The Noma Guide to Fermentation: Including koji, kombuchas, shoyus, misos, vinegars, garums, lacto-ferments, and black fruits and vegetables Review (2026)

Who this book is really written for

The Noma Guide to Fermentation is written by chef Rene Redzepi, co-owner of the Copenhagen restaurant Noma, and David Zilber, who ran the restaurant's dedicated fermentation lab. It is published by Artisan as part of the Foundations of Flavor series, runs 456 pages, and was released in October 2018. That pedigree shows in the content: this is not a beginner kraut-and-pickles primer, it is a working manual for cooks who want to build the same pantry of koji, misos, shoyus, vinegars, garums, lacto-ferments and black fruits and vegetables that Noma uses to season its dishes. Home fermenters who already understand basic brine ratios and want to push into umami-heavy, restaurant-style ingredients get the most out of it. Someone who has never fermented anything before will find the entry point steeper than a dedicated beginner guide.

How the book is organized and what it covers

The book is organized by ferment family rather than by recipe difficulty, with chapters devoted to koji cultivation, kombuchas, misos, shoyus, vinegars, garums, lacto-ferments and the aging of black fruits and vegetables. Each chapter opens with an explanation of the microbiology and chemistry behind the ferment in plain language before moving into specific projects, and the book includes more than 500 step-by-step photographs and illustrations across roughly 100 original recipes. Shoyus and misos are built from a range of legumes and grains beyond soy, garums are fish-sauce-style ferments made from proteins, and the black fruit and vegetable chapter uses slow Maillard reactions rather than live cultures. The photography documents each stage of a ferment, which helps when a project runs over days or weeks and you need to check it looks right.

What it takes to actually work through the recipes

Several of the signature projects, especially koji, call for a stable warm, humid environment that most kitchens do not have on hand, so many readers end up building or repurposing a box, cooler or dehydrator into an incubation chamber. Garums and some misos are not quick projects either, with fermentation windows that stretch from weeks to several months, and the book expects a digital scale, pH strips and a willingness to track a project over that whole span. None of this is explained as optional; the recipes assume you will assemble the gear before starting. That is a reasonable ask for someone building a serious home fermentation pantry, but it is a real jump from opening a jar of sauerkraut in two weeks, and casual cooks looking for weekend projects should know this going in.

How it compares with other fermentation books

Against Sandor Katz's The Art of Fermentation, which is a broad survey of ferments from around the world written more as reference and inspiration than a strict recipe book, the Noma guide is narrower and more prescriptive, walking through fewer techniques in far more operational detail. Katz's earlier Wild Fermentation covers similar ground to Art of Fermentation but in a shorter, more approachable format aimed squarely at first-time fermenters, which makes it the gentler starting point of the three. The Noma book earns its place once you already understand the basics and want restaurant-level results from koji and aged sauces, rather than as the first fermentation book on your shelf.

Verdict and who should look elsewhere

This book rewards cooks who are past their first few jars of kraut and want to build koji, miso, shoyu and garum into their cooking the way a professional fermentation lab would, with the science explained clearly enough to follow along. It is less useful as a first purchase for someone who has never fermented anything, since the projects assume patience, specific equipment and multi-week to multi-month timelines rather than a quick weekend batch. Readers in that earlier stage are better served starting with a beginner-focused guide or a basic kit and returning to this book once they want to go further.

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