When pickling, I noticed the water inside the fermentation lock never did anything. Isn’t it supposed to?
First off, everything is working fine if the fermentation lock is not active. Over the years, since 1992, and umpteen pickler reworks and trials later, I have found that sometimes the fermentation lock works, and sometimes it just sits there without activity. BUT, each time it pickles like Ol’ Faithful. The main goal in low-fermentation pickling is just keep the bugs out of the mash while the resident beneficial bacteria are setting up their new home. The Perfect Pickler™ does that just fine. To see if you can get the fermentation lock to work, you might unthread the lid and rub a little vegetable oil on the jar threads. Then gently and firmly tighten down the lid. When you insert the fermentation lock, push it down about a 1/2-inch or so until it is standing firm and upright. Check your fermentation lock. If the shaft has a ridge along the shaft where it was molded to the other half, you can use either a sharp knife and carefully shave off this ridge, and/or use fine sandpaper to crea
