Grrr my sauerkraut has mold again. It’s 100 percent the weather…so I’m taking a break for a bit. I can still make kefir
Ferment
Ideal Temp
Sauerkraut / vegetable ferments
65–72 °F
Kombucha
75–85 °F
Kefir
68–78 °F
Yogurt
105–113 °F
Sourdough
72–80 °F
Koji
86–95 °F
Miso aging
50–77 °F
Natto
100–104 °F
Creme fraiche
68–77 °F
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A huge thank you to our incredible team and partners for making this happen! 🙌
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New kefir grains didn’t give me cramps yay. I guess my old batch was too old/went “bad” or something
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spent today on holy things: I’ve been brining some vegetables to ferment. I got a batch of rice wine fermenting and showed a friend how to do it. I made a bunch of meals so I don’t have to cook when I get home from work this week. I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen. I did laundry and a bunch of other stuff I needed to do.
Feeling good about myself. It’s been a really difficult couple of weeks but I’m battling through. Think I deserve a nap now though, think I deserve to build a little nest of blankets and curl up under my desk and dream of peace and peaceful things.
It’s about to be three weeks since I started this home fermentation project! After taste-testing the brine and smell-testing, the sauerkraut really does become more sour just from sitting and fermenting.
Note: the first week is when the kraut produces the most excess brine. If you don’t have one of those water-lock crocks, and you keep the lids on loosely, the jars will overflow some to relieve the pressure from the fermentation gasses. Just place the vessels of kraut on towels, like this. Then it’s easier to clean up the leakage
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The universe has created a monster in me. I recently learned how to make yogurt. And now this last week, I have made kimchi, sourdough and yogurt and if this was not winter I probably would have made kombucha too. My little Cooler is now best friends with my glass pasta sauce jars filled with hot water. Tis my little incubation chamber.
A bread’s lifecycle
The best part about making bread is getting a fresh, hot loaf all to yourself 🥖
Welcome to Stage 5 of the alchemical operations: Fermentation
⚠️ I highly recommend doing the inner workings of stages 1-4 before partaking in the fermentation stage.
The greatest thing about alchemy to me is real time awareness of where you are. You know which alchemical operation is for you, based upon your awareness of self + esoteric landscaping (research).
🇵🇱 Gryczane Placki z Fermentu: Śniadanie, Które Żyje!
Dzisiaj dzielę się z Wami przepisem na absolutny klasyk mojej „słoikowej” kuchni. Wystarczą dwa składniki i odrobina cierpliwości, by natura odwaliła za nas całą robotę. Te placki są puszyste, zdrowe i niesamowicie sycące.
Składniki:
Kasza gryczana biała (niepalona) – 1 szklanka
Woda (najlepiej filtrowana lub przegotowana, bez chloru)
Szczypta soli (opcjonalnie)
Tłuszcz do smażenia (olej kokosowy lub masło klarowane)
Przygotowanie:
Moczenie: Kaszę wsyp do szklanego słoika i zalej wodą tak, aby poziom wody był ok. 2 cm nad kaszą. Odstaw na kilka godzin (lub na całą niedzielę), aż kasza napęcznieje i wchłonie płyn.
Blendowanie: Gdy kasza wchłonie wodę, nie odlewaj jej nadmiaru (chyba że jest go bardzo dużo – masa powinna mieć konsystencję gęstej śmietany). Zmiksuj wszystko blenderem ręcznym na gładką masę.
Fermentacja: Przykryj słoik gazą lub luźno zakręć nakrętkę. Zostaw na noc w temperaturze pokojowej. Rano powinieneś zobaczyć małe bąbelki i poczuć delikatnie kwaśny zapach – to znak, że ciasto „pracuje”.
Smażenie: Rozgrzej patelnię z małą ilością tłuszczu. Nakładaj porcje ciasta i smaż na złoty kolor z obu stron.
Z czym podawać? Dowolnie! U mnie dzisiaj wersja na słodko z syropem klonowym i owocami, ale świetnie smakują też z hummusem czy awokado.
🇫🇷 Galettes de Sarrasin Fermentées : Le Petit-Déjeuner Vivant !
Aujourd'hui, je partage avec vous une recette incontournable de ma cuisine : la magie du bocal. Deux ingrédients et un peu de patience suffisent pour que la nature transforme votre repas. Ces galettes sont moelleuses, saines et naturellement sans gluten.
Ingrédients :
Sarrasin blanc (non grillé) – 1 tasse
Eau (filtrée de préférence, sans chlore)
Une pincée de sel (optionnel)
Matière grasse pour la cuisson (huile de coco ou beurre clarifié)
Préparation :
Le trempage : Versez le sarrasin dans un bocal en verre et couvrez d'eau (environ 2 cm au-dessus du niveau des grains). Laissez reposer quelques heures jusqu'à ce que le sarrasin absorbe l'eau.
Le mixage : Une fois le sarrasin bien gonflé, mixez le tout à l'aide d'un mixeur plongeant jusqu'à obtenir une texture de crème épaisse.
La fermentation : Couvrez le bocal avec un linge ou posez le couvercle sans le visser. Laissez fermenter toute la nuit à température ambiante. Le matin, vous devriez voir de petites bulles et sentir une légère odeur acidulée.
La cuisson : Faites chauffer une poêle avec un peu de matière grasse. Déposez des petites louches de pâte et faites dorer des deux côtés.
Accompagnement : Selon vos envies ! Aujourd'hui, je les déguste en version sucrée, mais elles sont tout aussi délicieuses en version salée avec de l'avocat ou du houmous.
Ferment Your First Jar in 5 Steps
Body copy: Because humans did this for 4,000 years before Whole Foods charged you $12 for it.
One cabbage. Two tablespoons of salt. Your hands. A mason jar. That’s the whole ingredient list. No starter kit. No subscription box. No influencer code.
This is sauerkraut — the way your great-grandmother made it, and her great-grandmother before her. Osmosis does the work. You just chop, salt, squeeze, pack, and wait.
Full food science breakdown, history, and troubleshooting: Be Pro-Veggional: A Fermentation Guide
What’s fermenting in your kitchen? Reblog with your jar.
Fermented vegetables aren’t just for hippies. Or SE Asian-Fusion, although Kim-Chi is widely known as the best kind of fermented cabbage. Don’t argue. Did you know your body mass is a crazy-large percentage of just bacteria? Like, a full-fraction of yourself is actually other things, living in colonies, eating sugars, utilizing hydrolysis like they own your shit. They kind of do, actually, since the biggest beneficiary of these creepily-helpful friends you never knew were inside of you is your colon. Yup. Gut health (and being a good pooper) isn’t just about what you eat, it’s what’s eating what you eat, and all the chemical reactions they cause (called enzymes) in addition to the physical labor of digestion and processing of sugars.
There are certain bacteria that are good for certain things, so, yeah, please wash your hands after using the bathroom and before you eat, because any bacteria mostly like the same thing, remembered in the acronym FAT TOM (more below). This means that some kinds of bacteria (like E. Coli) should live in your gut and only in your gut because it has a very specific job to do and the right ecosystem to do it. But when E. Coli escapes your butt or someone else’s butt (like in the pooper), and somehow makes it to your mouth and then stomach (how did that happen?? Did you wash your hands??
WASH YOUR HANDS! DO IT! Warm water + soap + sing the happy birthday song twice, you animal), it will definitely make you very sick.
Like a nascar driver in charge of the carpool…. Nobody is denying Earnhardt got skills, but do you want that guy doing flips in your minivan with a bunch of kids? That’s what I am talking about, right bacteria, wrong place and time for the job needing done.
The RIGHT kind of bacteria for your mouth and tum-tum lives, kind of everywhere… our skin, dirt, water, the surface of fruit, on molecules we breathe in, and it occurs naturally in human biomes and other animals. Go figure, it’s like nature intended us to be a part of the natural ecosystem, and we’re all connected by something. The bacteria in question is the L. Bacillus acidophilus kind. Bacillus means it’s rod-shaped (get a microscope) and acidophilus means it’s the kind that does well in acid. As in stomach acid. The ‘L’ stands for Lacto, meaning milk, because we get the first strains of Lactobacillus introduced to our body from our mother’s milk. Aww. So, how do we get the L. Bacillus to work for us, in a recipe? FAT TOM will tell you how, but the first thing you need to do before you get started is to WASH YOUR HANDS.
So, that’s 'ol FAT TOM, the first thing I ever learned in culinary school, because WASH YOUR FREAKIN HANDS!
Kurt Vonnegut said science is magic made into reality. It’s cool to think of it like that, but the only people who think of food as magic are people who have never made food, like our friend the daughter-selling slaver I mean farmer from the Neolithic era. There is a process, and it’s not exact, but that doesn’t mean it’s not based on science, it’s just largely based on something that is very contextual, and that’s context.
We’ve already talked about some things that can shape the context of your process: which vegetables you choose to ferment, how big or small you want to cut them, how warm or cold it is in your house and OH GOD FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET INFANT JESUS WASH YOUR HANDS!!!!!!! Do everything you can to NOT introduce other bacteria into the mix. OK but science is knowledgeable-ish, right? How do we know we’re not doing the thing we’re not supposed to without a microscope? Well, my friend, it is now absolutely clear to me you have never cooked anything ever without making yourself or someone else sick because the SUPER obvious answer to that is to … yep, wash your hands first and often, number 1.
Also, ONLY use clean equipment, surfaces, and ingredients (you attain that state of cleanliness by washing these things also, before, during, and after all cooking processes but especially this one). You can wash your vegetables by giving them a rinse with cool water, then letting them sit in a mild bath of cool water with a lower pH than tap water. Achieve that by throwing in a capful of white vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice into the water the vegetables bathe in. Don’t worry about being surgery-sterile (overboard, much?), but I would recommend using the sanitize setting on your dishwasher with your knives and mixing bowls and other stuffs, and if you don’t have a dishwasher then just wash with warm water and soap as usual, then rinse with water that is as absolutely as hot as you can stand it, then letting all your things air-dry before using. Air-dry is important, because towels are breeding grounds for all kinds of unhelpful bacteria and germs, and bacteria cannot live on non-porous surfaces with no food, incubation, while being exposed to too much oxygen, and rapidly shrinking amounts of moisture. While they might not thrive and colonize to breed (until they find what they want!) bacterial cultures could still get smeared on from the towel and dormantly rest there. You know that smell, when it’s time to wash a kitchen towel? That’s some ucky bacteria making that smell. Does your dish sponge smell like that? Sanitize it in your dishwasher, or throw it away. Right now. Then wash your hands. Maybe twice.
OK, we did all that, but Carrie, I don’t understand. My fingies are so clean, and so is my kitchen now (you’re welcome), and the veggies look like just normal veggies. Did you forget to tell us where to buy the L. Bacillus Acidophilus? Um, did you forget to tell me that you are an artesanal champagne brewer, and you only buy fermentable bacteria online, or from highly-curated and overhyped gourmet markets? Shipped to you in too much earth-killing insulated packaging like a Whole Foods SCOBY? Get a grip.
Sorry, that was a little mean. But the truth is (imagine me doing a Yoda-voice) Inside and all around you, L. Bacillus is.
Yeah, it’s true! Starting when you were a wee babe, you got it from your mother’s milk, if you were lucky enough to be breastfed, like my older brother. If you’re the middle child of a working-class poor family like me, then you might not have gotten it from breast milk but you got it from somewhere. It’s the reason your parents would watch you eating dirt off the floor and just shrug while looking at each other and saying “eh, it’s good bacteria. Right?” and then go on drinking Zima while smoking inside of a Dunkn’ Donuts and agreeing or disagreeing with whatever Regan was doing at the time, depending on their skin color and income bracket. So, yeah, trust me, L. Bacillus will get there. You put out all the tasty little thirst-traps it loves, the garlic and onions and cabbage, and you made a lovely, comfy, clean home for it to come occupy by genociding all the wild yeasts and bacteria that pre-existed before your capitalistic greed took over (history will remember), first with a rinse in the tub of acidic water, and then by throwing salt at the whole mess and massaging it. With your hands. Yes, those hands. The clean ones. Why do you think it was so important to keep washing them? Your hands, armpits, feet, groin, and mouth are where bacteria loves to congregate because of all the moisture and heat and contact with others. Just shut up and think about science. And don’t try to massage anything with your groin, that is highly not OK. Your armpits come in contact with lots of stuff, too, you just don’t realize it because we’re constantly worried about pit-stains and smells and
waaaaaaaiiitt…. Yup, that’s how it works. Bacterial transfer, via contact with moisture. Sprinkle enough sea-salt (my preference, as a chef, but honestly if all you have is iodized table salt, chemically it should work) to make a really gritty environment for all your lovely smooth-surfaced vegetables (for about the 2 - 2.5 pounds of vegetables I used in this batch, I put in about a handful of sea salt, or ¼ - ⅓ of a cup. Science.), and then massage it with your bare hands. This is the only time throughout the entire process I want you to actually touch the vegetables and everything with your bare hands, seriously. You, you bacterial host, you unknowing puppet of bioengineering, you cog in the natural ecosystem, you are transferring part of the bacterial body that lives inside of you and on you and around you onto the cabbage and onions and turnip by massaging the salt into it all with your bare hands. In bacterial terms, this is what we call enculturing. Really. And you thought I was joking about the colonizer stuff… I wasn’t, only slightly exaggerating. The salt does a few things: it lacerates the vegetables, which make them more susceptible to bacterial transfer. 2nd, through a process called osmosis, it begins what is essentially a fluid transfer between you and the vegetables, a transfer which carries strains of the L. Bacillus through your bloodstream and skin via your sweat/moisture loss because of the salt. Lasty, contrary to what you might think, the salt actually creates an antimicrobial and antibacterial environment, which is why you don’t want too much salt.
Too much salt means your L. Bacillus will never thrive, or it will take wayyyyy too long to make your fermented vegetables, because they’re so well-preserved with the salt they stay untouched for months and months until all that’s left is cabbage in a salt-brine even the donkey doesn’t want but sailors out at sea for months at a time really appreciate. However, just like any imprisoned population turned into a colony on behalf of a ruling empire, there’s a bit of a caste system among bacteria, and only the strongest survive the transfer. Like the pilgrims on the Mayflower, and whatnot. The L. Bacillus that do survive the transfer are going to be strong, hearty, and really happy to find all this super-available food-stuffs ready to go, the onions and garlic - our high-sugar, high moisture items. They already survived the transfer at the current saline level, so it’s not actually a problem for them, they’re good to go and ready to start a population boom right away. And so they do. After you’ve thoroughly massaged the inoculated population like you’re Queen Isabella convincing a bunch of pirates they’re doing God’s work by risking their lives to find the New World, you’re just gonna leave them to it for a little while - about a half hour should be good, uncovered is fine. After a half hour, the vegetables should be as wilted as a conquered land. Yeesh, where was my head for this whole entry?
Um, ok, I guess we’re just going to ride this out until it’s done.
So, the first-contact colonizers were strong and began populating the cabbage, according to God’s plan. But the first generation that was born on the new terrain…well, they’re a different story. Genetic traits pass on generation to generation in bacteria, just like us, but everyone is fragile when young. Some kids need time, you know? Also, a bacterial generation is when cells divide, about every thirty minutes. So by the time we come back to the wilted veg, the next generation should be about ready to start breeding and multiplying as well, but because we don’t have the same fitness test as the parent generation did (transfer through saline), we’re going to make it easier on them by containing the whole environment and also reducing some stressors - reducing saline and oxygen levels mainly - by adding some fresh water, essential for all life. Reducing saline makes it easier on them to do their thing, and reducing the oxygen levels creates a non-competitive environment for them to multiply without pesky insurgences of whatever native microbes are still there.
So, this time using a spoon, preferably stainless steel or wood, scoop your veggies and juice (technically a brine) into a large glass seal-able container or several smaller containers. Distribute everything evenly, packing down if you have to, then pour enough cool, filtered water into your vessel(s) to cover the vegetables by about a half inch. If it floats to the top then you can find a way to weigh it down…sometimes I use a glass disk or a small plate if it fits inside the vessel you chose. Other times I think ahead and save back a couple whole leaves of the cabbage, and kind of layer it all on top like I am tucking my babies in…think of putting the top crust of a pie over the filling. Gentle, but secure. And that’s it!
Put a lid on it so flies and stuff can’t get in , but not so tightly that it gets sealed off from gas-exchange (or else you’ll have an explosion later as the bacteria burps methane and it has nowhere to go. Don’t worry about the anaerobic nature of it all… the gases produced by the fermentation process actually very lightly settle over the top surface of water/brine, creating a gaseous seal instead of a vacuum (physical seal) against O2 exchange like canning does. What you can do is lightly screw on the lid, or cover the crock with its cover, and then cover that with a clean tea-towel to prevent any dust or bug settling on the soon-to-be-delicious smelling cauldron of pre-probiotics. Within 6 hours you’ll begin to smell the wafting scent of garlic and onion as the bacteria go absolutely nuts, eating that food source and farting out similar-smelling farts for days. It will only get stronger for 72 hours, then suddenly the rampant garlic and onion smell will dissipate, to be replaced by the smell of… something vaguely food-like.
Oh, it’s food now, of course, go ahead and taste it and you’ll see what I mean! Use a fork/utensil, not your fingies, even if they are clean, cause it’s just too risky at this point. But if you do taste it, you’ll find that the brine has changed from a bath made from the salty tears of colonized cabbage raw-dogged by your fists to a bubbly, fermenty, soupy-flavor that is already nuanced and healthy tasting. Go figure. Science. Don’t forget FAT TOM, the temperature of the room will affect the time it takes to get to this and all other stages of fermentation. This stage means that the bacteria have eaten up all the high-sugar veg that’s available, and now like a bunch of millennials who are inheriting a world they didn’t build based on values that never considered their best interest as individuals in a global economy, the newer generations are just going to take what they can get and try and turn the cabbage and turnips into a tech-boom. And so they do.
It would take them FOREVER to “decompose”, or collectively digest/process the sugar in the cabbage and turnips to the same point of used-up as their parents did with the garlic and onion, but we actually don’t really want them to. Too long would mean soggy cabbage, and some weird-texture turnips that kind of dissolve when you eat them. I like to crunch on everything, and in my mind according to this process it should take about 7 days minimum at room temperature, stirring once a day maximum with tongs or a spoon, to aerate, and tasting as you go to gauge how things are (it really will move from salty cabbage water to something that tastes like a veggie broth and a jar of pickles burped a bubbly baby together). Then after that, have a taste test and choose your own adventure. You can:
Decide it’s ready because it tastes good and feels like food in your mouth, and when you stir the mixture you see bubbles appear - one of the surest signs it’s ready, and actively alive. Go ahead and move it to the fridge to slow down all the processes. It’s ready to eat at any time after this, and your LIVE probiotic (redundant word usage, marketing ploy) fermented vegetables will stay sedated but alive for weeks and weeks in the fridge. You don’t HAVE to refrigerate this mixture, by any means, especially if you loooovee things to be nice and soft and want to have a more homogenous texture at the end of it all. Sometimes when I make fermented hot sauce I go through this whole process never refrigerating anything, and the flavor only gets better.
Decide it’s still too salty and “watery” tasting. In this case, you might have added too much salt. Give it more time, but if you need it to be ready soon, you can help things along. Chop up another head of garlic and maybe half an onion this time, and put those in there with some more water. It’s ok if there is way more water than you need, there’s nothing wrong with some extra probiotic brine to mix into your gut-cleansing morning health shots. With the fresh water and added sugar, let it all sit for another 48 hours, and then keep a close eye on it because chances are it really was the salt level that was holding it back, and once you hit the right saline level and pH it will take off. Taste every day (using a utensil, not your fingies - even if they’re clean), and refer to option A.
Woah, did you sniff that? That faintly rotten, composty-vinegar smell is not good. You know the one. That is the smell of a rogue mold spore, probably because you used your grandma’s heirloom wooden spoon you refuse to use soap on to stir the mix instead of germaphobic stainless steel. Or it might have been carried in the air by a rotten lemon hiding on the bottom of your curated, perfectly arranged bowl of exotic citrus you keep on the counter to prove how vibrant of a person you are in background-bragging oriented selfies about alkalization. Don’t be an influencer. Sigh. Curse. Grieve. Fret. Whatever, just feel your feelings about it. And then, sadly, you gotta do something with this accident. Your options are:
[[MORE]]Pray. That’s right. Bestow upon that mix more salt of the earth (or sea) - at least a generous handful, please. Wave your (washed, clean) hands over it, mumble-singing a celestial blessing, praising the strength and vitality of our lil’ chosen ones, L. Bacillus, for you are the god of this creation and it would please you, dammit, to see them go forth and multiply upon your holy works. If this is your decision, then god be with you. Cast your spell, and then 24 hours later put it in the fridge or throw it out no matter what. If it’s working, it will work in the fridge just as well. You’re never going to fully kill the mold, is the thing, but you can slow it down enough to give the bacteria a fighting chance to actually ferment something, and if they do get that chance it could take up to 10 days or 2 weeks in the fridge to notice. Before then, you’re just treating yourself to cold, salty, halfway fermented cabbage. The mold is there, so if/when you do get a fermented product it’s “shelf-life” in the refrigerator is much much shorter than a healthy batch.
If you are immunocompromised or have other issues with mold, NEVER take this option. Choose violence, because you are wrathful and vengeful. Better to abort. So be it! Try again, because practice makes perfect.
