Top Layer Of Ground Brown Rice To Buffer Mold From Greens And Herbs Salt Brine Ferment

Sacrificial Ground Rice Barrier On Fresh Harvested Garden Greens Salt Brine Ferment To Block Mold

This was an experiment to see if it would be feasible to use ground rice to replicate the strategy of placing some kind of sacrificial piece of food at the top of a salt brine fermentation jar as a buffer against the inevitable mold layer that will grow on top of the food where the water line meets the air. I've used plastic bags, glass weights, and larger chunks above smaller chunks.

I poured about 3/4 of an inch of ground brown rice on top of a jar filled with fresh harvested greens and herbs. Luckily the rice didn't sink or mix in with the greens, it stayed at the top, got saturated with the brine, and the a bit of mold started to form, it did so on the upper surface of the air exposed rice. So it worked perfectly, the sacrificial rice mold lid, if you will, protected the food products below. This is a game changer for me because I strongly dislike having to scrape a layer of mold of the top of an otherwise perfectly edible batch of fermented food. Even if it's just a small percentage of the food, I'd prefer not to lose any of it. Though rice is inexpensive enough to where it makes sense of pour some on the top and scrape mold off of it rather than the food that's being preserved.