I just purchased a little cap that is used for pickling, or making sauerkraut, and I just love it ! There are several different companies that make these caps, so they go by several different names. I am just now learning how to make fermented veggies, and started my first batch of sauerkraut, and it is in a regular wide-mouth mason jar and using the pickle pipe. They are a soft plastic lid that has a little escape valve on it that sticks up, and it lets the gas escape out of the jar; but keeps everything from getting into the jar. This way, there is no chance of the jar building up enough gas pressure that it explodes, and still it is securely closed. I got mine from one of the Amazon review sites, but there are several types of these available on the internet. Here is a picture of my cabbage in the jar with the pickle pipe, and ready to start fermenting into sauerkraut.
Pickling is something that has always intrigued me. Everyone in my family loves pretty much anything and everything pickled, and it's definitely something I would like to explore in the future. Do you know how much the pipes cost? I tried one venture into 'pickling/preserving', and it didn't work out because the directions stated to close the jars securely, but somewhat loosely, and the product ended up getting moldy. I am still up for another try at some point, and this might be the product that could turn that attempt into a success.
These little plastic lids are actually fairly expensive, $15-$20 for a set of 3 of them, depending on which brand you buy. I would not have spent that much on them, except that they were offered on one of the review websites, and only cost me a couple of dollars to try them. Now, I wish I had another set ! ! These little gadgets work great for pickling. I have saurkraut in one, pickles in one, and my kefir in the third one. So, until something (probably the sauerkraut) gets done, I can't make anything else. At least not with something that needs the air-cap type of lid. I think that I really like pickling, at least so far, and I want to learn more about it. One of the companies that makes the little caps also has a website with a lot of great information, and they have a pickling book on the Kindle store for $1. However, after I found and purchased the book, I went to the website and discovered that it is free to download as a pdf file from the website. Here is the link to the website ad the free book. It explains a lot about how to pickle in general, and does not push their product on you,, and it actually tells you other ways tto achieve the same end result; so it is a pretty informative book, and easy to read and understand. Log In