Over the past couple years, I have been learning a lot about food. Growing it, cooking it, the nutrition elements of food, and its environmental impact. And through this I have had my eyes opened to a magical world that I had never considered before. The world of Microorganisms. Microorganisms are the microscopic bacteria, fungi and viruses that live on everything. Their environment is referred to as the microbiome. They are all around us, and essential for the function of life how we know it. They are in the soil allowing plants to absorb nutrients, they are in our stomachs allowing us to digest, and they are in our compost allowing it to decompose. To help you understand how important microbes are to your function as a human, for every one human cell that you have in your body, there are nine microbes living in or on your body somewhere. I bring this up, because this week I intend to talk about the oldest form of food preservation know; fermentation. But you can’t talk about fermentation without talking about the wonders of microbes, and one microorganism in particular. Lacto-bacillus.
If the name lacto-bacillus sounds familiar to you, that is probably because of one of its byproducts. Lactic acid. Lactic acid is the stuff that gives sourdough its flavor, or makes your muscles sore after a long run, and it is a crucial element in fermentation. Lactic acid is why lacto-bacillus is so important for fermentation. The lacto-bacillus uses the lactic acid to create a high acidity environment where other bacteria cannot grow. This environment is also perfect for preserving food, because the high acidity breaks down any decomposition enzymes, and inhibits the growth of any harmful bacteria, making for a safe and easy way to preserve food.
This blog post is going to be looking at lacto-fermentation, how to do it in your home, the materials that you are going to need, some important information to help keep it safe, and reasons why you should start doing this in your house. To help shed a light on this process, I reached out to Bennet Christian, a Victory Gardener with Mountain Roots who has a passion for fermentation.
Why Lacto fermentation
There is a myriad of reasons why you should begin fermenting in your house. The first reason is it is super easy. Like many bacteria, lacto-bacillus is all around us. It is on the food we eat, in the air we breathe, and it is inside our bodies. Beyond the ease of it, there are a number of health and financial reasons why you should get into fermenting. When I talked to Bennet, he told me that from his small garden he estimated that he added about $750 worth of ferments to his harvest. Along with the value of the product, you can also save money on vinegars. If you are looking to do a lot of pickling, the price of vinegar can start to add up, but if you are using lacto-fermentation, you do not need to purchase vinegar.
In addition to the financial benefits, there are many health benefits that you will get from fermenting. Fermentation is our name for anaerobic metabolism, or the process of microbes breaking down food without oxygen. This anaerobic metabolism is beneficial for health reasons, because it breaks down organic compounds in the food into more elemental forms, making them more available for digestion. Lacto-fermentation can also break down toxins in food, sometimes turning them into nutrients. This is true with grains. The fermentation breaks down phytates, a structure that binds minerals, and makes these available for digestion in the body. This is one of the reasons sourdough bread tastes so much better.
The probiotics within live fermentations are incredibly healthy as well. As I mentioned before, microorganisms play an incredibly important role within our digestive track. Eating foods that are high in living cultures helps your microbiome. Many foods advertised in the store with probiotics do not have living cultures, because they had to be pasteurized in order to be sold, and this pasteurization killed all of the living cultures inside of the ferments. Unlike most foods in the store that say they have probiotics, live ferments have millions of probiotics in them.
In addition to the health benefits, there are also the benefits that are a little harder to measure. These include taste and culture. I don’t think that it is a coincidence that a fermentation is called a culture. Not too long ago, ferments were a prized family heirloom. Like seeds, many immigrant families would bring their sourdough or sauerkraut starts with them to the United states because these starters were an integral part of their survival and their identity.
Bennet told me during our conversation that every time he eats any of his fermented food, it takes him right back to his garden. He doesn’t just remember it, he feels that same intimate connection with nature and what he was growing when he was standing in his garden, or when he was eating his ferments. Along with culture, home ferments just taste better. There are so many possibilities with recipes, and the fermentation process opens up a whole new world of flavor profiles that don’t exist anywhere else. To quote Bennet again, “you get a foody to try it once and they will be hooked.” These are just a couple of the hundreds of reasons that I could think of to get into fermenting. And did I mention that it is super easy?
The basics of lacto-fermentation
The basic overview of the fermenting process is that you submerge what you are fermenting in a brine solution, and leave it to sit out until it is done fermenting. There are some nuances to it, but it is about that simple. Lactic fermentation requires three basic ingredients: something to ferment, water and salt. The thing being fermented is already covered with lacto-bacilli, so all that you have to do is create an environment where they will thrive. This is where the brine comes in.
The brine is a salt solution that inhibits the growth of many types of bacteria. There are two main ways to create a brine, and this will depend on what you are fermenting. If you are fermenting shredded or finely chopped veggies, you can use their own juices to create your brine. Just add the salt to the veggies, and squeeze the water out. The salt will help to pull moisture out as well. You will want to continue this squeezing and mixing until the veggies are completely submerged in the brine. If you are using whole veggies, or large chopped veggies, you will want to create the brine separately and then submerge the veggies. A general rule of thumb is to use 1-3 tablespoons of salt per quart of water to create a brine, but follow your recipes measurements for salt.
Once your culture is submerged, you want to make sure that it stays submerged. There are a variety of ways that you can do this. You can do this with fermentation weights, glass or ceramic containers, or improvise anything that fits. The most important things to remember with this is it needs to be easily removable, sterilized, and it needs to hold the veggies down. If it is doing that, then it is doing its job. Bennet told me that he uses rocks. He will walk around with a mason jar lid and find rocks the fit into it nicely then sterilize the rocks in boiling water and use them as is weights. I have also heard about people using cabbage leaves or carrot spears.
Once you have your culture weighed down, all you have to do is wait, and let those lacto-bacilli do their work. The time required for a ferment will vary depending on what you are fermenting. Follow your recipe for this. Bennet told me that he will often look at two or three similar recipes to get an idea of his fermentation timeframe. If one recipe said that it would take 7 days and another said that it would take 10, he would start checking his ferment around day 6, knowing that it is getting close, and then he would just let it go until he likes the flavor if it. When exactly a ferment is done is more or less up to you.
While your culture is fermenting, it is a good idea to keep it in a cooler environment. Though mold shouldn’t be a problem, keeping it in a cool area should help prevent this risk. Luckily unless you are keeping your culture next to your fireplace, it getting too hot shouldn’t be a problem in this valley. It is also a good sign to see some bubbling in your culture while it is fermenting. Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of the lacto-bacillus, so if you see little bubbles that means that they are happy.
Breaking down the ingredients
Though there are only three ingredients with fermentation, it is important to make sure that you use the right ingredients.
Veggies
It is important to make sure that you use fresh veggies for this. The fresher they are, the better they will preserve. Depending on what Veggies you are using there are different ways that you will want to prepare them. For hard veggies you will want to grate them. Firm veggies you will want to chop. Soft veggies you will want to either leave whole, or chop into large peaces. Keep in mind that the larger the pieces of veggies are, the longer they will take to ferment.
Salt
Not all salts are created equally, and this is really important for fermenting. Salt not only creates an environment where the lacto-bacilli can push out other bacteria, it adds flavor and crunch to your ferment. Though you do not need to get artesian black sea salt, you shouldn’t use basic table salt either. There are certain things that you need to keep in mind with the salt that you use. Firstly, you need to avoid iodized salts. Iodine is antibacterial, which is problematic when trying to foster the growth of a bacteria. Make sure that you purchasing salt that is not iodized, and does not have caking agents in it. Both of these will interfere with the growth of bacteria. Secondly, with this it is important to think about the size of your salt granules. The size of your salt granules will affect how much empty space there is in your measurement, so if you are using large granule salt you might want your table spoon to be a little fuller than normal.
Water
What kind of water you use is also important. The biggest thing to look for is whether your water is treated or not. If it is treated like tap water, then it has chlorine in it. Chlorine, like iodine, kills bacteria, which is counterproductive for fermentation. If you are using chlorinated water, you will need to dechlorinate the water. This can be done by boiling the water for 20 minutes, or letting it sit out for 24 hours for the chlorine to burn off.
Fermenting
Once your ferment is up and going, there are a couple things that you want to keep in mind and keep an eye on just to make sure things are still going well.
The Nose Knows
The easiest thing to do to make sure that you still have a happy ferment is to smell it. This will tell you very quickly if you are growing something good or something bad. Though a ferment will have a sour smell, it will be a good sour like pickles or sauerkraut. If it is smelling like rotten food then something has gone wrong. If this is the case, it should be thrown out and the container sanitized. Bennet told me that if one of his ferments was starting to get a funky smell he would shake the jar, and by the next day it usually is back to smelling great. When dealing with your ferments always follow your nose
Molding
It is possible for mold to begin to develop on your ferment. This shouldn’t happen to anything under the brine, but mold might form on top of the brine, or any veggies that are breaking the surface. If this happens, that does not necessarily mean that the whole ferment is spoiled. Simply remove the molded section, then let the ferment sit for a while. If it returns to having a good smell, then it should be safe. This is also true with kahm yeast. Kahm yeast is a harmless yeast that often forms at the surface of a brine. It is a white colored film. If you notice this, just remove it from your brine and if the smell returns back to normal then your ferment is back on track.
Cold Storage
Once your culture is nearing the end of its fermenting, you will want to start tasting it to know when it is the flavor that you want. Once it is ready, move it to cold storage. This will dramatically slow down the fermentation process, and make your ferment last longer. Note that this does not stop the fermentation process. Cold storage is not permanent storage for your ferments, but will extend their life by 3-4 months
Safety
There are many people who are hesitant to get into the world of fermenting because of the perception that it is not safe, but home fermenting is incredibly safe. If you are following a recipe and using the proper amount of salt, that will insure that the lacto-bacilli will populate the culture, and once they are going, they will push out all other bacteria. Many people often get worried about Clostridium botulinum (the bacteria that causes botulism), but the lacto-bacilli will create an environment that is too acidic for the Clostridium botulinum to exist, killing any that are present. Interestingly, botulism didn’t become a well know concern until the invention of canning. This is because there is a much higher risk of encountering botulism with canning than with fermenting. Despite this, there are still risks with fermenting, be it very low. Just follow your nose and you should be fine.
It’s crazy to think that for thousands of years, fermenting food was a common practice within every house. There is so much rich culture in fermenting. Human civilization was founded on fermentation, and though we have kept the beer, in the last 70 years we have turned our back on this ancient art. Fermenting food caries a stigma within our society of being gross, but I challenge anyone to turn their nose up at a good live culture sauerkraut. I hope to see us return to a place where we value our ferments, and their cultures became intertwined with our culture once again.
The information for this blog was from The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz, and cultures for health https://www.culturesforhealth.com
As was explained in this blog there are slight risks for home fermentation, so experiment at your own risk.