The rise of the Terror Fish; or success for kimchi kojin kilning

After the biscuit fire went all to plan back in October, it then took me a further 2 months to finally get around to clear-glazing the pot and then going through the nerve-shredding period of the final firing. The glaze had to be applied to all of the pot, inside and out — trying not to brush again over parts already covered which is more than a little tricky as the glaze sinks in and dries almost as soon as you’ve applied it making gauging coverage ‘challenging’ — and then some of the glaze needed to be removed from any surfaces that would touch the kiln shelf — so basically sponge off the base and a narrow cordon sanitaire border up from that — and also from any parts that were in contact with the lid both removals so that nothing stuck irredeemably to anything else as the pot and lid would be fired, joined together as in the same way as they’d spend the rest of their days, to stop any shrinkage meaning the two would not then fit back together snuggly (or at all!) any longer.

Expert and patient assistance from ceramicist extraordinaire Val meant that these doomsday scenarios didn’t come to pass and after letting it cool for what seemed like days — the wait is interminable — we finally opened the, by now cold, kiln, some 36 hours later, to find the pot upright, shiny, intact.

The under-glazed decorations came out just as I’d hoped. The yellow eyed fish warn of the heat the kimchi has, the fish skeletons remind one of some of the ingredients used and with just a hint of a nod to old Korean baekja motifs. And I also can’t help but be reminded of the Aquaphibian’s Terror Fish from the 1960s TV “Stingray” series when I look at their shape…

And it was well worth the wait. What do you think?

The only downside is — as I was aware before starting, even I’m not that stupid — that the pot is too tall to easily fit into the ‘fridge that we have, so my plan is to use this for the kimchi making stage of the process, the 5-6 days of maturing in the room temperature kitchen and then store the new “ready to eat” kimchi in a flat container in the ‘fridge to stop it degrading.

I’ll keep you posted…