But I Haven't Got a Weng!
All of these recipes I've been writing about are supposed to be fermented in a weng (甕, wèng, Middle Chinese 'uwngH), which is a large ceramic container with a mouth. My current understanding is something like this: Or the leftmost vessel in this picture (this is a historical, large weng , found with mash inside it): Picture from Science and Civilisation in China, volume 6 Biology and Biological Technology part V Fermentations and Food Science , page 152. Historical weng were definitely unglazed, since the Qimin Yaoshu has instructions for how to season them. They also came in a variety of sizes, and still do. None of that really matters, since I haven't got one, and you probably don't either. So what can we do? My initial fermentations were in a gallon glass jug, like you'd use for a small amount of mead or cider. You can stick an airlock on the top of it and keep the contents safe from infection, just like you would with western alcoho