How the Fermentation Projects on the Fermenthings Wiki Differ: Kimchi, Tempeh, Kombucha, and More

The Fermenthings wiki groups its projects by what is actually doing the fermenting, and that is the cleanest way to choose between them. Salt-and-cabbage ferments like kimchi and curtido are the fastest to start and need no special culture; tempeh is a mould ferment that needs a starter and steady warmth; kombucha, ginger bug, and elderflower champagne are sugar-driven drinks that need a live culture and bottling equipment. If you have a jar, salt, and vegetables, start with kimchi or curtido. If you want a protein and can hold a warm temperature for a day or two, try tempeh. If you want something to drink and can manage bottles, go with the summer drinks.

The three families of ferment on the wiki

The site's own recipe list makes the split fairly clear: a cabbage ferment (Baechu Kimchi), a Latin American salted cabbage (Curtido), a soybean mould ferment (Tempeh), a set of bottled summer drinks (Ginger Bug, Elderflower Champagne, Kombucha), plus crossovers like kimchi stew and miso cookies that use finished ferments as ingredients.

The wiki's own framing supports this: tempeh is described as "fermentation doing exactly what it is meant to do: transform simple ingredients into something nourishing, stable, and deeply satisfying," while the summer drinks piece asks "how do you capture a season in a bottle?" — two very different goals, which is why the projects demand different setups.

What each type actually requires

Salted vegetable ferments: kimchi and curtido

These are the lowest-barrier projects on the wiki. You salt the vegetables, pack them down so they stay submerged in their own brine, and let lactic acid bacteria do the work. No purchased culture is needed. The wiki treats curtido as "the Latin cousin of sauerkraut and kimchi," which is a useful signal: the method is the same family, only the seasoning changes.

• Input: cabbage, salt, flavourings (chilli and garlic for kimchi; oregano and carrot for curtido).
• Action: salt, massage or brine, pack into a jar, keep submerged, ferment at room temperature.
• Expected result: souring within days, then move to cold storage to slow it down.
• Common snag: vegetables floating above the brine and growing surface mould. Weight them down.

Mould ferments: tempeh

Tempeh is the outlier. It is not a brine ferment and not a drink — it is a controlled mould fermentation, and the wiki notes it originated on Java as a way to preserve soybeans in a warm, humid climate. That origin tells you the two conditions you must recreate: a starter culture and warmth.

• Input: cooked, dried soybeans plus a tempeh starter.
• Action: inoculate, pack into a thin layer, incubate warm (roughly body temperature) with airflow.
• Expected result: a white mycelium binds the beans into a solid cake in about a day or two.
• Common snag: too hot, too wet, or too thick a layer — the mould stalls or unwanted bacteria take over.

Sugar-driven drinks: kombucha, ginger bug, elderflower champagne

These share a mechanism: sugar feeds a live culture, which produces acid, alcohol, and CO2. The wiki bundles ginger bug, elderflower champagne, and kombucha together as "three ways to bottle a summer," which is the key practical point — all three end in a bottle, and bottling is where the risk and the reward both live.

• Input: sweet liquid plus a culture (SCOBY for kombucha, a fed ginger bug for sodas, wild flower yeasts for elderflower).
• Action: ferment in an open vessel first, then bottle to build carbonation.
• Expected result: a tart, fizzy drink.
• Common snag: over-carbonation. Bottles that keep fermenting can burst, so chill them once carbonation is right.

Choosing based on your ingredients and your patience

The wiki's projects differ less in difficulty than in what they ask of you. Match the project to what you already have:

• You have vegetables and salt, want results this week: kimchi or curtido. Fastest feedback, no starter to buy.
• You want a protein and can babysit temperature: tempeh. Needs a starter and a warm spot, but rewards you with something you can fry.
• You want a drink and own swing-top bottles: kombucha or a ginger bug. Needs a ongoing culture you feed, plus bottling discipline.
• You want something seasonal and one-off: elderflower champagne, tied to the wiki's own note that it returns "every year, when the first elderflowers bloom."

A practical sequence for a beginner is to start with a salted vegetable ferment to learn what active fermentation looks like, then move to a drink once you are comfortable with a live culture, and only then attempt tempeh, which is the least forgiving of the three families.

Where the wiki blurs the lines

Finished ferments become ingredients in other recipes — the kimchi stew and the miso cookies are both examples of treating a ferment as a pantry item rather than a final dish. The miso cookie piece makes the point directly: "once you start treating miso as an ingredient rather than as something belonging to a specific set of dishes, it becomes much more versatile." So the projects are not isolated; a batch of kimchi feeds a stew, and a tempeh cake becomes a meal. If you are choosing where to start, pick the ferment whose end product you will actually cook with or drink, because that is what keeps the culture alive and the habit going.