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Mold vs Kahm

PostPosted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 7:10 am
by Fluxit
Hey folks,

Thanks for this forum. Just read Sandor's book recently and got excited, but I struggle a bit with mold. Both in avoiding and identifying it.

Can you help me with this one?
It clearly has Kahm as water surface appearance, I know how that looks by now. But these weird pinkish 3d waves and crests? I have no idea. Have you?
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Also, there are white-ish sediments in the submerged tomatoes. From what I believe to found out, these are okay and typical for some fermentations. Please confirm.
(Sorry for blurry image. The bright part on top is a glass pushing the tomatoes down, thus everything you see is in the brine.)
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Re: Mold vs Kahm

PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:25 am
by Christopher Weeks
I can't really claim to know, but I suspect that's mostly harmless kahm with the pink coming from the produce. Sometimes kahm is a really thin bare residue and sometimes it blooms into that kind of thicker, clingy mat. When I get stuff like that, I just wipe it out and continue fermenting.

The sediment looks totally normal to me.

Re: Mold vs Kahm

PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:47 am
by Fluxit
Thanks, Christopher! I understand that, with the natural variety and all, it's hard to pinpoint it down exactly. But this kind of statement helps me a lot. Cheers.

Happy to listen to further advice or your own images. I think for beginners it's very informative to see the differentiation between Kahm and mold.