Equipment
Tai-plaa fish-viscera jar
A closed earthen jar documented for fermenting tai-plaa, the salted fish-viscera product of southern Thailand. The sources do not establish one standard jar shape, capacity, lid, or date of first use.
Equipment
626 sourced equipment pages: vessels, tools, appliances and built structures.
Vessels and containers
What the food sits in while it changes: jars, barrels, tanks, skins, gourds, baskets and wraps.
Equipment · Historical object
Early Neolithic Georgian grape-wine jars
Very large early Neolithic pottery jars from Georgia carry the earliest biomolecular evidence for grape wine in the Near East. Their probable wine role is documented; their burial and exact relationship to modern qvevri are not.
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Equipment
Calfskin bags
A Kalmyk interview describes dried sheep meat packed into calfskin bags for winter. The account identifies the material and storage use, but not the bag’s construction or dimensions.
Equipment
Tella brewing jar
An Ethiopian earthenware vessel used for stages of tella, a traditional cereal-based fermented drink. Sources describe clay insira jars alongside modern plastic alternatives and document washing and smoke preparation before brewing.
Equipment
Clay amphora
Clay amphorae mature some Levantine arak. Muaddi in Palestine documents 12 months in clay; Château Ksara specifies two years for Ksarak in clay jars. Both are producer-specific storage practices.
Equipment
Fish-skin bags
An Enets account records fish meal called porsa stored in burbot-skin bags. Museum records from the Yenisei and Ob regions document related fish-skin sacks, while keeping each community’s object and use distinct.
Equipment
Ceramic baijiu aging jar
Large ceramic jars hold distilled baijiu during maturation. Fenjiu documents rows of aging jars in Shanxi, including specially specified unglazed earthenware; available sources do not establish one universal shape, volume or closure.
Equipment
Tajau and tuak jar
A large glazed stoneware jar used in documented Sarawak contexts for storage and fermenting tuak, while also serving as a valued Iban heirloom.
Equipment
Tanjia jar
A purpose-made terracotta vessel, also called tangia or kallouch, for Marrakech’s slow-cooked tanjia. Potters make it mainly in Marrakech; a fernatchi cooks the closed jar among managed furnace embers.
Equipment
Sri Lankan curd pot
An open fired-clay pot holds Sri Lankan buffalo curd while it sets and travels to market. Sources document both hand-thrown and moulded forms.
Equipment
Shipibo beer jar
A painted ceramic jar used to hold festive beer among Shipibo-Conibo communities in Peru’s Ucayali region. One collection object has a tapered base partly buried to cool its contents.
Equipment
Puurtaq skin bag
Puurtaq is a sewn skin bag documented as a vessel for igunaq, the ageing of marine-mammal meat and fat in Inuit foodways. Nunavik research describes skin pouches alongside other containers; the pouch does not guarantee food safety.
Equipment
Tapayan and Martaban trade jar
A durable Southeast Asian storage and trade jar, with particular Martaban examples documented in Philippine fish fermentation; the name covers varied objects, not one standard form.
Equipment
Kworia calabash for nono
A Kworia is a large calabash used in northern Nigerian nono production: fresh milk ferments in calabashes before cream is skimmed and the sour milk is handled or sold.
Equipment
Smen maturation jar and skin container
A ceramic Ezzir jar holds salted butter during smen maturation in Algeria; a goatskin Chekoua is documented for churning the sour milk beforehand. Sources also report animal-skin containers, but do not establish a single shared form.
Equipment
Qvevri
A qvevri (ქვევრი; kvevri), called churi (ჭური) in Imereti, is a large fired-clay Georgian wine vessel traditionally installed upright in the ground for fermentation, maturation and storage.
Equipment
Buried winter kimchi jar
A traditional Korean onggi used in winter kimjang for kimchi storage could be buried to moderate temperature. The sources support the practice but not one standard burial depth or jar profile.
Equipment
Smoked milk gourd
A dried gourd used in documented Kalenjin and Nandi practices to hold and serve mursik. Sources describe different ways to prepare its interior, so sotet is a family of locally shaped vessels rather than one standard design or treatment.
Equipment
Smoked milk containers of Ethiopia and the Horn
Ethiopian milk fermentation uses a family of vessels—calabashes, clay pots, fibre vessels and hollowed wood—whose interiors may be smoked before filling. Forms and roles vary by community and stage.
Equipment
Mabisi calabash
A gourd vessel used for fermenting Zambian mabisi; some Western Zambian forms have a low opening for draining whey.
Equipment
Clay-pot evaporative cooler
A household produce cooler built from two clay pots, wet sand and a damp cover. Evaporating water cools the inner chamber without a powered refrigerator; it suits hot, dry, ventilated settings.
Equipment
Glazed stoneware fermentation crock
A movable stoneware sauerkraut crock with a fitted lid, ceramic weights and a water-filled rim channel. German sources call it a Gärtopf; Czech sources document the related zelňák or nádoba na kvašení zelí.
Equipment
Chicha fermentation pot
In Arequipa, ceramic chombas hold chicha de Güiñapo as it ferments. Other Andean chicha methods use dedicated earthenware fermentation pots, but the shape, size and handling practice vary by place and process.
Equipment
Baking trough
In Swedish breadmaking, a wooden trough could hold sourdough between bakes; dried dough on its walls could be revived for the next bake. A museum example from Björnlunda documents one traditional form.
Equipment
Asava and arishta earthen vessel
An earthen fermentation pot documented in Ayurvedic asava and arishta preparations. Studies in India compare pot and non-earthen vessels; field research in Sri Lanka records both earlier buried pots and later, varied factory practice.
Equipment
Bamboo cooking tube
A bamboo internode can serve as the cooking vessel itself: its natural node closes one end while the open end holds food, often with a leaf lining or plug. Regional preparations differ in filling, fire arrangement and handling.
Equipment
Leaf-lined basket for alkaline seed condiments
A shallow woven basket or tray can hold cooked, dehulled seeds while they ferment into alkaline condiments. Beninese and Nigerian sources document different basket, tray and cover arrangements rather than one regional standard.
Equipment
Bamboo supports for drying banana sheets
In the Battambang dried-banana craft, thin banana slices are laid on bamboo frames and set in the sun. The supports hold the overlapping slices off the ground while air and sunlight dry them into flexible sheets.
Equipment
Mesopotamian fermenting and collector vats
The Hymn to Ninkasi describes a fermenting vat above a large collector, from which filtered beer is poured. It gives no exact shape or material; later archaeological vats are comparisons, not matches.
Equipment
Mish ripening jar
Mish is ripened in capacious earthenware jars called ballas or zallaa. Sources describe layered cheese, seasoned salty liquid and a sealed mouth, but give no standard capacity or universal jar geometry.
Equipment
Ngari earthen jar
A chaphou is an old, narrow-necked earthen jar used to ferment ngari, the Manipuri fish product. A 2020 study documents tightly packed dry fish sealed with mud; it gives no standard jar size or age.
Equipment
Parakari fermentation bed
A floor-laid leaf bed holds layered moist cassava bread for parakari’s solid-state first stage. Wapishana and Makushi ethnographies document distinct leaf materials; the bed is opened before its contents move to a separate vessel.
Equipment
Pla-ra jar with bamboo pressing mat
A narrow-necked earthenware jar for pla-ra fermentation, with woven bamboo strips pressed over the fish to keep it beneath the liquid. The jar is covered while allowing overflow; no standard size or lid design is established.
Equipment
Paocai water-seal jar
The Sichuan paocai jar is a pottery or ceramic crock with a broad body, narrow neck, and annular water trough around its rim. An inverted lid rests in the trough; the seal is separate from the food brine.
Equipment
Cooking basket with heated stone (acorn mush)
A closely woven, watertight basket used in Yosemite-area Miwok cooking to boil acorn mush with heated stones. The basket holds water and meal while stones transfer heat.
Equipment
Lao hai jar
A large earthenware jar in which lao hai ferments and from which it is shared through long reeds. In northern Laos, documented communities include Kmhmu’, Hmong and Tai groups; the jar does both fermentation and table service.
Equipment · Historical object
Jiahu jars for a mixed rice, honey and fruit beverage
Jiahu pottery preserves chemical evidence of an early mixed fermented drink involving rice, honey and fruit. Its jar forms provide archaeological context, not proof one vessel served every brewing stage.
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Layered leaf baskets for buried masi
Tanu ‘eli uses three nested baskets of futu leaves, sewn with fau-bark thread, to bury baked masi as a reserve. It is secondary storage, separate from the earlier masi fermentation and baking.
Equipment
Khasfah (woven palm container for shuwa)
A khasfah is a woven palm container for leaf-wrapped marinated meat as it is lowered into the heated underground oven for Omani shuwa. At Al Kharasen near Nizwa, a documented communal oven receives hundreds of family bundles.
Equipment
Khlii storage pot
Khlii storage vessels hold prepared meat beneath rendered fat or oil. Traditional terracotta jars and present-day plastic tubs are both recorded forms in Morocco.
Equipment
Gundruk pot and dhungro
Gundruk pots and dhungro are fermentation containers documented in Nepal and one Darjeeling household. FAO describes earthenware; a 2024 figure identifies a bamboo-made airtight dhungro buried in a pit within a cow-dung heap.
Equipment
Kinema leaf-lined bamboo basket
An open woven bamboo basket holds cooked soybeans for kinema fermentation. Broad leaves line the basket, while a cover or outer wrap varies by household and place.
Equipment
Küp (buried cheese pot)
Küp names the vessel used for regional buried-cheese methods in Türkiye. Sources describe both pottery in the historical tradition and plastic containers in contemporary practice; they do not establish one standard shape or capacity.
Equipment
Huangjiu open vats and secondary-fermentation jars
In Shaoxing Huangjiu production, broad-mouthed pottery vats hold the actively worked rice mash, while smaller pottery jars receive it for post-fermentation. Those jars may later serve a separate storage role.
Equipment
Kurozu kame jar
The kurozu kame is a dark ceramic jar used outdoors in Kagoshima to make and mature kurozu. At Sakamoto, the jar serves as the vessel for successive stages from rice conversion through vinegar fermentation and aging.
Equipment · Historical object
Hajji Firuz wine-storage jar
A reconstructed ceramic jar from Hajji Firuz Tepe, dated 5400–5000 BCE. Wine and terebinth resin residues identify its contents, while its museum record calls it a storage jar.
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Equipment
Buried ceramic jar for light-aroma baijiu
A buried ceramic fermentation jar holds the solid-state grain charge for light-aroma baijiu. Fenjiu reportage describes porcelain vats set into the floor; the cited sources establish no universal historical profile or dimensions.
Equipment · Historical object
Egyptian brewery basins and beer jars (Meketre model)
The Meketre tomb model depicts brewing at Thebes: a mixing vat, fermenting crocks and round jugs for the finished beer.
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Equipment
Dahi and mishti doi earthen pot
Unglazed earthen pots are used to set and often serve dahi and Bengali mishti doi. Documented forms range from small cups to shallow, broad vessels; no standard size or capacity is established.
Equipment
Hatcho miso stone-weighted kioke
A coopered wooden kioke used by Kakukyu in Okazaki for Hatcho miso: a broad vat capped with a carefully stacked pyramid of river stones during maturation lasting more than two years.