I have a few friends who love to make fermented foods of many kinds, and Paul and I have been having fun making differing kimchis. I've gotten VERY fond of raw green papayas as it gives me CRUNCHY kimchi vs. the usual soft, almost mushy texture of the store bought Chinese cabbage kimchi. Today I started a big new batch of green papaya kimchi, but I am trying 4 new things.....vs. soaking the chopped veggies overnight in brine then draining and rinsing, I just tossed them with the amount of salt I want to REMAIN in the kimchi. My goal is to make my kimchis less salty, in part because I tend towards moderate high blood pressure, and also so I can taste more the flavors. For the first time I am flavoring/coloring a kimchi with genuine Korean red pepper powder...has little heat so am likely to add the last bit of homemade habanero sauce...into my biggest Bullet blender went some water, a whole small ginger root, several LARGE cloves of garlic, roasted sesame oil, approx. heaping tablespoon of sugar for taste and to feed the bacteria. Tomorrow afternoon I'll squeeze out the salty water, mix in the flavoring goodies in the Bullet blender, and pack it all into quart jars. The third new thing I am doing is that I'll inoculate one of the jars with a spoonful of Lifeway kefir and will label that jar as such. I MAY inoculate another quart with maybe 1/2 cup kombucha. The mix of veggies is: raw green papaya, yellow onions and carrots run through the food processor (I have yet to get the hang of the mandoline slicer), chopped onion leaves and daikon leaves and Giant Red Mustard leaves. I won't taste any of the jars until February. The 4th new thing I am doing is I will let one quart sit on the counter at root temp for a week before it goes into the fridge.