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Asked by agnese.federica ·January 15, 2022 ·21.7k readers

FAA with unexpected ingredient

Hi! We have been collecting fish waste from the local market to make FAA. It turned out that - because the vendors didn't really know what we do with all that stuff - some of our last batches had some chicken waste too. The batches are already in fermentation, since a month or so. Not much, I'd say less than 1 kg chicken vs 10 kg fish waste. Is that bad? If so, how bad? Oh, I've checked previous posts on FAA and jumped into this answer "There are benefits to using fish over other land based animals based on the oils that are present in fish such as omega fatty acid balance, etc.". Is this related? Thanks!

faa

Top answer

From the KNF library

From the KNF library Drafted by Claude from Office Hours and the books · Sep 2026 · 6 sources

The library says nothing about chicken in a fish batch. It does cover meat waste in general.

Drake's own recipe says to add fish or meaty waste to the container (KNF Demystified, p. 39). He makes FAA from mongoose, pigs and frogs. He notes that Cho would probably frown at that (KNF Demystified, p. 39). Cho's own recipe describes FAA as made from fish waste (Cho, Recipe, p. 48).

The fish-over-land-animal line you found is about oils. Drake says certain fish render oils with huge farming benefit, such as omega-3s (KNF Demystified, p. 39). Blue-black fish like mackerel, sardines and tuna are ideal for that reason (Office Hours Ep. 49, 21:54). That reads as a reason to favor fish, not as a warning against other meat.

  • Keep fish waste and brown sugar at 1:1 by weight (Office Hours Ep. 69, 57:18).
  • One month is early. One source says ferment 3 months, and the batch keeps digesting for 3 years (Cho's Solutions, p. 13).
  • Cho's text says at least 6 months for well-fermented FAA (Cho, Recipe, p. 50).

The library does not say whether chicken changes smell or quality. Drake could speak to that.

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