First a word about cleanliness. This is where you usually get the Mom advice that all jars, pots, counter surfaces, walls, ceilings, attics, transport vehicles and your underwear have to be absolutely spotless and sterile enough for surgery before you start. My perspective is that says more about how so many people been raised with a cleanliness and germ fetish than it says about the requirements of lactic acid fermentation. Think about this – if all that cleanliness were truly required would our goat-herder, hunter-gatherer, or hovel-dwelling ancestors have survived long enough to produce us? No, of course not. They made perfectly good lactic acid preserved foods with no chlorine bleach, no boiling water, and no spotless sterile surfaces or nitrile gloves. Now for canning foods you may need sterile conditions but for plain old ferment-then-refrigerate processes forget it. Just make sure there are no big chunks of old food left in the jars or clods of dirt hanging onto the produce. In short, if it is clean enough to eat or drink out of it is more than clean enough to use for safe fermentation. You might get some slightly off flavors but you've had worse things in your mouth than what you are going to brew up here even if it does end up with a slight unexpected twang. On the other hand, if there are some peculiar smells in your jars (like left over smells from garlic dill pickles) you may want to do a bit more scrubbing before you use the jar for something delicate, say, ginger ale (or perhaps not – you might just really like the smell of garlic dill).
Basically lactic acid fermentation goes like this: prepare produce, inoculate, let sit in oxygen-free environment, store in cool place. Everything else is just technique and flavoring. I don't intend to say much about flavorings – that would turn this into a recipe guide and I just want it to be a simple overview to get people started. My cut on technique is that there are four main fermetation techniques (and lots of minor variations associated with equipment and preferences). Those four are: big chunk fermentation, shredded stuff fermentation, mash fermentation and liquid fermentation.
Big chunk fermentation (for example pickles and kim chi)
The process involves nothing more than using whole vegetable such as small cucumbers or chunks such as chopped or sliced cabbage, carrots, etc. Process by rinsing and sometimes peeling or chunking the vegetables, putting them into a jar or crock (quart, half gallon, gallon, etc.) then covering the vegetables with brine. The brine is made with salt and water, usually something like 60 to 90 ml of salt per half gallon of water. You can decrease salt by adding whey (from either cheese making, drained from yogurt, or drained from kefir). The vegetables are weighted down with a small jar, cleaned stone, plate, or plastic bag filled with more brine – whatever fits your jar/crock and a loose lid is used above that to exclude bugs and such. The fermentation takes about a week in the summer when it is warm in the house or much longer in a cool to cold environment but the process is always the same. Flavors develop differently with different fermentation temperatures and some things get less than crispy if too warm but all is edible and tasty if you are happy with taste exploration. If not, follow a pickle recipe exactly, including fermentation temperatures, spices, etc. There are a lot of recipes on line and in books. I've used everything from cherry tomatoes to chayote, to those little pre-peeled carrots you get when you are too lazy to actually peel them yourself. If it is chunky and reasonably fresh it will ferment and make a nice pickled something or other. Explore the taste sensations!
Shredded stuff fermentation (for example sauerkraut)
For this process you coarsely or finely shred the vegetable, add salt (1 to 2 tablespoons per half gallon jar) mush it up with a potato masher to get the juice flowing, put it into a your choice of fermenting container, press it down so the juice sits on top, then cover with whatever fits you container to hold the shredded stuff below the juice (see above). Let sit at room temperature for a week or more (temperature qualifications same as above). Some folks advise you can add whey to this and reduce the salt to almost nothing but I've never made a successful sauerkraut that way so go figure. Your mileage may vary. In addition to cabbage I've used shredded carrots, daikon radishes, turnips, etc. and mixtures thereof. If it shreds it is probably doable. A slight variation is for raw leaves such as kale, collards, etc. which some people just wilt in the sun, mash to juiciness without any fine shredding other than a coarse chopping, add the salt, and go from there.
Mash fermentation
What do you do with left over mashed potatoes? Ferment them of course! This process involves anything cooked and mashed or otherwise paste-like and a few things like chopped raw fruits with juice which form a coarse mash like chutneys and fruit compotes or plum sauce. The way I do it is to add a little salt (about 1 teaspoon to two cups of cooked mashed stuff) and a couple of tablespoons of whole kefir. You can use whey but I usually save whey for other things. The inoculated mash is then placed into a glass container and a sealable bag of water is placed over it to preclude any air from the surface. The covered container is left to ferment for two days at room temperature. After that it goes into the fridge where it continues to ferment at a slower pace for up to a couple of weeks. The result is a sour tasting dish with all the flavor of the original food but with a nice cheesy or vinegary tang. A lot of sugar in the base material makes it more vinegary than cheesy. For potatoes, reheat (slowly, don't kill the bacteria) after fermenting and serve with a bit more kefir. Tastes like you've added a ton of sour cream to the them. For sweet potato add some ginger or other spices during fermentation and use as a basis for desert dishes (uncooked pies, ice cream, etc.). For grains like cooked cracked wheat, oats, buckwheat, millet etc. I like to add cultured butter or vegan margarine and eat as a tangy grain side dish. For spinachy greens like taro leaf, spinach, perennial leaf vegetables such as katuk, chaya, okinawa spinach, edible leaf hibiscus, etc. you cook well, mash down to a somewhat pasty substance then ferment. Cooked leaf ferments make a nice “spinach dip” and are also good as a side dish by themselves. You'll probably find some greens taste much better this way than just cooked. This is also the process you use for chutney's and fruit compotes or sauces, you may want to limit the salt if it is a fruit based mash - you don't want salty jams.
Liquid fermentation
Think beverage. For this one you start with either a juice, an infusion of herbs or flavorings, or chunks of sweet fruits or vegetables. An infusion is basically just a tea and this works well for good old iced tea, herb tea, dried berries soaked in water, etc. Infusions make light sparkly beverages while juices make thicker more wine-like beverages. If you start with a really thick juice try thinning it with an equal volume of water before fermeting. To ferment: just fill a quart jar with juice or tea, add a couple tablespoons of sugar, add a couple tablespoons to a quarter cup of whey. For chunky stuff, like chunked up beets, add a couple of cups to a half gallon of water – the sugar isn't necessary if the beets are sweet enough but you do need the whey. Chunky stuff in this process is just there to flavor the water and provide sugar not to become pickle. Then add whatever you want as additional flavoring - a slice of fresh ginger adds a lot of flavor and is said to improve the fermentation process. Let it sit for two days or so at room temperature with a loose lid on the jar. Once it is bubbly and tangy enough for your tastes chill it and drink within a day. The beverage will be slightly carbonated so the quicker you drink it the more you might like it. If the ferment was a fruit juice or chunky fruit source after it goes flat it usually is very nice as a flavoring for iced tea or in salad dressing since it is quite tangy. I don't recommended trying to bottle it unless you are experienced in that – exploding bottles and all that. For a real treat with this process use fresh ground ginger and sugar – that is pretty much how ginger ale used to be made.
That is it. If you don't at least try fermenting a jar of sweetened herb tea with this process you are obviously totally germophobic and need serious psychological help resolving your continuing problems with the excessively strict potty training you received as a child. Bacteria are your friends.
Interesting links:
Elderberry Sparkle
http://bearmedicineherbals.com/?p=376
Elderflower Champagne
http://edibleplantproject.org/2009/07/elderflower-champagne/
Sour Mashed Sweet Potatoes
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Sour_Mashed_Sweet_Potato
Beet Kvass
http://editor.nourishedmagazine.com.au/articles/beet-kvass
Lacto Fermented Soft Drinks
http://homegrown.org/blog/2009/02/lacto-fermented-soda-skillshare-make-your-own-ginger-ale-cola-root-beer-and-more/
Fermentation Support Forum
http://www.wildfermentation.com/forum/
Wild Fermentation Google Group
http://groups.google.com/group/Wild-Fermentation?hl=en
Lactofermented Vegetables Download .doc file from right side of page
http://lovelandlocal.blogspot.com/2007/11/be-thankful-for-local-food.html
Making Sauerkraut
http://www.wildfermentation.com/resources.php?page=sauerkraut
Acidic Foods = Another Way to Control Blood Glucose
with Kay Schmidt Article on Lacto-fermentation for controlling blood sugar levels
http://www.mendosa.com/acidic_foods.htm
PEPPERONCINI, PIMENTOS AND HOT SAUCE
http://www.paleotechnics.com/Articles/Pepperoncini.html
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