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Asked by lvanderb ·October 22, 2020 ·20k readers

White mold on FAA

My FAA was started a couple of weeks ago. I put a couple of rocks on top of the floating fish, so now it doesn't smell like fish. However, I just checked today and there is white mold things starting. Should I be concerned or do anything?

mold faa

Top answer

dagoofman · Oct 25, 2020
a lil white mold is fine as long as theres not a rotting smell or black or green mold... a lot of fermentations get a bit of white mold its mostly yeast from what i am to understand and id guess they r feeding on the oils floating on top iv noticed if i put a lot of garlic in a batch of pickles or something the oil floats up and white mold will grow on it sometimes .... if u wanted to u could spoon it off or just mix it in the LAB in there breaking down the fish should take care of it

From the KNF library

From the KNF library Drafted by Claude from Office Hours and the books · Sep 2026 · 8 sources

Drake says surface mold on FAA is harmless, and he tells people to ignore surface fuzzies. (Office Hours Ep. 27, 14:37) (Office Hours Mar 2025, 33:29)

Your recipe missed nothing. FAA needs only fish and sugar, and LAB is the main microbe in FAA anyway. (Office Hours Ep. 27, 14:37) (Office Hours Mar 2025, 33:29)

Skip the IMO2. Drake says to leave IMOs and OHN out of FAA. (Office Hours Ep. 17, 1:05:50) IMO microbes eat the oils in FAA and kill its use as a pest deterrent. (Office Hours Mar 2025, 7:53)

  • Trust your nose. Drake eats his FAA when it smells sweet. (Office Hours Ep. 27, 34:50)
  • If it starts to smell, add more sugar. (Cho's Solutions, p. 13)

The library disagrees on the lid. One answer says seal the bucket and leave it for two weeks to six months. (Office Hours Ep. 35, 30:59) Cho's hints say to cover the container, not seal it. (Cho, Recipe, p. 51)

The library says nothing about weighting the fish down with rocks.

Sources

2 more answers
lvanderb · Oct 25, 2020
Thank you! I don't have any LAB in there...well, maybe there is naturally, but I just used fish and sugar - did my recipe miss something?
lvanderb · Oct 26, 2020
Thank you! I've seen Chris Trump's skoosh and dash video, however, I don't currently have OHN (only about 8 days in) or IMO4 - that's next spring. I was able to culture an IMO1 indoors, it was pretty pink, but much better than the previous 4 tries - I didn't realize we have a rainy fall, I mean I sort of knew it, but it made collecting outside a challenge. I checked my FAA today and the white bits haven't grown, so that's good. I might put in a skoosh of IMO2 - just to see...

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