Tips and Techniques - Lactic Acid Fermentation

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

Sweet Potatoes

I'm not sure how experts classify sweet potatoes but I divvy them up into "bunch" types, "semi-bush" types, and wild unkempt ramblers. Of those three types I like the following named varieties: Bunch Porto Rico, Vardeman, and Okinawan Purple. The Bunch Porto Rico are nice to grow in containers since they are quite happy to stay in one small (relatively) area. It is a pretty standard store-type sweet potato. Vardeman, a semi-bush type, has a beautiful purple tint to the new leaves so it is quite decorative while the flesh is a deep orange and tasty. It also will do fine in containers but needs a bit more pruning to stay in place than does Bunch Porto Rico. My favorite for eating is the wild and unruly Okinawan Purple. It has a rosy purple flesh that turns deep blue purple when cooked. It has very little of the carroty taste of orange fleshed varieties so it is often used in deserts. But it is also nice just boiled and mashed (see my recipe at the Edible Plant Project Website . Unfortunately it take a lot of space to grow it since it really does ramble all over.

Growing sweet potatoes is fairly easy. They just need lots of sun and enough water to keep them growing. A bit of fertilizer now and then goes a long way but mostly you just stand back and let them do their thing then search for them in the fall. However, when they are in the ground the tubers get somewhat bug eaten in my yard. I find that too much organic matter seems to make this worse so I keep them in sandy soil areas where they thrive. I do, however, also have some sort of toothy critter that is able to find the tubers and eat them under ground before I get to them and for some reason I never seem to be able to find where the tubers are growing amidst all the vines. So I've been experimenting growing them in containers in various soil mixes. I won't go into that here since I plan a series of posts on container types and soil mixes. Later for that dudes and dudettes!


Sour Sweet Potato Cream Pie

I used to call this Fermented Sweet Potato Cheese Cake - but a friend told me it tastes a lot like key lime pie and since it does have more of a key lime pie custardy texture I've changed the name. The surpising thing about this recipe is it does not taste at all like sweet potato. Basically it uses lactic acid fermented sweet potato and a kefir fermented soy cheese base with pumpkin pie spices added and that filling stuffed into a premade graham cracker crust with a pecan praline topping. Everything else is pretty much decoration and flavor enhancers so go crazy experimenting with it! Just one caution - the whole point is to have living lactic acid bacteria in your diet so don't cook this after fermenting. You'll kill the bacteria and loose the pro-biotic benefits.

1) Ferment two cups of cooked sweet potato according to the process for Sour Mashed Sweet Potato. The fermentation should last two days at room temperature.

2) While the sweet potato is fermenting add a couple of tablespoons of Kefir and a teaspoon of salt to a half gallon of soy milk, cover loosely with a lid and let it ferment also for two days at room temperature.

3) Strain the fermented soy milk through a fine cheese cloth or a clean handkerchief and save the whey (to use as a starter for your next batch or for other recipes). You should get about 1 cup of soy "cheese" out of two quarts of soy milk.

4) Mix the 1 cup of soy cheese and the 2 cups of fermented sweet potato together and blend in a blender or with a wire whip.

5. Add in 3 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spices, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon lemon extract, and 1/2 to 2/3 cup of sugar.

6. Spoon the mixture into a pre-made graham cracker crust.

7. Add a topping of pecan pralines (see Maple Glazed Pralines).

8. Put it into the fridge and chill.

The longer it stays in the fridge (or the longer you let the fermented sweet potato sit in the fridge before using it in the recipe) the more sour it gets. After sitting a week in the fridge it is still good to eat and as sour as a key lime pie. A shorter stay and it tastes more like pumpkin pie. The texture of the filling is rather soft - it may be useful to freeze it and serve like a frozen custard pie. Instead of the praline topping whipped cream might be good if you are going to freeze it. And, you might just want to forget the pie crust and topping and put the filling into your ice cream maker for a tangy sweet tater ice cream. Endless variations! One final comment - the Okinawan Purple Sweet Potato is remarkably beautiful in this recipe - change out a few of those pumpkin pie spices and add something like a half cup of whole cherries to that deep blue mix and you have a near stupifying sweet potato ice cream. Look up "Ube Ice Cream" for some ideas. Note that true "Ube" is a yam (Dioscorea alata variety) not a sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) but the ice cream is made with both.

Hello to all friends and strangers

I decided to start this blog since a few friends have suggested it as a way to share my ideas about 1) small scale food production on a typical lot in North Florida. 2) self sufficiency and simple living in relative harmony with nature and 3) just general thoughts about life and how to live it more comfortably.

The title of my blog is selected with due respect to Marian Van Atta's Living Off The Land newsletter published from the 70s to the 80s (I still have many of the back issues in my library!). The newsletter espoused the idea we should plant much of what we eat, use the many free wild food provided for us by nature, and only decorate our yards with things we can eat (as in perennial food crops). Ms. Van Atta's books reflecting the information in those newsletters are still available through many on-line book stores. Just search on her name.

I have also been inspired in my gardening quests by my ever-gardening mother and through her my grandfather and great grandfather who also were gardeners. And by an unknown neighbor in Virginia who, in my teens in the 60s, showed me that growing tomatoes is really quite easy. And, of course, by everyone I come in contact with these days though the Edible Plant Project in Gainesville FL.