Get fermenting: Fillmore Container giveaway
Monday, August 5, 2013 at 8:00AM
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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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…)
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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.
Reader Comments (81)
I still haven't tried fermenting. (I know, I know...) But I would love to try it with these amazing jars!!
kimchi. kimchi kimchi kimchiiii.
and kombucha. i can't wait to start!
If I win, I'll finally have the tools to start fermenting like I keep promising my husband I will! I've seen some greeeeeat stuff at the farmer's markets lately that I'd love to soak in jars!
Thanks!
I will share two with friends I know that make kombucha and may start to make my own (kind of on the fence about it). I would like to make fermented pickles again; did it once prior and it was pretty amazing.
What a great giveaway! I've been wanting to experiment with fermenting, too!
I'll be using mine for my sour-dough starts...among other tings. Very sustainable!!
I am new to fermenting.... But I've been wanting to try. This would give me the perfect chance to do so.
Gallon jugs have so many uses - especially for keeping things fresh and safe in my cellar. Fill them with rice, dry beans, homemade laundry soap, honey . . . the list is endless. I also like the idea of using them for fermentation and will do more research to learn about that.
These would be great for storing things like flour and sugar--bugtight!
I would put up pickles, carrots, & sauerkraut, to start with.
We have been fermenting but had no idea about using silicone trivets. Thanks for the great idea! I think our next project is some summer kimchi.
We've been keeping a fruit & veg garden for a handful of years now. While I've been canning and drying and freezing, I'm only just learning about fermenting. I'm hoping to get some pickling recipes worked out for some of the garden produce. I also think that jar might be useful in working out the recipe for ginger beer my ex-husband used to make!
Learning about Fillmore Containers and this partnership is as exciting to me as the much needed coffee at my side this Monday morning. Since I attended Kate Payne's pickling class a few months ago I've enjoyed many pickling and canning experiences- including giving out the items as gifts and having friends covet my spicy, extra garlicky creations.
Kate demonstrated some basic fermentation techniques and provided us with recipes for dill fermented cucumbers and sauerkraut although I have only recently started to succeed at fermenting. After purchasing books and reading many blogs posts (along with a more than a few tossed attempts at sauerkraut- including one at was 4 different colors!) I have finally created something I actually want to eat.
These containers are extremely exciting as pickling/canning friends and I have been searching for them for quite some time. With them, we will do what we've done with cans of jam, pickles, etc and that's use them as a community to try our own unique flavors and pass the delicious results around. I'm specifically excited about the prospect of Kombucha and cucumbers- my go-to summertime fermented snack. I also look forward to the future posts on fermenting here at Hip Girl's Guide to see what I can experiment with next.
What a great giveaway! I was just talking with some friends about taking a stab at my first batch of homemade kombucha!
Between Sandor Katz and your blog, we're never short on fermentation fantasies. Yay for jars!
I'd like to up my kombucha output and perhaps give some starter set-ups to friends as gifts. But I'd also love to try fermenting other things since kombucha is my only current ferm-venture.
Yay! Maybe I'll FINALLY start learning how to make kimchi!!!
I would use them for making dill pickles, sauerkraut, ginger carrots and more!!!
Kimchi! But also exploring/experimenting other items to ferment.
I want to try fermented pickles. This would be the perfect opportunity for me to start.
I've always wanted to try making my own sauerkraut!
Gallon containers are perfect for batches of kimchi. Also, another gallon jar would have been convenient after making 2 gallons of strawberry vinegar per your earlier post! Half gallons are working fine, just had to cut up that mother so every jar got some.
Just started fermenting and I love my half gallon jars. I can't imagine how much fun a full gallon would be!
I made some delicious fermented dill pickles a couple of weeks ago... I'd love to make a bigger batch in these jars!
Definitely want to try making some 'kraut! :)