fermentation Weight

Since I use a lot of repurposed jars with varying mouth sizes I needed a set of fermentation weights with multiple diameter sizes. My ideal weight would be easy to grasp while in the jar, which makes it easy to remove. Finally, I was also looking for something reasonably priced, so that I could buy many of them!

This is collard kraut.

This is fermented cherry tomatoes.

The Perfect Fermentation Weight

I already had some Weck jars on hand, because I use them for canning. So, I began experimenting with the lids as fermentation weights and they were perfect! They come in a variety of sizes and are reasonably priced. They also have a lip around the edge of the lid that makes them easy to grasp while wet. The individual lids themselves are not all that heavy so, a few lids might be needed to weigh the contents down properly. 

Pictured are the lids in sizes extra small, small, and medium.

Where to Find Them

On the Weck jar website they sell replacement lids for their jars here. They sell 5 different lid sizes which are shown in the table below. The extra small and small work for most jars, however, medium is a good size for some larger jars. Large and extra large would work for some very large jars/fermentation crocks. Now, whenever I order some Weck jars I purchase a few replacement lids as well to add to my fermentation weight collection. 

*I do not have any extra large lids. I had to use the measurement on the Weck jar website for the "opening" of the jar, so the measurement might be a bit small.

To store my weights I used a repurposed plastic to-go container made for soup and a few pieces of scrap fabric cut up into rectangles. I like to stack the weights in the container and then add some fabric for cushion when I feel it is needed. It isn’t glamorous, but it gets the job done. 

Who else out there is fermenting vegetables, and if so what do you use as fermentation weights? I would love to know. Leave a comment down below if you wish to share.