Brine
Glass jars of pickled vegetables with their lids open.

Six ferments · forty-litre crocks · the jar comes back

Everything here is still doing something

A room off the market hall with eight crocks, a thermometer that is checked twice a day and a fridge you are welcome to look inside. Six things, made in season, sold in jars that carry a deposit because glass is worth more than the pound we charge for it.

What is in the fridge

The six

Two are always on. The other four move with what the growers three streets away have too much of, which means the list changes about every five weeks and never on a schedule.

A savoy cabbage against a bright pink background.

Kraut, plain

White cabbage, salt, and nine weeks. The one we have never stopped making and the one people drive across town for.

Salt2.2% Crock time9 weeks at 16°C Jar£6.50 + £1
Vegetables and eggs laid out on a wooden board with a knife.

The hot one

Cabbage, carrot, far too much garlic and the chilli the grower will not tell us the name of. Fermented warm and fast, four weeks.

Salt2.6% Crock time4 weeks at 21°C Jar£7.50 + £1
A single carrot on a pale blue background.

Carrot and dill

Whole small carrots, kept crunchy on purpose, in a brine you should drink afterwards. On from October to about March.

Salt3.1% Crock time3 weeks at 16°C Jar£6.00 + £1
A pile of unwashed potatoes.

Potato and caraway

The odd one. Boiled, cooled, then in the crock for eleven days. Half the people who try it will not have it again and the other half buy two.

Salt2.0% Crock time11 days at 18°C Jar£5.50 + £1
Oranges in a dark bowl, lit from one side.

Salted citrus

Whole fruit under salt for three months, from the box the greengrocer cannot sell. Six jars a week and it goes on a Saturday morning.

Saltby weight, packed Crock time12 weeks, cool Jar£8.00 + £1
Open jars of preserved vegetables standing in a row.

Whatever is sixth

Beetroot in autumn, radish in spring, green tomatoes for about eleven days in September. Ask, or look at the board by the door.

Saltvaries Crock timevaries Jar£6–£8 + £1

Eight crocks and a thermometer

No starters, no inoculation, no laboratory. Salt, weight, time and a room we keep between fifteen and twenty-one degrees, which is the whole trick and also the whole difficulty.

The crocks are stoneware, forty litres, and two of them are older than the shop. They get scrubbed and never bleached.

Crocks in useeight

Room, winter16°C

Room, August21°C, with the door open

Batches thrown away last yearthree

Growers we buy fromfour, all within nine miles

A whole savoy cabbage, leaves curling outwards.
A board of chopped vegetables, eggs and herbs seen from above.

Keeping it alive

Six things that go wrong at home, in the order we get asked about them. None of them is your fault and all of them are fixable.

It fizzed over the sink
It was warm and it woke up. Open it over a bowl for the first three days, then it settles. Nothing is wrong with it.
White film on top
Kahm yeast. Ugly, harmless, skim it off. Fuzzy and coloured is different — that one goes in the bin and you bring the jar back for a refill.
It went soft
Too warm, or it sat in a door shelf. Back of the fridge, bottom shelf, where it is four degrees and nothing changes.
Everything must stay under
Whatever is above the brine will spoil. Push it down with a clean spoon every time and never with your fingers.
It is too salty to eat
The citrus and the hot one are seasonings, not salads. A tablespoon is a portion and the jar should last you two months.
How long it keeps
Unopened and cold, a year. Open, about six weeks before it goes from sharp to sour, which some people prefer and we are not going to argue with them.

Anything you are unsure about, bring it in. We will open it, smell it, tell you honestly, and replace it if it is on us.

One carrot photographed flat against pale blue.

The jar comes back

A pound on every jar, back in your hand when the jar is. They do not have to be clean and they do not have to be ours — any straight-sided half-litre jar with a good lid is worth a pound at this counter.

Last year eighty-one per cent came back. The target on the board is ninety and it has been ninety since the shop opened, which tells you something about targets.

When we are open