Comparison

Fermentation Lab vs Pickle Brine Lab

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side β€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Fermentation Lab

Features
Read full description

Fermentation Lab is the cellar notebook for people who ferment at home. Pick a ferment and a recipe: the app weighs the ingredients, tells you what to do each day and keeps track of temperature, pH and salt, jar by jar. Start from a recipe 95 recipes for 39 ferments – sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, kefir, yogurt, miso, shoyu, koji, tempeh, cured meats, cheese, vinegar, beer, wine, mead and more – plus bread recipes and pizza styles. Ingredients arrive already weighed and stay in proportion: change how much you make, or one line, and the rest follows. Next to each ingredient you see whether it is in your pantry; what is missing goes to the shopping list. Or write your own recipe and keep it for next time. The right step, every day Each type has its own care sheet: the phases, the task of each phase and the checkpoints – minimum salt, pH by the expected day, temperature limits, humidity, weight loss. Home follows what is fermenting and reminds you of today's task, with a notification when it is due. Short ferments such as bread, koji or yogurt are counted in hours. Log it, understand it Temperature, pH, gravity, notes and photos in one tap. Every reading is read for your ferment: whether it is within the limits of its care sheet, whether it is too early to tell, what counts besides that number. Measuring guides explain how to read pH and Β°Brix properly. You can connect an Inkbird Bluetooth sensor for temperature and humidity. Bread and pizza Baker's percentages on total flour, hydration, sourdough starter, biga and poolish. The method is part of the recipe: autolyse, folds, a night in the fridge, the pan. Doughs made in pieces are asked in pieces – four 250 g dough balls – and the step-by-step recipe has timers. The water temperature that brings the dough to the right temperature is one tap away from Home. The Laboratory Pantry and supplies, a shopping list with a barcode scanner, your cultures, the archive of finished ferments, statistics across batches, a calendar and timers. The Library Problems and doubts ("is it mold?"), techniques and microbes, with a search that reads inside the cards. Share An Instagram story or post with the jar's photo, log or recipe, plus a link to its web page. The Community Your profile is your lab: a jar for every ferment in progress. A weekly leaderboard, daily quests, culture swaps and a swap map. Others see only the types and progress of your lab – never names, notes or photos – and you can hide it. The Brigade, for kitchens A shared lab for kitchen teams: tickets on the rail, shift handovers, the week's HACCP checks, roles. And more Eight languages, a paper or cellar theme, and a predicted flavor profile and umami score (they are estimates). Fermentation Lab helps you keep count and not skip a check. Its values are the common ones of home fermentation: a number within limits says that number is within limits, not that a food is safe or ready. When in doubt, don't taste it.

About

Pickle Brine Lab

Features
Read full description

Pickle Brine Lab is a focused workbench for home fermenters and quick-pickle fans. A brine ratio calculator, a recipe library, and a batch journal β€” all on a single shelf. No accounts, no ads, no upsells. KEY FEATURES β€’ Brine Calc: dial in salt %, sugar %, and jar size, then read off water, salt, and sugar by volume or by vegetable weight β€’ Recipe Library: classic dill, kimchi, giardiniera, quick red onion, jalapeΓ±o, beet, sauerkraut, and more β€” each with the exact ratios and shelf life β€’ Batch Journal: track every jar you put up β€” recipe used, jar size, vegetable, date started, and days remaining β€’ Observation notes: log color changes, taste tests, and bubbles per batch β€’ Active vs Finished vs Spoiled status, with progress bars against shelf life β€’ Family filters: Quick Pickle, Lacto-Ferment, Sweet, Hot Sauce, Giardiniera, Sauerkraut β€’ Dill purple + fern green palette tuned for the kitchen counter DESIGNED FOR FERMENTERS Whether you are pulling cucumbers out of the garden, batching kimchi for the week, or running a sourdough rotation, Pickle Brine Lab keeps the math out of your head and your jars on the calendar. PRIVACY No tracking. No accounts. Your recipes and batches live on your device.

Screenshots

Fermentation Lab4 screens
Pickle Brine Lab3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: Fermentation Lab at 3 against Pickle Brine Lab's 1. Fermentation Lab also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Β· Rating Β· Positive reviews Β· Number of ratings Β· Update frequency Β· Ads Β· In-app purchases Β· Monetization Β· Best chart rank Β· Devices Β· Requires iOS

CostPrice Β· In-app purchases Β· Ads Β· Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard2 real differences Β· 4 level
Fermentation Lab versus Pickle Brine Lab: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFermentation LabPickle Brine Lab
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyFortnightlyβ€”
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod β€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 β€” better17.0
Further details β€” not scored
Size84 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAntonio LiceLinh Phan Nhat Khanh

In-app purchases

None

Fermentation Lab

No in-app purchases

None

Pickle Brine Lab

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Fermentation Lab free?
Fermentation Lab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Pickle Brine Lab free?
Pickle Brine Lab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Fermentation Lab or Pickle Brine Lab have ads?
Neither Fermentation Lab nor Pickle Brine Lab shows ads.

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