FermenteaWhere food goes to change
626 sourced equipment pages: vessels, tools, appliances and built structures.
What the food sits in while it changes: jars, barrels, tanks, skins, gourds, baskets and wraps.
Lambic ferments and matures in reused horizontal wooden casks; West Flemish red-brown beer uses much larger upright oak foeders. They share coopered wood, but differ in orientation, scale and brewing use.
Surströmming production moves from short open brining to closed barrel fermentation, then into tightly sealed low, wide consumer cans where fermentation can continue.
Two portable vessels documented for feta maturation: a coopered wooden barrel used with salted cheese and brine, and a rectangular metal tin used with cheese in brine. They differ in construction and packing.
A coopered wooden barrel held herring and salt during northern European curing. Siglufjörður's early-20th-century station is one documented setting; barrel forms and processes varied.
The small round spruce box, or friponne, is the traditional presentation package for Cotignac d'Orléans; the lid can serve as a spoon. Its form is not a fermentation vessel.
A coopered cask for curing and carrying salted meat, documented in seventeenth-century English shipboard writing. A modern reconstruction illustrates its use, not a surviving period artifact.
A low-cost raised bed for sun-drying small fish, documented in Lake Victoria communities in Tanzania in wood-and-reed and improved mesh forms.
An Alutiiq household container made from a seal stomach held summer foods such as berries, greens, oil and fish eggs. Its flexible, lashed ends contained stored foods and could also hold blubber while it released oil.
A broad banana leaf folded around beans forms the flat packet in which tempeh ferments. It shapes the cake while allowing air exchange; Indonesian producers also use plastic wraps.
A coopered cask used horizontally for Orléans wine vinegar, with an air chamber and openings that support surface acetification. The method depends on oxygen at the liquid surface; a full, airtight storage cask is a different vessel in use.
A nukadoko container holds the moist rice-bran bed in which vegetables are repeatedly pickled. Japanese households have maintained these beds in ceramic jars, while contemporary options also include compact ceramic and enamel designs.
Ket sources describe frozen lingonberries in birch-bark containers; Shor sources describe salted wild garlic in birch-bark tuyes. Their exact forms are not documented.
Plantain leaves wrap pozol’s nixtamalized maize dough during fermentation, limiting drying and keeping portions portable in southeastern Mexico.
A framed hide vat is cattle hide fixed around a timber frame and sagging into a basin. In a tinacal it holds aguamiel and its ferment as they become pulque; it is distinct from the room, the acocote and a carrying skin.
A shallow tray or basket carries grain or another solid food material during a mold-growing stage. Japanese koji trays and Southeast Asian bamboo trays share a broad function, but have distinct forms, histories and local uses.
A stainless fermentation tank with a cylindrical upper body and a conical bottom, used to collect sediment at the low point; fittings, temperature control and pressure rating vary by model.
A cleaned sheep stomach, inflated and briefly smoked, served as a light, one-use Tuvan container for carrying and storing chökpek. Sources describe its form and use in Tuva, but give no standard size or modern reuse guidance.
A reusable fabric filter bag holds crushed malt inside a brew kettle during the mash, then lifts out to separate grain from wort.
Keiller-branded stoneware jars were commercial packages for Dundee marmalade. Collections show cylindrical forms with printed marks; sources distinguish the Dundee brand from documented Maling manufacture in Newcastle.
A handmade terracotta pot used to mature Armenian Gegharkunik motal: herb-seasoned goat curd is packed inside, rested upside down in wood ash, and sealed with beeswax.
A hide stretched over a timber support forms an open, hanging basin for agave fermentation. Contemporary accounts document examples in Puebla and Oaxaca; the sources do not establish the form's pre-contact chronology.
A wooden box for fermenting wet cacao, with a perforated floor for drainage, a raised position above the drain and a leaf cover; designs and batch sizes vary by place.
Traditional Tajik apricot drying used open ground, roofs and flexible surfaces such as reed mats and fabric. These distinct open-air surfaces leave fruit exposed to weather and surroundings.
An open ceramic vat holds the moist solid mash, or vinegar pei, during Shanxi aged vinegar’s aerobic acetic fermentation. A 2025 study records a Taiyuan example about 1 m wide and 1.2 m high.
An insulated drink cooler adapted to hold a grain mash and drain wort through a filter into a separate kettle.
An earthenware storage pot named in an 1855 Pennsylvania German apple-butter account; later pottery writing describes a heavy-rimmed, internally glazed form.
A massive oak lagering cask maintained by Plzeňský Prazdroj’s coopers. Its inner pitch lining keeps the beer from direct contact with the oak during Pilsner Urquell’s small-batch cellar maturation.
In Liberia, wet cacao is fermented in a leaf-lined woven basket; an Ecuador study documents jute sacks. These vessels differ in form and in the practices documented around them.
A marble-stoppered bottle is a glass carbonated-drink bottle sealed by a glass marble pressed against a rubber washer. Its Codd neck holds the marble at the mouth when sealed and gives it a side pinch after opening.
Containers for salt-curing fish and meat range from broad-mouthed stoneware crocks to tubs, cut-down barrels and chests. Their material, depth, cover and ability to retain or drain liquid shape how the food sits in salt or brine.
A koji-buta is a shallow wooden tray for spreading grain as it grows into koji. Japanese sources document a traditional form, while modern methods also use cloth-lined or steel trays; size and construction vary.
Coopered vessels use shaped staves and hoops, but portable barrels, large foeders and upright wooden vats serve different roles. Materials and uses vary by place and process.
A pithos is a large ceramic storage jar documented in Minoan palatial storerooms and later Aegean settings. Its clay body, broad shoulder and high capacity suited bulk storage, while individual forms and uses varied by place and period.
A Bashkir household account describes a large leather һаба for kumys, with one or two limewood tubs as alternatives; exact vessel dimensions and schedule are unspecified.
A green hollow bamboo stem holds tightly packed Mesu shoots, with leaves covering the open end during fermentation. The source documents the arrangement, but not a standard size or capacity.
A paillas (also called paillât) is a basket used in the Massif des Bauges for a shaped loaf’s second rise before baking. Local examples include baskets made from blâche, straw or osier, sometimes lined with cloth; the inventory also records a wooden version.
A Miwok parching basket is a shallow, broad coiled basket used to toss seeds with live coals. One documented plate-form example is 71 mm high; a Southern Miwok specimen is separately identified as a parching basket.
A short, open-topped segment of bamboo holds buffalo milk while it ferments into dadih, a Minangkabau food of West Sumatra. Its natural lower node forms a closed base; banana leaf often covers the mouth.
Arkhyt is a traditional Altai sewn-hide vessel used to hold and periodically mix chegen. Sources describe a very large vessel, but do not establish one standard shape, measured capacity, or dimensions.
Stone boiling heats food in a vessel with stones warmed separately in a fire. Amis leaf sheaths, Chinantec jícaras and Northwest Coast cooking baskets are distinct regional forms, not one universal pot.
At Siorapaluk in northwestern Greenland, a seal hide is documented as a flexible, sewn vessel for kiviaq. Local accounts show the pouch made from a whole skin and buried beneath stones; its dimensions and capacity are not recorded.
Pōhā are traditional southern Māori storage bags made from bull kelp. Ngāi Tahu accounts describe tītī stored in the kelp bag, with bark and a woven kete protecting some documented examples during transport.
In Altai, dried aarchy was traditionally stored in bags sewn from animal hides. The surviving description establishes the material and use, but not a standard shape or present-day practice.
A Museums Victoria catalogue documents a Wangkangurru lukomb or kowapp, a rabbit-skin bag used to carry water around Lake Eyre. Its account describes skin preparation and tanning, while dating and image rights require care.
A whole lambskin, prepared as a flexible sack, holds densely packed cheese for ripening as sir iz mišine. The Croatian record locates the tradition in Dalmatia, Velebit and Lika, while its beginnings remain uncertain.
A small-mouth globular pottery jar from early Shangshan, ca. 10,000–9,000 cal BP. Residue study supports its possible use in rice-beverage fermentation, while leaving individual vessel functions uncertain.
Show on map
Factory-made ceramic wine jars are contemporary winery equipment. Biopythos documents a 120 L cast stoneware jar with specified dimensions and optional fittings; stoneware and porcelain are distinct materials, not one universal vessel.
A historical animal-skin container for Btana, described in southern Algerian accounts as clean sheepskin or old goatskin; sources distinguish it from later cloth and plastic bags.
A late nineteenth-century stoneware bottle for ginger beer, represented by an Aberdeen museum object dated 1850–1899. It documents beverage packaging, not a fermentation vessel or a universal bottle design.
A Guda is the hide sack used to mature Tushetian cheese. The evidence supports its traditional material and role but leaves standard dimensions and detailed construction open.