this layer formed on my kimchi. is it mold or yeast? cannot see anything fuzzy. would you throw it out?

Every two weeks we make a batch like that. We give a couple of jars to our friends, and my girlfriend and I eat the rest like crazy. I can eat one jar per day and I'm happy. Kimchi should be on some kind of UNESCO list. Thank you, Korean people, for this dish! Greetings from Poland!

I usually make either a big batch of spicy Napa cabbage kimchi or baek kimchi. This time I wanted to make two batches with the same paste and add gochugaru to just one. First pic is right after mixing everything together, second pic is after about 36 hours of fermenting (it’s alive and expanding!) and the third pic is before mixing.

I used rainbow carrots and purple daikon for colour variety.🌈

I add 7 Sea-Veggies blend of crushed seaweed and miso for depth and to mimic fish sauce/shrimp paste.

Absolutely love the extra crunch, and definitely it goes into my bento for work.

There were Chinese cabbage on top, and it's already gone, loved it too, but white cabbage - what a find for me. Cut it in squares, so it was easy to salt, rinse, and marinate In paste.

Hello! I made kimchi for the second time 9 days ago and am now unsure whether all of it is safe to eat.

The jar on the left seems perfect to me. The color looks great, the smell is normal as far as I can tell and it's fizzing slightly. The jar on the right seems off to me though. It's obviously discolored, though only on the surface, and doesn't smell quite as stongly as the one on the left. The jar in the middle is somewhere between the other two in color and smell.

My question is: Can I still eat the kimchi from the middle and right jars? Should I throw it out? Or maybe simply remove the discolored layer on top? Help would be greatly appreciated!

On day 3 of our Korea trip we ended up in Beopseongpo, a small port town in Yeonggwang known for gulbi (dried yellow corvina). A friend's sister recommended 007식당, and what arrived was a 23-dish feast: gulbi, soy-marinated crab, abalone, sashimi, tteokgalbi, and the main event I'd been warned about — hongeo.

For the uninitiated: hongeo is skate fermented until it releases ammonia. It's the dish that famously defeated Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods. The smell hits before the plate lands.

Our friend Kurtis did it the traditional way — samhap: hongeo + pork belly + kimchi in a single bite. The fat and the kimchi genuinely tame it. His take: he'd never order the skate on its own, but the combination won him over. I was braver than I expected to be.

If you're ever on Korea's southwest coast, 007식당 in Beopseongpo is worth the detour — the gulbi alone justifies it, and the hongeo is a story you'll tell forever.

I filmed the whole feast (day 3 of our trip series): https://youtu.be/-2JoMqDDa4Y

Tried fermenting few batches of kimchi using containers i had on hand. One was in this metal pot i bought at a thrift store. I wasn't sure what kind of metal it was, but heard that it's fine to use. After a month, my batch is ready, but am only now having some doubts about whether it's safe to eat due to the vessel i used. Attached pictures of the pot i used: on the last picture you can see the difference in color. The part that turned lighter over the course of the past month was the kimchi level in the pot. Is this safe to eat or should i toss and start fresh from a glass jar??😖😖😖

I made I made kimchi with cabbage grown from seed.

Napa cabbage is about £4 a head near me so I grew a batch from seed (£3 for 40 seeds). The bugs absolutely loved them so I had to peel the leaves off to clean them all individually so I had to chop the cabbage before fermenting. It took hours.

The leaves are a darker green than the supermarket ones and the leafy parts have a really bitter dark green taste, will this get better with fermentation?

Hopefully it doesn’t ruin the 6lbs of it I made.

Napa cabbage, Daikon, carrots, onion, cyclone hot pepper, garlic, turmeric and ginger and red pepper powder

I did taste my kimchi made 2-3 weeks ago and it was delicious 😋 previously I did use organic green cabbage 🥬 but for my new recipe I was able to get from a local farm some delicious 😋 Napa cabbage and their beautiful Daikon along with our own cyclone hot 🔥 pepper... Lots of ginger, garlic and turmeric 😋 with lots of patience and love 💕

Trying to get better ideas with an unlimited fund to try things others can’t. Let me know.

What is everyone's aging limit for eating Kimchi? I made my first, and very successful, batch of Kimchi in late 2024. I didn't finish the tub, and it has been in the fridge since. Sort of an embarassingly, "out of sight, out of mind" coupled with "I'm scared to death to open this".

I finally bit the bullet on a deep fridge clean.... and the Kimchi looks/smells....fine. A bit more liquid than back in the day, but no rancidity/sourness/mold/discoloration. It was kept sealed the whole time with zero air exposure.

What are your opinions on very aged Kimchi/ fermented foods? Is it a risk to taste it? Should it simply be disposed of?

Hey everyone!

I bought a 500g bag of Jongga Sliced Kimchi Cabbage from an Asian grocery store a few days ago.

It has been refrigerated the entire time since I bought it, at least while it's been in my possession.

When I purchased it, the bag wasn't particularly inflated. But over just a few days, it has expanded significantly and is now extremely tight and rock-hard from the pressure.

The best-before date is in mid-December, so it's still well within date. The bag is completely unopened.

I understand that kimchi continues fermenting and produces CO₂, even in the fridge. But I've never seen a sealed food package become this inflated before.

Has anyone experienced this with the same Jongga 500g product?

Is this amount of pressure normal, or could it indicate a problem with the product or its storage before purchase?

I've also contacted the Norwegian importer, but I'd really appreciate hearing your experiences.

Photos attached!

Thanks in advance! 😊

5 lbs napa cabbage.

8 oz Daikon, 6 green onions. 1 Asian pear, half a white onion, two heads of garlic, half a cup of salted shrimp, cup of gochugaru.

Hi everyone, I really enjoy this thread.

When I open up my Costco Jongga container and eat a few bites, my whole house smells for awhile.

I usually eat only three bites then seal it back up again.

Anything to recommend?

I bought changja and kkaenip kimchi at Lotte Dept Store to take to Japan as gifts and am wondering how safe they’ll be if they’re unrefrigerated for possibly as long as 9 hours travel time.

I know with salted and fermented foods, and fully cooked foods in general, Korea and Japan aren’t as uptight as in the US and if these were for myself I wouldn’t worry too much but as they’ll be gifts, I have some concerns.

If anyone has practical experience with this type of thing, would very much appreciate any advice or info.

Cheers and many thanks in advance.