Fermented Foods

I bought some hippie's book on how to ferment your own foods, and once you get past her Marxist rhetoric, the recipes are fantastic.

I have made sauerkraut, Kimchi, and have a Sourdough starter bubbling away.

Does anyone else love fermenting food?

For me, it's like watching beer ferment, just mesmerizing.

I've only done kraut, but you might find this useful:
https://www.lehmans.com/p-4467-the-art-of-fermentation.aspx
Regards, GF.

i make kraut (zuurkool), fermented carrots, fermented chili sauce, sourdough bread. if you can get one of these fancy german 'Harsch' or similar sauerkraut pots they are amazing. i have the 7.5 liter one, love it.

I've done fermented veggies (carrots, cabbage, a few snap peas), kimchi, sauerkraut, cheese, vinegar (malt, cider, and wine vinegar), and sourdough. I am wheat-less now, but I used to make rye sourdough several times a week way back then.

I like fermented veggies a lot, but now I think I'm going to start making fermented hot sauce after having some from some other forum members who did a great job with it!

my first fermented chili sauce was a huge success. i had a few extra chilis from my one window plant, 'standard' medium hot finger sized red chilis. the sauce was meant to be towards the tabasco style (runny) but more interesting.
220 g chilis, roughly chopped
6 g salt
a few whole garlic cloves
some fruity white wine, and some water (50/50) enough to cover the chilis in a tall glass or bottle.
i then added a little bit of the whey (if that's the right word for the watery part at the top) from a yogurt that had just fermented, to really kickstart it.
left it a few weeks, stirring every now and then. you could really see it fizzing away. pH was in the low 3's, blended it well and passed through a mesh sieve/strainer, pushing through quite firmly.
it is really the most vibrant red color i've ever seen on something edible.
sharp, tangy, medium spicy, leaves you wanting to sip it from the bottle! second batch is fermenting now

I've only ever done kimchi. It's wonderful. Keep meaning to try sauerkraut, but it's easy enough to buy good sauerkraut around here that I just get lazy.

I try to make yogurt once a week. Store bought Yoplait (and the like) yogurt just taste like sugar when compared to the fresh stuff.

I need to get my sourdough starter working again, but I've got a few batches of kraut in the fridge.

hunter, cook something with cabbage. I always have use what I need for the meal, then ferment the rest.

Wanting to try homemade sauerkraut...I was curious about modifying one of my plastic food safe buckets from my brewing supplies - maybe 1 gallon. Drill a hole, put in a rubber grommet, and use one of my brewing airlocks. If I do that, do I need to weigh down the kraut like most recipes to keep it from being exposed to O2, or will there be enough CO2 from fermentation to purge the headspace, as in beermaking?

mikeasu said:

Wanting to try homemade sauerkraut...I was curious about modifying one of my plastic food safe buckets from my brewing supplies - maybe 1 gallon. Drill a hole, put in a rubber grommet, and use one of my brewing airlocks. If I do that, do I need to weigh down the kraut like most recipes to keep it from being exposed to O2, or will there be enough CO2 from fermentation to purge the headspace, as in beermaking?

Click to expand...

I think you want to weigh it down to keep it wet as much as you do to avoid oxygen exposure.

mikeasu said:

Wanting to try homemade sauerkraut...I was curious about modifying one of my plastic food safe buckets from my brewing supplies - maybe 1 gallon. Drill a hole, put in a rubber grommet, and use one of my brewing airlocks. If I do that, do I need to weigh down the kraut like most recipes to keep it from being exposed to O2, or will there be enough CO2 from fermentation to purge the headspace, as in beermaking?

Click to expand...

Yeah you'll need to keep it submerged in its brine. Don't go crazy trying to make an airlock top. The salt will prevent infection as long as you keep your cabbage submerged. Just peak in there and scrape off any yeast that accumulates over the first couple of days. Or don't. Sauerkraut is really easy going.

Cyclman said:

I bought some hippie's book on how to ferment your own foods, and once you get past her Marxist rhetoric, the recipes are fantastic.

I have made sauerkraut, Kimchi, and have a Sourdough starter bubbling away.

Does anyone else love fermenting food?

For me, it's like watching beer ferment, just mesmerizing.

Click to expand...

Name of the hippie book?

I've started getting into ferm'ed foods. Just some basic yogurt and cheese making, but plan to get into it more. Seems like a natural addition to ferm'ed beverage making.

We are now living part of the year in Volcan, Panama which is a significant dairy & agriculture area. We can walk across the street and get fresh raw milk...sure makes cheese/yogurt making easier.

Curtis2010 said:

Name of the hippie book?

I've started getting into ferm'ed foods. Just some basic yogurt and cheese making, but plan to get into it more. Seems like a natural addition to ferm'ed beverage making.

We are now living part of the year in Volcan, Panama which is a significant dairy & agriculture area. We can walk across the street and get fresh raw milk...sure makes cheese/yogurt making easier.

Click to expand...

Wild Fermentation. I do recommend it.

Cyclman said:

Wild Fermentation. I do recommend it.

Click to expand...

This is a great read! My wife bought this book before I started home brewing and I read it after, wish I read it before I would have started making beer well before I did. Anyway I used it to make sour kraut and it turned out fantastic!!

Cyclman said:

Wild Fermentation. I do recommend it.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Found it on Kindle.

I have a bit of an obsession with fermented foods.

Beer / Kimchi / Tepache / kraut / salami / cheese (aged w/culture) / pickles / sourdough (from berlinerweisse trub!) / yoghurt

I love hot sauce, so maybe I'll delve into that next.

I did a bunch of vegetable ferments this summer (cucumbers, Napa cabbage, beets, shiso leaf) with good to excellent results. I still have my last batch of cukes fermenting with some of my last harvest of Nugget hops, along with garlic, salt, and dill. Wild Fermentation is written by a man, BTW.

Iv'e kept a sourdough culture for 15 years give or take a few, sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, kombucha, probably others.
Libations, beer, mead, rice wine and a couple very basic wines.

Looking like a new book for the library

+1 for Wild Fermentation. It is THE definitive resource on the subject.

burninator said:

+1 for Wild Fermentation. It is THE definitive resource on the subject.

Click to expand...

It is a great book, and a really non-intimidating way to get into fermenting stuff. If you garden extensively, you can get so much more use out of your crops by fermenting excess produce.

Found some asparagus in the fridge. I didn't have a plan for it and it looked like it was about to go bad, so into a jar it went with sauerkraut juice, water, garlic, salt, dill, and peppercorns.

We'll see what happens

Within the last couple days I started refrigerator pickling things but it's really peaked my interest in actually fermenting food. I've done some jalapeños, and dill pickles. I recently moved to a new house and brewing beer really isn't an option right now. Getting something fermenting like sauerkraut or pickles might help keep the brewing monkey off my back until I get work done around the house and things set up for beer. Definitely going to have to check out that book.

Started a vinegar yesterday using Guiness as a base...should be nice & malty!

Probably try 'kraut next.

i would love to hear if anyone makes a fermented fish sauce (garum/liquamen), and how it smells.