August 31, 2017 - All four of the stones were broken when I took them out of my 2nd batch of fermenting peppers. I had only used these stones in one other fermentation and they're all four completely broken or have cracks all the way through.

The jars hadn't been disturbed or moved around in such a way that would have caused the stones to all crack like this. They simply sat on top of the peppers on the counter and then were removed at the time I blended them for sauce.

Fortunately they split pretty evenly so I didn't end up with small pieces of glass in my peppers but I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND NOT BUYING THESE. It's not worth the risk of ruining several batches of fermentation by having small pieces of glass end up in your jar.

Original review:
They worked well holding down peppers for some hot sauces I was making.

For me these weights were beyond just a waste of money and food, but ended up posing a potential danger to me and my family. During their second use three out of four of these weights broke into many pieces during lactobacillus fermentation of sauerkraut (2) and giardiniera (1) for no apparent reason. I was careful with them, hand wash warm (not hot) water, stored in original box when not in use, fermenting at room temperature away from sunlight in good quality mason jars with plastic water-type air-lock lids. The jars themselves remained completely undamaged. The weights were fully submerged in brine. I would be very interested in knowing the cause of this breakage. I cannot recommend using these weights for food preparation. Broken glass in food is dangerous.

I ordered this set of weights on October 28, 2015. A few days later, they were washed and went into hot pepper ferments that sat on my counter until the end of August 2016. We went to blend our peppers to make our hot sauce, and 3 out of 4 of the jars had broken weights in them (all broken weights were the wide mouth weights). Super disappointed that we lost all of that time and precious peppers due to broken glass. I think I'll try boiling some rocks or something less expensive than these weights once we have enough peppers to try again...

I am a newbie when it comes to fermenting. I started my first sauerkraut ferment and was having an awful time keeping my cabbage under the brine. From what I've read, one of the major rules of lacto-fermentation is making sure that whatever you are fermenting remains submerged under the brine to prevent mold growth. Since mold requires oxygen to grow, you can run into mold issues when your ferments float to the top above the brine. A lot of people recommend using a large piece of cabbage to push down the shredded cabbage, but somehow it kept rising above the brine anyways since there wasn't anything weighing it down.

So, I purchased the combo pack of the Pickle Pebbles (4 wide mouth pebbles, 4 standard pebbles), and they have done the job perfectly! The larger size fits perfectly in a wide mouth mason jar and the smaller size fits in standard mason jars. So far, I've used them successfully in pint, quart, and half-gallon size jars. As a note, I would still recommend placing a large piece of cabbage over the shredded cabbage before putting the pickle pebble on top in order to help keep all of the small cabbage pieces from floating around the pebble up to the top of the jar. If you have any pieces that float to the top once you put the pebble in, just go ahead and scoop them out. These are very easy to get in and out of the mason jars, which makes them really easy to use. An added bonus is they are extremely easy to clean with just a quick scrub and rinse. I haven't noticed any lingering smells or residues on any of the pebbles due to their nice, smooth finish.

Overall, I thought these were a bit pricey when I was debating whether or not to purchase them, but I would definitely purchase them again in a heartbeat. They have taken a lot of the fuss and worry out of my fermenting and have made the whole process much easier. I highly recommend them!

Let me tell you the story of why I would never buy these, or anything from this company, again.

The first time I used them I was weighting down two jars of sauerkraut. One jar was just fine, but in the other a shard of glass about 3/4 of an inch long and about 1/8 of an inch wide cracked off the weight and ended up in the sauerkraut itself. I discovered this the hard way when I bit down on a fork full of food and felt an unexpected crunch as the glass broke between my molars (but thankfully didn't pierce any skin). I actually wasn't even mad at the time; every company has a bad unit here and there, and luckily the shard didn't hurt me. I threw out the broken weight and glass-contaminated sauerkraut and moved on.

Fast forward to tonight: I just opened another jar of sauerkraut I've been fermenting for about a month, only to discover the weight I had in the jar had literally cracked in half. That's right, there were two separate, about equal-sized pieces of glass that came out of my jar. Another batch ruined.

Now that two weights have independently broken and got glass in two separate batches of food, I'm ready to believe this is just a terrible product, made with a minimum of quality control, that I was unfortunate enough to purchase.

To address a few common possible causes:

* The sauerkraut was fermenting at room temperature and was not subject to large temperature fluctuations
* The weights were stored in their original packaging, inside the protective foam, when not being used
* The weights were never dropped or otherwise mishandled, and were only hand washed.

There is no logical explanation for two of the four weights to independently break during normal use, so I have to conclude this is just an extremely poor product. I heavily dissuade literally anyone from purchasing these for any use.