Lactofermentation, aka culturing/pickling

[MoniDew]

I have recently embraced a renewed interest in at-home culturing of vegetables, also known as lactofermentation, or salt pickling. I wonder if anyone here might have some good recipes, tips, tricks, etc to help me on my new path.

Today, I finely shredded cabbage, combined with sea salt, covered with water and weighted (and waited, and waited, :D ) I also started some finely shredded carrots with ginger and sea salt - water and weight. I'll let you know how it goes.

[MoniDew]

WOW! Okay, so, I'm impressed with myself. The sauerkraut turned out waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy better than anything I could have imagined and I seriously can't stop eating it! The gingered carrots weren't bad either, but tasted more rotted than fermented. Now, I know that for some veggies, I'll need a starter.

I've decided that salt-pickling is an area I really want to explore more! My next year's garden is definitely going to include some veggies selected for the purpose of pickle experimentation!

Next, I started a batch of sauerkraut with lemon zest and dill to see how much flavor the new batch will take up. This turned out wonderfully well! I also experimented with culturing my own kombucha and was ECSTATIC with the results.

[MoniDew]

It seems as though I am the only one interested in this topic, but I would like to continue contributing to it, so here goes:

I have made a discovery. Cabbage and cucumbers are the only veggies with an appreciable amount of friendly bacteria, so any ferment one makes must have as a base one or both of these vegetables. (The reason my carrot/ginger tasted more rotted than cultured is that it didn't have a "starter" of either cabbage or cucumber.) Now I know to add a fistful of salted cabbage as a starter to any future veggie ferment.

This week, I have an experiment or two brewing.

The first is an "Italian" style gardeniera combo of carrots, celery, onion, red bell pepper, cauliflower, (no wide green beans available in my area so I left them out) and a fistful of salted cabbage in highly salted water. The friendly microbes should (technically speaking) convert that salt into lactic acid, etc. So the salinity of the water is critical here.

The second is a cucumber/onion/red bell pepper combo, also very salty.

And the third is an experiment in finding more organic sources of salinity. I used the fistful of salted cabbage as a starter, yes. But, for the rest of the mix, I used naturally salty veggies, such as kelp, and celery. I used this mixture to ferment my favorite vegetable: Kale.

I'll let you know how each of these turn out, later in the week.

[MoniDew]

well the kale without salt was a total bust. it's now compost. BUT
the cucumber relish and the gardeniera were WINNERS. And now, they are BREAKFAST :D

[Blossome]

Wow! thanks for posting this. I never knew the name of this process. I had to look it up and I'm very interested. Have you made anything else?

[gardengirl72]

It's popular in Korean Cuisine and popular here as evidenced in one of my videos about the Boston Kim-chi festival. It was a packed with people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J7RpFOPzBo

[MoniDew]

AH HA! Kimchi is a winner with me as well. I have figured out how to make a slammin' kimchi in these past few weeks. Who knew there was an entire festival for such a little known (here anyway) food?! :D


PS: the experimentation in lacto-fermentation has paid off big-time for me in health benefits, having done a tremendous amount of healing work in my digestive system. After the massive level of damage done by undiagnosed celiac disease, I can honestly say that I feel healthier and happier now than I have in decades!!

[MoniDew]

just wanted to add that my experiments in lactofermentation have now extended to beverages. For the past several months I have been making and consuming kombucha - which is sweet tea, cultured with a friendly Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY). I have also begun kefiring using sugar water rather than dairy (celiac disease again). The real fun begins AFTER the process when you get to experiment with adding various fruit juices, etc to make flavored beverages. So far "dragon" lemonade (ginger & lemon) kefir and/or kombucha is a slammin' winner for me!!

[Rl_haskins]

I do a "quickie" thing with grains,( especially wheatberries or brown rice) "fermenting" into rejuvlac. There is alot of info online about doing this already but really easy....
it makes the same Lemony-tasting beverage you are talking about. I use the liquid as a starter for nut cheeses, etc.

[MoniDew]

I can't even be in the same room with wheat berries, because I have celiac disease. Drinking rejuvelac would kill me! LOL! but I had no idea you could make it with rice! that's new information for me!

And, I have heard of making seed cheeses - something I would love to do because celiac wipes out my dairy processing too. do you use whey as your starter (OUT for me - dairy!) My typical starter has to be cabbage/sauerkraut. But I wonder how it would do on seed cheeses?

I make a mock cheese from a modified hummus recipe (chickpeas, lemon juice, garlic and sesame paste) that works really, really well. But it's not fermented. I need those lactoferments to help heal my gut. It would be cool to figure out how the do a mock, but "real" cheese - with lactofermentation!