Fermentation Station General #2

Really comes down to preference.

I like 3% for soft skinned vegetables, and 5% for hard skinned. The amount of salt will depend on the mount of water you mix it with, by total weight... depending on how you intend to create it.

For others, it's just X number of table spoons of salt, where X is how you're feeling that day or how much your horoscope told you to add.

Anyone here try fermenting ground meat? And by fermenting I mean fermenting.

I use a 3% brine for pickles and a 5% brine for hot sauces. For sauerkraut I use a 2% by weight of veg salt rub.

youtube.com/watch?v=Q7QPAeOdXqA
youtube.com/watch?v=1Cy9axYOYpw

how do you like those silicone fermentation lids?

Anyone here home brew? Was thinking of buying a 5 gallon juggy and trying an Apfelwein as a way to ease into it.

Also interested to see if there are any shroomers on Veeky Forums and if that belongs in this thread.

I homebrew. Mead, mostly, but I do cider and am experiementing with a cheap wine now.

There is almost always a homebrew thread over on /diy/. Lots of very... passionate... people...

Pretty damn well actually. They're a simple alternative to the air locks where you need to fill and junk. Easy to clean; no fuss no muss. They do retain a little odor from whatever you're fermenting but that's whatever. Any non-glass product will do that.

Definitely a recommended buy, whether you're an advanced fermenter or just starting to get into it.

I want to start brewing mead. Any tips?

>shroomers

Explain.

The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm is a terrific book. If you just want to jump right in, it has a list of equipment you need, ingredients, and a procedure.

It also has advanced techniques, history, and a great sense of humor. Well worth the investment.

From personal experience, don't waste money on a bucket style fermenter unless you can find one cheap. It's plenty easy to make one yourself, if you can find a bucket with a crimp-on lid the right size.

Search through marketplace websites for carboys. People sell the things cheap all the time.

Start stockpiling bottles now and clean them well before storing. If you want to make carbonated mead (my jam) avoid low quality bottles without the indentation on the bottom. They can and will explode.

Corking machines are not as intimidating or expensive as I was lead to believe, and I prefer corking large bottles to capping smaller ones. Obviously, this is a matter of prefference, but it means less cleaning small bottles. A drop or two of glycerin on the corks makes inserting them a breeze.

Keep notes, and have fun with it. As long as you keep things clean and sterile as possible, you really can't fuck up.

how do you feel about swing top bottles.
I use em for my cider, but ive been looking into mead, and i wanna know if i should get new bottles.
Also where do you get your honey. I know there are so local honey farmers in my area that will sell to me, but like can you just buy the 100% pure honey from like costco?

It's late, I'm drunk. Just dug into my pickles. Little tortilla, some sliced smoked turkey, sliced pickles, cheese, franks... good to go.

based meadanon

Thank you

I love grolsch/swing top bottles. They're expensive, though, especially when you can get other bottles for free. And I never get them back after giving a bottle as a gift either. No reason why they wouldn't work for mead I can think of...

If there were a place to buy them locally, I'd probably like them more, but it's just not worth it for me to order them online.

Better ingredients means better mead. Local beekeepers are your friends and farmer's markets are the place to be, both for honey and for fruits if you want to make a melomel.

(That said, I'm going the supermarket honey route at the moment because money is tight right now and it's the middle of winter. I don't expect it to be /as/ good, but it will still be ok.)

Go forth in the name of Bacchus, Thor, or a drunken party diety of your choice!

Those look freaking delicious.

Vinegar is used to make a non-fermented pickle. Ferments need only salt and water.

OP, if you are female, I find that touching my cooch before I work with the vegetables is sufficient to get a lacto starter culture going. Otherwise you may have to backslop, though it's not recommended to do too often.

Also if you're using water from a chlorinated tap, then dispense the water and let it sit for a while. The chlorine will evaporate out, leaving a more hospitable climate for your little microbiotes.

>my greens won't ferment

People who grow their own mushrooms. Figured there would be at least one freak on here using the PF Tek method to grow their own musht.

>The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm
I have this book. It is good.

anyone had any mold problems while using these? a lot of the negative reviews I read mentioned mold, but that could be user error.

I'm fermenting some cider right now using molasses as the sugar source, but it seems to be slow going. Should i add some sugar table for a boost?

How do I into kvass

I've had mold before, but it wasn't due to these airlocks but just bad ingredients. Definitely user error.

not that user but I tried to make sauerkraut twice and I got mold both times. I was careful with hygiene and salt quantity but I still ruined it. Any tips to avoid it?

More salt. Mold only produced because it's an environment that it can grown in. Adding more salt hinders that environment, allowing for proper fermentation to build. The lactobacillus can handle heavy salt environments, do don't worry about over salting. Also, make sure your shit is air tight, but can still release gasses. You want to make sure it's a completely oxygen depleted environment.

Fuck Calm yeest

>Also, make sure your shit is air tight, but can still release gasses. You want to make sure it's a completely oxygen depleted environment.
Better look into this than salt if you have problems with mold.

Ok, I downloaded all the images in this thread because I thought this might be an instructional infographic. Now I think I may have to backslop.

So will the colder weather fuck things up if I have a go at it?

from what I understand, the cold might slow down the process but it should still work.

>oxygen depleted environment
is there a way to do this? even sealing something 'air-tight' will leave some oxygen inside. do you need to use a pump to create a vacuum or something? maybe i'm just not understanding...

Fermentation produces carbon dioxide, which will push all of the oxygen out. Airlocks let gas out, but not in. Personally I just use mason jars with the lids not tightened all the way and don't have any mold problems. Even if you do get mold remember that it can't live in the brine, so just skimming it off is generally fine. If it's black it's probably bad, but I usually have a little white (mold or yeast) on my pickles or kraut that I have to skim.

Anyone else who encountered brettanomyces off-taste?

>Even if you do get mold remember that it can't live in the brine
Actually ... it can. If you see mold on fermented stuff it will already have spread its spores within the product.

The best course of action is to prevent mold in the first place by ensuring that no piece of food is above the water level.

how can you tell the difference between legit mold and the harmless 'scum' that forms?

sometimes I mix with clean hands and go by roughness to tell when its salty enough

Might have to burn your computer, senpai. Sorry.

Do they need extra-drying in the oven or is salt-cure sufficient? If so what temperature (in celsius)?

Microscope? Or put it into a sterile petridish on sterile nutrient solution?

so, what... if I see anything growing in there I should toss the whole thing?

No. Fermentation happens with bacteria too, doesn't it?

Just work clean, sterilize your glasware and lids (get new lids!) use gas locks and stuff to weigh down the food under the brine-waterline.

alright, cool. thanks.

I want to try making my own ginger beer. a lot of people say to just reuse plastic bottles online. I want to have a nice presentation in glass "grolsch" style flip top bottles. can i brew for a couple days in plastic and then switch out to flip tops and throw them in the fridge to slow/stop fermenation? I am worried they will explode.

Also.. different recipes call for different yeast. or a ginger bug, does anyone have any experience with this and can you suggest what is best? I am thinking about starting a ginger bug. any idea how this will impact CO2 production and carbonation and possible glass explosions?

So just a dumb question.
After moving things to the fridge, do I still need to worry about burping as much? The fermentation should slow down, but I don't want a fridge bomb.
Also do I have to keep worrying about keeping things below the brine after fridging? I've packed things in tight, but I figure once I eat them that'll probably stop working.

Maybe once a week. The pressure won't be huge, but there will still be gradual buildup.

Is it possible to make garlic honey with creamed honey and cheap Chinese garlic?

god he used to be handsome

You can make cheap Chinese garlic and creamed honey.

You could dry it on very low temperature to ensure its properly hardened off I guess. The only reason mine is so glossy is because I took a moist towel to it to rid the excess salt. If you took a sry towel to it, it wouldnt look as moist.

bump

So how exactly do you tell the difference between kahm and mold?

Kham yeast is often white and silky.
Mold is often colorful and fuzzy.

Also, smell. Yeasty vs Moldy.

Just made this, should I cover the cabbage with fluid all the way to the top or? I tried to press but it always floats to the top

If it's an issue with stuff floating, there's not enough in your jar. Push it down and slightly overfill it so putting on the lid will cover as much as possible with liquids.

Thanks I just pressed it hard and managed to fit all the contents in only two jars

Is curing salt necessarily pink? Here where I live there is no regulation for curing salts, so there is no #1/#2 label with precise percentages to work with, and yesterday when I was looking for it in a local store, I found a curing salt that looked pretty much just like regular salt but chunkier.

Also, if I end up using that salt and it isn't actual curing salt, am I going to die if I eat the meat? How hard is it to tell if it worked?

My boy! If you can help yourself, let it sit for a while before you start dishing out, too. Given some time and the way it's packed in there, dishing out servings after it sits won't cause too much of it to start floating because it's been compressed.

>Is curing salt necessarily pink?
No, but many (most?) are dyed to avoid confusion.

>am I going to die if I eat the meat?
Uhhh... depends on how sensitive your system is, how long it's been sitting, and the type of bacteria that grow. Sodium nitrite (added to curing salt) specifically inhibits bacterial growth. While salt curing has been around for centuries, not getting the right ingredients now makes it a riskier proposition.

When in doubt, buy online to avoid any confusion or possible issues down the road.

Thank you. I'm going to let it sit for 2~3 days. Eh, close enough, might as well do it. Will report back in a few days if I die.

completely unrelated question, i'm just a cooking noob, but how do you guys store your garlic?
my garlic only lasts a few weeks before it starts sprouting out of the bulb, is this normal or am i doing something wrong?

I'm not an expert by any means, but do you remove the skin before storing it? I store my bulbs on some random plastic bowl, never had a problem, except once when I decided to remove the skin because why not.

good luck, user

You can use them to thicken up sauces/dressings. Mayonnaise would normally take raw eggs, oil and vinegar but you can achieve similar (or even better) results with the cured yolk.

I think cooked yolk would work too.

Mayonnaise can also be made with milk, provided you have a mixer.

That's a whole other ballpark from fermenting food items. You'd be better off taking a vroomery to the [REDACTED].

>People who grow their own mushrooms.
If you bring up magic mushrooms I will figuratively murder you.

I once went into a lecture about Hydroponics. It was about weed. Dumb fucker.

Just skim off the top.

Because of the high acidity of the brine, you can actually stir it in and the mold will be neutralized. But I think that's gross so I just skim it off.

no i don't
how long does garlic last for you?
when it starts sprouting out of the bulb that means its bad right?

I meant that I wanted to grow some mushrooms to cook.

I don't use drugs.

Sorry.

So... I think the Veeky Forums- or Veeky Forums-archive has some information about growing mushrooms yourself.

>only lasts a few weeks
that seems normal? garlic doesn't last forever. use it or buy some more - it's cheap.

what threw me off is those hugeass bags of garlic they have at the store bro
how the fuck do people use all that garlic in a couple weeks

dunno, man, maybe they're making this over and over foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/40-cloves-and-a-chicken-recipe-191066
I usually buy individual bulbs and avoid the large bags. the bagged bulbs are usually smaller, anyway

>brewing
So like, if I wanted to add yeast to some fruit juice to make like a fruit beer, how would I do it? We were talking about this with some friends but haven't actually tried it yet.

It may be because we grow it ourselves but we generally harvest 150-200 bulbs in June, wash them, let dry a few days and keep in a refrig veg crisper and they stay firm and full of flavor. This is what's left from june harvest (we use a lot of garlic).

if your just looking to turn store bough into alcohol just get juice with no preservatives in it malic and absorbic acid are okay.

Blend day tomorrow. Stay tuned.

I'm going to make sauerkraut for the first time soon. What spices should I add in?

Are there any other easy beginner things that would be good to try?

I'd like to use store bought natto to make my own natto from soybeans. Don't really know what else I'd do though.

Fermenting fruit juice is called making wine.

Fruit beer and wine are two different things you mong.

My first batch of kvass just got finished. This is some good shit. Might make a bunch more and serve it to my friends on New Year's.

just go on youtube to start

Post if you do. Trial and error begins where lurkers end.

why does the back half of that pile of garlic look so gross
and what's a veg crisper
I wanna store my garlic for months too

Are you warding off blood suckers or something?

gross, wash out your drawer

I think a big problem with people not being able to ferment fruits/vegetables is that they don't use organic produce. A lot of conventional produce is power washed to shit and some of it even undergoes radiation to kill off bacteria and yeast which extends it's shelf life.

Rubbing your cooch before handling produce is likely going to result in fermentation, but not the fermentation you'd like. If your cooch is the only source of bacteria pre-fermentation, then there's no way you supplied enough for a healthy and complete fermentation, and anyways your vag bacteria has learned to thrive in a vag, which is genetically different from bacteria that's learned to thrive on a cabbage or cucumber.

Shroomery is an amazing resource on growing culinary/gourmet mushrooms, and a hydroponics lecture would be an amazing resource on growing vegetables indoors.

Maybe if you got past the stigma of LOL DRUGS XDDDD you'd actually be able to apply some of it to your own personal needs. I don't use drugs but people like you are 10x more annoying than people who do.

How easy/hard is it to grow king oyster mushrooms indoors?