Fermentation for food preservation

[begreen]

Edit: Moved from canning thread to a new one on fermentation preservation

Last year I made my own dill pickles for the first time by fermenting our cukes in a brine solution. Everything was homegrown except the salt, just pickling cukes, garlic, and dill. I added whole Thai chili pepper to the second batch, mo betta. This is the real dill pickle like I remember from the old delis with the pickle barrel. Delish. I also got a proper crock and made homemade saurkraut that came out remarkably well. I like probiotics in my diet and will be doing more this summer, hopefully exploring pickling other veggies like carrots and cauliflower.

 

[begreen]

It’s been a while since we made sauerkraut. I’m the about the only one here that likes it, so I don’t get much support for that one. “Stealing” some of that out of the crock after it’s fermented awhile and before it is canned is sure good!

I never liked saurkraut until a few years ago when the raw fermented variety was recommended to help with an acidic stomach. I mixed it with soups at first but then acquired a taste for it. Now I like it and discovered what I really didn't like is canned saurkraut. Fresh kraut will keep in the refrig for many months, so that is all I eat now.

We also like dilly carrots and dilly beans.

Are they vinegar dilled or naturally fermented? We've been making vinegared pickled dill beans for decades. The relatives fight over them at Christmas and we hear it if they don't get them. Asparagus pickles up nicely too. We made some vinegar pickled cukes, mostly bread and butter variety, but I am the only one that eats them. I have had delicious pickled peppers and this year I am hoping we have enough to make up some batches. That is if there are enough left after the homemade siracha sauce.

Right now the big canning sessions are fresh strawberry jam, but with all the cukes we may need to try something with them soon.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Are they vinegar dilled or naturally fermented?

All my pickled vegetables are naturally fermented.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

One thing we make that is a bit unusual is making coleslaw out of turnips. If you try it once, you will never maker coleslaw out of cabbage again. It has a uniquely different flavor. You can make coleslaw out of radishes and other root vegetables also.

That sounds yummy. I personally love slaws of all types. I’ve heard of “sauerruben” which is basically a turnip version of sauerkraut but never a turnip slaw.

My mother makes sauerkraut out of kohlrabi, and that’s delicious. I bet slaw would be great, too.

 

[begreen]

All my pickled vegetables are naturally fermented.

Ooo, tell me more. Do you do the peppers in brine alone or do you add garlic and other ingredients? Same question for green beans.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Ooo, tell me more. Do you do the peppers in brine alone or do you add garlic and other ingredients? Same question for green beans.

I do the peppers in brine alone but with a higher salt content. Green beans I use dill, garlic, bay leaves, and hot peppers just like pickles. I’ll see if I can give some more specifics later about the brine, but right now I need to get to the garden before it gets too hot.

Begreen, would you please move the fermentation parts of this thread to a new thread so that we don’t derail Poindexter’s canning topic? It might get more contributors, too, with a title about fermentation. Thanks.

 

[begreen]

Fermentation moved to new thread.

Green beans I use dill, garlic, bay leaves, and hot peppers just like pickles

That is what goes into our vinegared dill green beans along with some tumeric. I want to try a batch of green beans this summer using the fermentation method. Looking forward to more specifics on the salt content in the brine. I would expect that the green beans stay crisper and greener. Do you refrigerate afterward, or hot pack, or?

 

[PaulOinMA]

I'll buy a jar of kraut and have some mid-afternoon. Low calories and good for you.

This thread will make me buy a head of cabbage next week and make a vinegar-based slaw. Yum.

 

[begreen]

I'll buy a jar of kraut and have some mid-afternoon. Low calories and good for you.

This thread will make me buy a head of cabbage next week and make a vinegar-based slaw. Yum.

I just can't warm up to heat-processed kraut. It tastes mushier and loses its probiotic goodness. Might just be the brands I have tried. Fortunately, our store has fresh kraut if I should run out. I like ours better, but it will do in a pinch.

 

[PaulOinMA]

The jar kraut I buy is from Poland. Very crunchy. Very good.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Thanks for the thread, @begreen.

Here are some resources I’ve used for fermentation.

I used to read on the Nourished Kitchen website and learned a lot of fermentation (like pickles and kombucha) from the author. I own her first cookbook, which I use when I pickle cucumbers. I’ll link to her recipe here, but I noticed when I checked it that you have to sign up to unlock the recipe. I was sad to see that, but I figure I’ll still list it as a resource because you can read the other information.

How to Make Garlic Dill Sour Pickles (Fermented Pickles!) | Nourished Kitchen

Sharply sour and infused with dill, garlic and spices, these naturally fermented sour pickles are the real deal. They're also easy to make with this super simple recipe. And you'll only need about 5 minutes of active time in the kitchen plus a week to ferment.

nourishedkitchen.com

I use Fido jars for all my pickle making. They keep the oxygen out but allow some carbon dioxide to escape if the pressure builds. I use sterilized rocks for my weights, and I use 1 tablespoon of fine sea salt per 1 pint of water.

I didn’t see the tip when I quickly scanned the information, but I know one thing I learned about pickle making was to be sure to cut off the blossom end to reduce chances of the pickles turning soft. Apparently an enzyme that contributes to that collects in the blossom end of the cucumber. I also use wild grape leaves as a source of tannins. I do store the pickles in a refrigerator after they have fermented in a cabinet for a week or so. Our kitchen is quite hot in Texas, so fermentation in a cooler location will probably take longer. Our pickles lasted until December or January this past year. They could have lasted longer; we just simply ate them up.

Here’s a link to the pickles recipe on Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation page. I don’t use this particular one, but he’s considered something of a guru of fermentation, so it makes sense to add a link.

Making Sour Pickles | Wild Fermentation :: Wild Fermentation

Resources for fermenting a vast range of nutritious and delicious live-culture foods and drinks.

www.wildfermentation.com

I use the same basic procedure for making dilly beans. Here’s a link to a different website with a recipe.

Probiotic-Packed "Pickled" Fermented Dilly Green Beans

Come learn how to make simple, tangy, crunchy fermented dilly green beans! They're delicious, and loaded with millions of healthy probiotics & antioxidants!

homesteadandchill.com

Finally, I’m adding a link to an explanation of different percentages of brine. The page has a handy brine chart on it with recommendations for the percent to use for different vegetables.

Brine

For most fermenting vegetables and kvasses a 2% brine is sufficient. Carrots, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, whole or quartered beets, onions, garlic, horseradish, and just about...

www.probioticjar.com

I’ve been fermenting for over a decade now with more many more successes than failures. My four kids all enjoy the sour tang of fermented foods, so they get excited when we have a jar available. I have one child who is allergic to food dyes and preservatives, and it’s hard to get commercial pickles without those. It’s great to be able to make my own.

 

[SpaceBus]

We want to make our own pickles, but can't seem to get cukes to grow very well here. The only plants we ever get a good harvest on so far are cabbage, basil, peas (when the local hares don't eat them 😤), sunflowers, squash/pumpkin, and some greens like collards. Everything else really struggles.

 

[EbS-P]

We want to make our own pickles, but can't seem to get cukes to grow very well here. The only plants we ever get a good harvest on so far are cabbage, basil, peas (when the local hares don't eat them 😤), sunflowers, squash/pumpkin, and some greens like collards. Everything else really struggles.

How about pickled turnips and beats??

 

[SpaceBus]

How about pickled turnips and beats??

My wife likes beets, and we do have some growing now, they did well last year. I'll try pickling some since we should have a decent sized harvest.

 

[begreen]

We want to make our own pickles, but can't seem to get cukes to grow very well here. The only plants we ever get a good harvest on so far are cabbage, basil, peas (when the local hares don't eat them 😤), sunflowers, squash/pumpkin, and some greens like collards. Everything else really struggles.

Cucumbers may need a greenhouse assist in your area. Are there any farmer's markets in the area? They might be a source for a batch of pickling cukes.

 

[SpaceBus]

Cucumbers may need a greenhouse assist in your area. Are there any farmer's markets in the area? They might be a source for a batch of pickling cukes.

Sometimes they are available at the coop. You are right on the money about needing a greenhouse. Most of the vegetables available at the local coop are grown in one. I'm actually building one now, but ran out of materials for the time being. We are going to let our chickens use the greenhouse this year and into the spring and then we use it for starting plants.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

My mother sends an email message to family every day and often includes a picture. Today it was a picture of three jars of pickles in various stages of fermentation. It’s a little blurry, but it shows the progression well from a freshly made jar on the left, to one that is one or two days old, to the third which was four days old at the time of the photo, I believe. She moves them to her refrigerator after about a week.

 

[Poindexter]

@DuaeGuttae , appreciate the links above. I am knee deep in green tomato (grape sized) and am about to try lacto fermenting some of those.

I did two quarts of bell pepper in mason jars to start, had to burp the lids every day, but the product was good after 5 days, so I ordered a set of four pickle pipes with weights off amazon to fit widemouth jars.

I let the bell pepper go 12 days total before I moved them to the fridge. They aren't completely feremented, but they are getting to be a bit more mushy than I could pick up with chopsticks. Next time I do bell pepper I will likely refrigerate around day 7 to slow the ferment.

I have one pint of red jalapeno going now. I -think- when a regular jalapeno is left to ripen bright red on the vine it is then named a Fresno chile. Not sure on the best name, but I am fermenting a pint of those red jalapeno. They are off to a slow start, but they were moving within 48 hours.

For brine I have been weighing my empty mason jar, then weighing the jar with the food in it, doing math to calculate the weight of the food. Then calculate 3% of food weight to the nearest gram, and get the salt into a microwave safe pyrex. Next fill the jar with filtered water. Pour one third of the water back out of the jar into the pyrex, microwave 30 seconds. Stir to dissolve salt. Add a another third of the water from the mason jar with the food in it to cool the brine, pour the cooled brine into the jar, add weight, cap.

So far I am batting perfect. I see a lot of folks online finding the weight of both the food in the jar and the water in the jar and then using 2-5% of that weight as salt to make the brine. My hunch is humans were doing this for thousands of years by eye before gram scales were available. My other hunch is there is a fairly wide range of salt : water ratios that work just fine.

Next up I have 1.5 pounds of Hatch chile that are pretty well orange after a few days on my kitchen counter in the sun. I am going to trim away the last of the green bits and get those going, but I am going to use 6% of the weight of the pepper as grams of salt for the brine.

Also, I am adding white oak slivers to my pepper ferments, but I think I want to wait until the ferment is well established and the brine pretty cloudy before adding the oak in the future.

Sandor Katz has about a million and six videos on youtube. I don't think he is an idiot. I actively limit/moderate the amount of salt in my diet, so I am starting low and working my way up to whatever the minimum salt I need to get the job done turns out to be. If I toss a few dollars worth of vegetables here and there along the way I don't mind.

My goal is pretty healthy finger type foods I can grab on the run.

I have seen a reference or two that any remaining pectinase in a food is at the blossom end and will break down set pectin in the jar while it sits on the shelf - eventually leading to mushy canned goods. Pectinase being the name of the enzyme that breaks down pectin. I trim blossom ends off everything I am preserving. We have a compost heap, and better safe than sorry.

 

[begreen]

I have one pint of red jalapeno going now. I -think- when a regular jalapeno is left to ripen bright red on the vine it is then named a Fresno chile

Fresnos and Jalapenos are different animals. We have both growing. The Fresno is a bit larger, more horn-shaped, and often hotter than the Jalapeno. We have a lot of Fresnos. They make an outstanding Sriracha sauce and are good pickled too. I have not fermented them, but will now that you have suggested it. Thanks for the idea!

 

[Poindexter]

Fresnos and Jalapenos are different animals. We have both growing.

Thanks for that. I don't have a local expert to lean on. I think they are more correctly different plants, just saying smiley.

I got into fermentation when my wife challenged me to make Cholula sauce at home. Reading up not very long on hot sauces convinced me trying to clone or duplicate Cholula (or any other commercial sauce) is a fools errand, but with lacto-fermentation there is no reason I cannot make my own hot sauce.

So I got some red jalapeno started, some orange Hatch's about to have their date with destiny. Once the Hatch's are pretty well fermented I will whiz them up in a food processor, bring in some fermented red jalapeno for a little extra heat, and then I can add feremented red/orange bell to cool it back down if I overshoot with the jalapeno.

It seems to me ( I should be reading my solar power book instead of fooling around with hot sauces), anyway, fresh hot sauces that have not been fermented are going to need to be refrigerated. Hot sauces that were fermented will be shelf stable at room temperature, especially if Pasteurized to stop all fermentation.

Tabasco-Cholula-Siracha all lacto fermented.

 

[begreen]

These are Fresnos. They are an heirloom variety so we will be saving the seeds. They are the first pepper to redden up in our garden and are very prolific plants. I am going to try lacto fermentation with this batch.



Red Fresnos are hot but sweet. They make the tastiest sriracha sauce!

 

[Poindexter]

Both of my jalapeno and hatch pepper ferments got added to the compost heap today. I added salt for brine at 3% of the weight of the fruit and it simply wasn't enough salt, mold got them both.

I do have a green tomato ferment going that started bubbling within 12 hours. For that one I used salt at 3% of the weight of the food and the weight of the water in the jar to cover the food.

 

[begreen]

Oh bummer. I had a batch of saurkraut go moldy a few years ago. It was because some of the cabbage was exposed to air. The brine must cover the veggies 100%+. I have not had a failure since making absolutely sure that there is 1/2" brine over the top of the veggies. I use a stainless spring lid to do this, but glass weights are good too. I have (perhaps dumbly) gone by the simple brine recipe of 2 Tbsp. per quart of water. A quick web search shows brine recipes from 1.5 Tbsp to 4 Tbsp per quart of water, so I guess I am in the ballpark. We prefer to keep the sodium level low as long as it is safe.

I expect to do a couple of pints of peppers soon. We have lots of jalepenos, Fresnos, shishitos, and some Beaver Dams that I want to try out in a batch.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I’ve read that peppers tend toward mold more easily, especially the finer the pieces. I just checked my handy brine chart (it’s in an article that I linked earlier in the thread), and it recommends 3.5 to 5 percent for pepper brine. When I make a brine, I just calculate the water and the salt in grams for my percentages. The time I use the weight of the food is when I’m doing sauerkraut or kimchi. With those I salt the various cabbages, and the salt usually draws out enough water for the ferments to be self-brining.

I have a whole collection of river rocks in my kitchen cabinets that I use to weigh down ferments, though I have considered getting glass weights as less potentially reactive. I agree that keeping vegetables submerged is important. I still have some red banana peppers in my fridge that I fermented last year, but they just recently lost their crunch, so my kids don’t want them on sandwiches anymore. They’re not bad or moldy, just not crunchy. I don’t have many left, and I’ll probably use them up as a pizza topping. Once they’re gone my kids will probably drink up the juice in little shots of probiotics, but it may be too spicy for that. They do love to drink pickle juice, though. I always have to keep them from taking too much juice out of a pickle jar before the pickles are gone. (We haven’t had any pickles this year, though, sadly.)

 

[begreen]

Pickling tryout day. I did the hot pepper batch in simple a fermentation brine. This is a test. These are mostly jalapenos, a beaver dam, and one smoking hot red fresno pepper. I added some of our spicy garlic to round them out. Hope it comes out. They should be ready in 5 days. The other quart is a hot brine pack of green tomatoes. These should be ready to taste in 2 days. They will go into the refrig tonight after they have cooled down.
I have never done either, so we'll see how they come out. If good, we have lots more peppers and green tomatoes to jar up.