Preservation toolkit

Why this entry exists — three toolkits, one pattern

This is the third toolkit on the platform. The first two:

• farm-tech-toolkit composes machines from sensors, actuators, boards, frameworks → autonomous weeders, NDVI drones, hydroponic dosers, sensor networks
• ecosystem-toolkit composes ecosystems from cover crops, companion plants, beneficial insects, microbial inoculants → cover-crop cocktails, pollinator strips, rotations

This toolkit composes meals-across-time — preservation primitives that turn the abundance of a moment into a year of eating.

The pattern is now proven on three domains. Same shape: each ingredient has inputs, outputs, combines-with edges, solves/unlocks, constraints, and source. Same use: the LLM walks edges to compose. The pattern generalizes. The next toolkit could be medicinal-herbalism, mycology, textile-and-fiber, animal-husbandry, natural-building, or any other domain where a small set of primitives compose into a much larger space of working systems.

How to use the food-preservation toolkit

When asked to design something — how do I preserve a 100 lb squash harvest, what to do with peak tomato season, I want to make my own cheese culture going, off-grid winter food strategy — the LLM should:

1. Identify the input (what’s being preserved — fruit, vegetable, dairy, meat, fish, mushroom, herb).
2. Identify the constraint (refrigeration available? canning equipment? root cellar? freezer? off-grid?).
3. Match input to method via the recipe-year-of-eating crop-class table.
4. Walk the combines-with edges to find the supporting primitives (salt-cure + smoke for cured meat; salt-cure + lacto for sauerkraut; koji + soy + salt + time for miso).
5. Check constraints — pH boundaries (water-bath vs pressure), temperature requirements (yogurt vs cheese vs koji), time budgets (3 days vs 3 years).
6. Compose. Output a preservation plan, equipment list, timeline, expected yield.
7. Cite the entries — every method picked traces back to a wiki entry the human can verify.

What’s in the toolkit today

See the relations: block. The first pass covers:

• Foundational primitives: salt-cure, smoking, drying-and-dehydration, water-bath canning, pressure canning, root-cellaring
• Microbial cultures: lacto bacteria (lacto-fermentation), koji, tempeh-starter, vinegar-mother, yogurt-culture, cheese-cultures, sourdough-starter
• Equipment: dehydrator
• Existing entries this toolkit references: sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, miso, sourdough, fermentation, pickling
• Recipes: vegetable-ferment-cycle, koji-cascade, year-of-eating

What’s not in the toolkit yet (and should be)

• More cultures: kefir grains, water-kefir, jun (kombucha-cousin), filmjölk and viili (Nordic cultures), natto (sticky soy bacteria)
• More methods: confit, sugar-curing, pemmican, freeze-drying, oil-preservation
• More equipment: pressure canner specifications, smokehouse design, fermentation crocks, root-cellar architecture
• Specific cured-meat recipes: bacon, prosciutto, salami, pancetta, lardo
• Specific cheese recipes: chèvre, feta, mozzarella, cheddar, blue
• Pickling recipes: dill pickles (vinegar), bread-and-butter, chutney, kimchi variations across regions
• Beverage ferments: mead, cider, beer, wine, sake, fruit wine

When the toolkit expands, this index entry’s relations: block expands with it.

See also

Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.

• Parallels: farm-tech-toolkit · ecosystem-toolkit
• Contains: salt-cure · lacto-fermentation · koji · tempeh-starter · vinegar-mother · yogurt-culture · cheese-cultures · smoking · drying-and-dehydration · dehydrator · water-bath-canning · pressure-canning · root-cellaring · pickling · fermentation · sauerkraut · kimchi · kombucha · miso · sourdough · sourdough-starter · recipe-vegetable-ferment-cycle · recipe-koji-cascade · recipe-year-of-eating