I’m excited to announce the first in what will hopefully be a long line of thoughtful and relevant advertising partnerships* for this blog—-> Fillmore Container is a perfect fit for this readership (a source for any kind of jar or container you could imagine, hello!) and I’m excited to be working with them for the next few months.
They sell jars for handmade candles, bottles for homemade sauces, amber-tinted spice jars (to keep them fresh), growlers for home-brewed beer and kombucha, and so many other types of cool specialty jars. Beyond jars they feature a bunch of complimentary things, like all the ways of closing up jars, canning tools and supplies, and candle making accoutrements to name a few.
When I was chatting about giveaway opportunities with Fillmore Container, I thought about my passion for fermenting stuff and how getting your hands on a good container is probably the hardest part of the project beyond chopping the vegetables. I adore our gallon-sized (formerly olive) jars that our family has gleaned over the years from a middle-of-nowhere vintage shop and a bartender friend, respectively. You can certainly scout out gallon jars, but ones that have decent lids that actually fit are another story.
Our small stash of gallon jars are in constant rotation, if not full of fermenting veggies or kimchi then they’re holed up for 2-week kombucha cycles in our pantry.
Fillmore Container’s selection of wide-mouth gallon jars features two types of rim closures, a continuous thread and a lug version. I received both and love the continuous thread (plus the CT-style are completely USA-made)!
If you don’t win a free case by entering below, small-scale buying club arrangements will help diffuse the cost of shipping heavy, fragile things like large glass jars. I did some math and discovered that if a group of 8 Texas-residents went in on a shipment together, each person would pay 6.44 for a jar and lid. Beyond cost considerations, co-op’ing a jar order is a great way to a. get people over to your place (they do have to come pick them up, and hell, maybe sit for tea or a snack while they do), b. finally start your Culture Club or, c. just bring together a group of friends to have a skill-share fermenting party.
Fermenting with gallon jars
These jars are great for, on average, up to 5lbs of most kinds of produce. For ferments that fall around cabbage season, I like to use a couple of the outer leaves of cabbage to serve as a blanket and a glass or other jar that fits inside the large one as a weight to keep veggies from popping up above the brine. No cabbage, then get creative with with your options for weighting.
I’ve had success using my Le Creuset silicone, Cool Tool hot pad as a blanket. Fair warning, the silicone does absorb the flavor combo of your ferment, but after a few hot soapy water washes (and maybe a run through the dishwasher) it eventually returns to an innocuous, non-smelling, handy kitchen tool.
After the veggies are situated below the brine, I top the whole set up with a muslin produce bag. Cheesecloth and a rubber band works well, too.
For ideas on what to ferment, check out this recipe for fermented green tomatoes or search for other fermentation projects here. Use the salt:water brine ratio of 3Tbs:1quart, and substitute the green tomatoes in the recipe above for any firm vegetable and ferment away using that basic method. Up your volume in the gallon jar when you have a recipe you like, but keep in mind that if you want to keep the live, probiotic nature of the fermented goods, you’ll have to store the jar in the refrigerator once it’s finished fermenting on the counter. Our entire middle fridge shelf is now home to all sorts of ferments. They stay good in there indefinitely so long as you don’t contaminate them by double-dipping your saliva or other food-spotted fork in the jar.
What you get from Fillmore Container
If you win this giveaway, Fillmore Container will send you a case of four gallon-sized, wide-mouth jars plus their lids. I think it would be fun to invite three of your friends over and throw a fermenting party. Everyone shares the cost of the produce, you prepare it together and everyone takes their gallon jar home to let the lacto-fermentation process roll. You can do what you like with the jars, but if you decide to throw a fermenting party as a result, I’d love to feature photos of your party here on the blog.
As a special bonus prize in this Fillmore Container giveaway (and to encourage collectivism and sharing!), a friend who runs the Round Rock Le Creuset Outlet Store threw in four different-colored silicone Cool Tools. I’ll mail them to the winner to distribute with the jars or to use in your kitchen as desired. (psst, the Le Creuset outlets are a great place to make those special, fancy cookware purchases; they run periodic discounts and specials with their preferred customer list and also feature free shipping on orders over $100, just sayin…)
Giveaway ends on Sunday at 2pm Central Time, good luck!
*Some of you might recall my recent decision to pull the ad network stream from the site. While it was helping me to carve out more time in my schedule for keeping this blog running with creative content and decent photos, I was dismayed by the lack of control I had in whose ads appeared on my site. My marketing coordinator, Christina and I built a sponsor platform and sought out great companies we support.
Disclosures: Fillmore Container provided me with a complimentary case of gallon jars and they will be mailing the winner’s case of jars directly to them. The Le Creuset Outlet store in Round Rock, Texas provided me with four silicone Cool Tools at no cost to me. I will be paying to ship them to the winner. You will find a few links to my Amazon shop, and if you happen to purchase something from one of them, I stand to receive a small commission. Opinions and support for these companies are my own.