Fermentation Station

kkakdugi

Everyone, enjoy your botulism

This isn't jarring/canning, if something goes wrong you get some relatively harmless mold that you can just scrape away

youtu.be/UGjCeAbWKPo?t=14

so everything i ever make with fermentation will be sour right?
all i did so far was ferment carrots for a week and they just have a sour extra taste to them. doesnt taste very good.
or are there some pleb tier recipes for people that need to get used to fermented food?

I suggest asian chive ("buchu"), its my favourite kimchi.
check out waterkimchi and danmuji for completely different types, i like young radish for waterkimchi.
cucumber kimchi is also nice, but doesnt last forever

not fermented good sir. im wishing now that i made some that was though. ive been reading about this fermentation process for a few days now im going to have some tasty snacks new harvest i tell you what

OP here

Results

Jalapeno / Serrano hot sauce - Fermented perfectly. Kind of hard to fuck up, really. Blended and ready for use. Floral, peppery smell with a spicy kick. Added a little vinegar and brine and got it in the fridge. Reserved a little brine in a shaker for starter culture and to add to food for flavor.

Dried Peppers + Jalapeno / Serrano - Turned. I'm assuming I didn't use enough fresh peppers to develop the lacto--too many dried peppers. Sour to the smell, binned. If you gag, it's bad.. rule of thumb.

Dill Carrots - Another one that's hard to fuck up. Developed well; slightly sour fermented taste, notes of dill and a little spice from the jalapeno. In the fridge ready to eat.

Hot sauce mash - Turned. Binned. Mash version of #2, also assuming I didn't use enough live product instead of dry. But that's why we test shit out. Get a feel for what works or not.

Fermented Sweet Potatoes - Turned. Binned. Some kind of growth around the rim. Sour smell, gag reflex initiated. Gag = Bad, to the trash it went. Assuming the quality of the product was the culprit. They were probably older potatoes on the verge of turning regardless.

Cold ferment half-sour pickle - Just fine. Tastes like pickles.

Not bad for 2 test batches out of 5. I've used fried peppers in a ferment before and it fermented just fine. Like I said, probably not enough culture to propagate a good ferment.

Can I pirate kombucha? I mean, can I buy living kombucha from the store and use its culture as a starter for my own?

Yeah people do that shit all the time. Just buy one off Amazon and reconstitute it. Over time it'll grow and build layers. You can peel those layers to make additional batches or give them away.

Awesome, can't wait to give it a try!

Don't Listen to the user telling you to get shit from Amazon. Just go to fucking Walmart and get a bottle of gts unflavored.

Are you the guy with the garden? Just curious. In my fermenting experience, the stuf from the garden or farmers market always seems to work ok and the stuff from the grocery store either doesn’t work well or takes twice as long.

I am he.

Kind of a sad state of affairs (very old pic). Management got on everyone's ass about "maintaining balcony cleanliness" or some shit, so my herbs/veggies/peppers are in ruin right now or completely gone. I'm looking to get a new place around Q2 of next year and begin anew.

And you're right. Mass produced agriculture, unless specifically done organically, are treated with pesticides and other chemicals to ensure efficient yield, but can negatively affect the necessary pathogens for fermenting.

Farmer markets will always yield better quality product because they're grown homestead fashion without any of the shit that will hinder the product from it's natural cycle.

I tried that once with pic related, shit turned mouldy within a week. Maybe these fuckers pasteurize it. Maybe my kitchen is too filthy

I had 1 habanero bush that produced a buttload this year so I fermented 3 jars of habanero with various combinations of carrot, garlic and tomato. I have the last one still fermenting with mango which I'm really looking forward to. My tabasco plant only produced enough for one jar and I did it with garlic. The funny thing is, the tabasco is hot as shit and btfo of the habanero which mellowed in fermentation and had the fruitiness become more pronounced. You never know what's going to happen.

I had khorm form on a couple, but I just skimmed it and it's been fine. Hasn't killed me yet, lol!

How do you like using those silicone fermentation lids? I've been on the fence between those and a regular three-piece airlock.

can i ferment a hot sauce using peppers i grew this year but have frozen?

Certainly very well so far. This has to be my 6th batch with them and I frankly wish I had picked up a second set of 4; I still might, christmas is around the corner.

The pathogens are probably dead. Buy some fresh ingredient.

could i add my frozen peppers as well or should i just use new, fresh stuff

You could do a blend I suppose. Just make certain that your fresh product is greater in quantity than your frozen product. The organisms in fresh peppers are what trigger the fermentation and production of lactobacillic acid. If you don't achieve fermentation the it's just going to spoil.

cool, thanks

Yeah you never know what you'll get unless you have extreme ingredient and process consistency. To date, my best batch ever was habenero and tomato from the farmer's market done for one month in a 6% brine.

>The pathogens are probably dead
That's a good thing. Pathogens are microbes that cause disease.

so should i use them?

my fermented food tastes sour and i dont like it :

I've got things going right now

cabbage and carrot kraut. has 2 more weeks before it's finished

other jar is going to be a hot sauce. It's thinly sliced scotch bonnet, green onion ans ginger root. It's been going for 2 months now and smells awesome but I'm going to let it go for one more month before blending it up and bottling.

It's an acquired taste. Nobody likes beer the first time they drink it, but after a while it's the most refreshing thing on the planet. Just keep taking little bites every now and then to develop a taste for it. Then one day, you're going to get a huge craving for something fermented out of the blue and just begin to eat it like normal.

kahm yeast is annoying. it forms on some of my fresh fruit wines too. i usually use campden tablets but it's not always enough to prevent it

that's.. the whole point of it. besides outcompetition of bacteria.... fermentation literally produces acid................................. which prevents botulism, making foods long term safe

i hope so. i want to collect some healthy bacteria

I usually only ferment my hot sauces for 1 month. Does it get more sour when you extend the time? I always figured most of the vegetable sugars would have been consumed in 1 month and the bacteria would have gone dormant, not producing lactic acid anymore.

I'm poor, do I really need to buy airlocks or can I just open the jar at regular intervals to let the gas out?

You don't even really need to open the jar all the way. Just turn the lid until it gives a little "Tzzt", everyday and youre good to go.

I don't know if any pathogens were present or not, if they are still alive, if they produced toxins to poison you even after their death, or if those hypothetical toxins can be destroyed by sufficient cooking like with botulism. I was just commenting on misuse of the word "pathogen".

Have you tried fermenting perilla leaves? Theyre awesome with everything

I've gotten alot of back and forth on this. When I started 2 years ago I'd only ferment a month or less. most were good but at least 2 of about 6 batches of hot sauce didn't come out so great. Last time we had a decent fermentation thread here someone said its best to let peppers go longer because of the antimicrobial properties of capsacin. Really I'm still experimenting to find the best amount of time to ferment at ambient temp and this time I'm letting it go longer to see the result. I do know that it is still producing alot of bubbles as of yesterday so there are definitely some sugars being consumed

Maybe throw in some additional sugar with the brine to extend the ferment time. I've had this on my mind lately and may try it with my next hot sauce run... maybe this weekend if I don't have anything else going on. Going to do some fresno garlic this round I'm thinking.

Cool! Can I use big coffee jars?

I know basically nothing about fermenting foods, what are the basics of this?

>grab vegetables
>put them in a jar
>put lactobacillus in there
>lactobacillus eat the sugars and poop lactic acid
>wait a while
>wa la

Alright, where do I get lactobacillus?

as long as it's glass, earthenware or ceramic. Basically you only want to use an inert surface as your fermenting vessel.

it's usually already present in the fresh veg, though there are different kinds present in each one. What's more important is submerging the vegetable in a 5% salt brine or massage 3% to 5% salt by weight into thinly sliced veg and weigh it down in a jar so that as the salt draws the water out of the veggies the water rises above the solids. This gives the lactobacillia an environment it can thrive in. Just make sure you use a salt that hasn't been ionized or uses any decaking agents. Pure sea salt is best.

Ah, cool. I might buy some peppers and give it a shot today. Making my own hot sauce sounds fun. Can you use dried or smoked peppers like ancho or chipotle?

you use some in a ferment however there will be no microbiotics available on the dried peppers to get any fermentation started so there has to be fresh peppers in there. Also if you are using dried peppers you will have to go with the 5% brine method so that they properly reconstitute. Video here gives a pretty simple how to on that

Cool, so maybe my idea would work. If I’m understanding this right, if I were to ferment some red bell peppers, tobasco or red serrano peppers, chipotle peppers, garlic, and onions and then add apple cider vinegar and a little brown sugar at the end I could maybe get a hot sauce that tastes like Eastern Carolina barbecue sauce. Smokey, vinegary, spicy, and just a bit sweet with an apple twang. I’m definitely seeing the potential for a rewarding hobby here. Thanks for the information anons.

Giving ginger beer a try at the moment. I got the bug started easily and the "feed it daily until you have time for the next step" really fit my schedule. Got it in a vessel yesterday along with the "tea" with and going to let it ferment a few days before bottling in hopes of a stronger taste.

I'm starting to enjoy cold fermenting better than room temp fermenting.

It still generates the lacto, but leaves your vegetables less "fermenty" tasting and much more firm. I think I may continue to do all my ferments in the fridge now instead of on the counter.

I finally got some proper fermentation gear, only to realize that it really isn't all that essential. I have an oxygen pump that supposedly should stop mold from growing, I guess.

I did some pretty simple cabbage (that was supposed to be kimchi but I think it's more sauerkraut than anything else), pickles that are fucking great and some sweet onions. Everything is great, except I think I should have added more salt to everything and more sugar to the onions. The onions also have some strange yellow spots on them, but they taste fine and look fine otherwise.

The sauerkraut is half finished and I can't wait to try making kimchi again. Kombucha is on my todo list but I can't seem to find a recipe that doesn't require buying kombucha (which I can't find) already. It's also only a bunch of tryhard hipsters so I'm getting really turned off.

How do I keep the veggies under the brine? Is it as important as people claim it is?

It's important because solids that get to the top and get exposure to oxygen will mold and rot. If you are checking your ferment every few days you can just pick those out.

rigging up a weight just takes a little ingenuity on each individuals part. There was an user in an earlier fermented hot sauce thread that used a bamboo twig cage he made to keep all solids under the brine. I've done a natural weight with glass follower before. For instance take the top of a bell pepper and wedge it into the jar so that it covers most everything under it, then take a shot glass (or something with the right height depending on the head space you're left with) and screw the lid over it lightly. This is basically the same as how the large outer leaf of a cabbage is kept whole to cover and wedge around the shredded cabbage in a crock for making sauerkraut.

Having a proper weight and follow system means that once it's set up you don't have to keep an eye on your ferment every day. For the hot sauces that I've let go for over a month this is important since at some point I'll forget about it for nearly a week before checking on it.

Yeah they are glass jars, they have plastic lids but they won't be touching anything.

>Just make sure you use a salt that hasn't been ionized or uses any decaking agents

Is this absolutely essential or is it more of an artisinal thing?

Has anyone done this method of weighting everything down? I'm strongly leaning toward trying this since it involves no extra purchases (I'm poor)

The cabbage in my kimchi has turned fizzy with carbonation, should I be gonzernd DD:

Hmm, could be yeast making alcohol. Wonder how cabbage wine tastes?

No. Thats fermentation taking place. Bubbles are a good sign.

I don't mean the brine is bubbling, the cabbage itself is carbonated and tingles sharply when I bite into it

As long as it’s not pasteurized it should be fine, the starter I used back when I began making it wasn’t even unflavored, it had some green stuff in it, yet I still managed to purify it enough that it’s just the good stuff now

Retard.

>the cabbage itself is carbonated and tingles sharply when I bite into it

That's normal and expected.

I made some of that a few months ago, I can’t remember how well it turned out. I think it needed to ferment longer to better carbonate it. I’ve learned my lesson now with kombucha

Then why have I not experienced it in any other kimchi I've ever had, home-made or otherwise?

I’m not sure what area you live in that doesn’t have kombucha, they sell it at most groceries now, not just whole food places. I mean my flyover town has it. If you really want, you can find starter online. Try to get past the hipster thing too, the fact you’re making it yourself instantly makes you better then them

Iodine and the other stuff added to table salt can hurt fermenting bacteria and probably will result in poison from the bad bacterias. Kosher salt is perfectly fine, no need to go crazy and artisanal

I live in the Caribbean. I've only ever found Kombucha abroad and I don't want to risk getting called into customs for importing a dehydrated bacterial culture. So buying it isn't an easy option for me. I actually had to order the mason jars I use for fermenting because I couldn't find any good ones here.

I'm currently looking into just using champagne yeast to make it (and slowly opening up to the idea of just making it with airborne yeast). It can't be that hard.

Seems like it would work, but you will likely need to throw out the top layer due to the inability to keep everything submerged. Everything under will be fine though.

I threw out most of the starter ginger and put a little of the remains in a vessel with chamomile tea. That was the best damn tea I've ever had. Not sure if it was the fermented ginger or just the ginger alone, but I wish I'd have saved the starter.

As for the ginger beer, it's been two days now in the crock and it is not yet bubbly, but it has been cold lately, so I'm going to give it around 4-5 days before bottling.

It's completely normal. In fact, that's a properly done kimchi.

youtube.com/watch?v=sUwy71ddj1M