Grooved Weights

[SolusUmbra]

So I bought a set of grooved glass weights because I wanted to try something with a handle and am having a disappointing moment. The bottom of them isn’t smooth and when I tried it in my jar it left an air pocket under neath it next to my veggies. To be on the safe side I went back to my old weights but wanted to post here to see if this in fact would be a problem or if I over reacted.

Tried to take a picture with my iPod and upload it but it says file to big. Don’t know how to make it smaller on the iPod.

[irie1029]

In my humble and unscientific opinion if the gap was not huge it will not matter as any O2 was trapped it would be replaced by CO2 released from the fermentation process. I do ask others to chime in.

[SolusUmbra]

finally found an app to shrink the photo. Here is what they look like.

[baerdric]

I wonder if those legs are supposed to go down?

[Tibor]

I would guess that the legs go up so you can grab it to pull it out.

[SolusUmbra]

That would be right the legs are handles. I emailed the company and they said if you push down hard enough all the extra air should be pushed out. At this point I wish I had ordered the other style of handled ones. Then again they I don’t remember what it said about the bottom on those. At this point I’m not happy with the customer service from the company. They don’t even have a phone number only email.

[Christopher Weeks]

I agree that it's fine for at least most vegetable fermentation processes. Your bacteria are going to kick out CO2 that will buoy toward the surface. Some of those bubbles will encounter the large bubble under the weight and cause some of that gas to displace out around the edges and up to the head of the vessel. At first, the air under the weight is our normal air mixture, but over a short time, the gas will skew toward higher and higher concentrations of CO2. Once it's essentially all CO2, there's no worry.

However, if you're removing the weight and interacting with the ferment, then each time you do that, the bubble starts over as fresh air and once you're well into the fermentation cycle, a lot less CO2 is being produced. It's exactly the same situation as fermenting under an air-lock of any kind.

[SolusUmbra]

Well I’m glad I double checked here cause I was about ready to put them into storage. Haha