You know what I hate? When someone ferments wrong. Just kidding! What I actually hate is when someone decides that they way they ferment is the only right way to do it, and then invalidates the way other people have successfully done it for years or months (or even once). I’m not saying anything goes, there are principles that apply, and there are techniques and tweaks that can make the difference between something decent and something delightful. To assume one path to success, though, is to disregard thousands of years of history, in-home evolution and personal taste.
These naysayers generally get pretty mad if a fellow fermenter says they had success in a “unapproved” way. I have, unfortunately, had encounters with some of these fun* folks on a few occasions (never here though, thank you, lovely readers). So I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong (heehee). You can be empowered, make your ferments the way you’ve been making them, experiment with different techniques you’ve heard about, try different salt levels and different containers and different ingredients. So cast off the shackles of the Negative Nellies out there and enjoy the process. Empower yourself to use your brains and the senses with which you’ve been endowed. That is a luxury that fermentation allows us all.
Here are a few things that I have heard and read recently that make me completely nuts:
1. Your sauerkraut must be in a perfectly anaerobic (airless) environment or horrible, terrible things will happen to you – Nope! Sandor does open crock fermentation, and guess what? My grandma wasn’t using specially-made, $95 jars with airlocks to make hers either. Yet my mother and her sisters somehow managed to live to reproductive age! A miracle? No, as Mr. Katz points out in this wonderful response to fearmongers and naysayers, our lactic acid bacterial friends are anaerobic yes, but they are facultative, which means that the presence of oxygen doesn’t keep them from doing their thing.
2. You must have a vinegar mother or that thing you made that tastes exactly like vinegar is actually some other substance. And it will kill you. – Too many sighs to count. Various eye rolls. Numerous shrugs. Lemme tell you: I’ve made a lot of vinegars over the years and the good ones beat almost anything store bought (except the really, really pricey stuff, like true balsamic) with a heavy stick. Using living vinegar to start is completely sufficient. And any home winemaker knows that you can probably can skip that ingredient too, since accidental vinegar is often the (fantastic) consolation prize when winemaking goes wrong.
3. If there is a speck of mold on your veggies you will die bad. – Anyone who has ever take a class with me has heard me say three things about vegetable mold:
- Avoid it (aka submerge well and it is extremely unlikely to be an issue).
- If you get mold, skim it off. What’s underneath is fine.
- I know it’s fine because for you, dear reader (or class-taker), I’ve intentionally eaten some moldy, fermented vegetables. I don’t recommend actually eating the mold, but I do recommend skimming and eating what lies beneath. (Do avoid molds on grains, meat, or dairy unless it’s intentional mold that you’ve added and you know what you’re doing. I know very little about those types of molds).
Never eat a ferment that smells bad to you or looks off. This is truly the time to employ your senses. In my self-experiements, I’ve never had so much as mild stomach discomfort. Yes, I know this anecdotal experience isn’t scientific evidence, and I didn’t say it tasted good. But skimming mold has long been a part of vegetable fermentation (like almost certainly thousands of years long) and the human race has somehow persisted. As always, I would encourage you to TRUST YOURSELF. If you don’t like how it looks, smells or tastes, ditch it. The beauty of fermentation is being empowered to trust your senses; so do that, whether it means skimming mold or composting your pickles.
To pull a quote directly from The Art of Fermentation:
“As far as I know, there has never been a documented case of food-borne illness from fermented vegetables,” states Fred Breidt, a microbiologist for the US Department of Agriculture who specializes in vegetable fermentation. “Risky is not a word I would use to describe vegetable fermentation. It is one of the oldest and safest technologies we have.”
4. Only certain vegetables can be fermented. Others won’t get acidic enough. In other words, cabbage is fine, but never ferment a turnip! Or you will die. – I read a whole article from a famous chef explaining why you needed to use vinegar to pickle most vegetables, but that cabbage will get acidic enough on its own. Huh? The natural pH of the unfermented vegetable has nothing to do with its fermentation. When given the right conditions (submerged, some salt, room temp) any vegetable will ferment, due to the lactic acid bacteria that are present on everything that grows in the earth. Obviously, some vegetables don’t ferment as easily or perfectly as others, but that has to do with water content, cell walls and stuff, not with their acidity.
5. Kimchi must be buried in the ground in your backyard or else how dare you say you’ve made kimchi? – Question I get all the time: “Oh, so you make kimchi? You’ve got the big thing buried in a hole in your backyard, then?” Wink wink. Nudge nudge. First, I live in Philly. I don’t have a yard, I have an “area” behind my house. Second, there are lots of kimchis and many of them were never buried. Yes, kimchi onggi (crocks) were/are traditionally buried for some kinds of kimchi-making. Some people still do it this way in Korea. Others, use kimchi refrigerators, crocks, jars, plastic bins, you name it. Since fermented food traditions are very old, I always think it’s safe to assume that people have been making them by making do for a long time. And making do, in my book, means clever use of whatever resources one has on hand.
6. This is what worked for me, therefore this is the right way. You will die if you do it another way. – I’m not saying it’s always easy to accept, but just because your way works for you, it doesn’t mean it will work best for everyone, or more importantly, that there aren’t other ways that work just as well. I once had someone tell me that because I was brining some pickles and not making them in a pickl-it, I was going to get sick. This was about three years in to a fermenting habit that usually had me brining and never had me using a pickl-it almost every day (nothing against pickl-its, I just don’t have one). I’ve had people tell me that Continuous brew kombucha is way “harder” than single batch. For me it was and continues to be exactly the opposite. Yes, yes, I may be a hypocrite. I’m always telling you about the way that I ferment. Honestly, though, I’m telling you how I do it because that’s how I do it. If you have a way that you prefer or that works better for you, more power to you, my friend. More power.
7. Whey or some other probiotic starter is necessary to ferment vegetables. I think this is a particularly common though not particularly pernicious fermentation rumor. As I cover (I think) ad nauseum on this blog, the vegetable fermentation process happens not as a result of anything you add, but as a result of the bacteria that are naturally present on it when it grows in the earth. One thing that I absolutely adore about fermentation is that it makes me into a shepherd. I’m not actually doing a whole lot. I’m keeping watch and letting the little creatures do what nature intended for them. It’s a pretty neat thing. Whey can help some ferments along, as I’m sure is true for other starters, but for vegetable fermentation, it is unnecessary, and can sometimes leave you with slimy or unappealing veggies. Furthermore, the bacterial strains dominant in whey aren’t the same as those dominant on veggies, so you’re getting a whole different microbial experience than you may have planned for.
I’m not saying there are no rules to fermentation. You do want to let veggies ferment long enough to reach an acidity that prevents c. botulinum from living, for example. You do want to add salt to your vegetable ferments and sugar to your yeast ferments (although both are actually optional in some cases). You do want to provide your ferments with an appropriate temperature for their processes. Otherwise, the rules differ by ferment, and by preference. I’m not saying to go all cowboy, but experimentation is a good thing! Also, one virtue of our era is that books and solid information resources are widely available for reference if your experiments fail and you want to know why. I find that Sandor Katz’ books are the most reliable sources of fermentation information, but thoughtful googling can get you some solid answers as well. The most important thing you can do is just start fermenting, and leave your fear (and any fear-mongers you may know) behind.
*sarcasm
Melanie says
If you follow my blog, I might surprise you by telling you I actually agree with you for the most part.
I do encourage people to use an anaerobic system just because the chance of mold is lessened and I do believe the resulting ferment is richer in LAB’s (note I said believe, I have absolutely no proof of this). Many people with compromised guts can and do have trouble with ferments that have even the slightest amount of mold. If you don’t have a problem with mold, go ahead and skim it off. I just find my ferments turn out more consistent if sealed up tightly.
I really hope people don’t take my recommendations as fear mongering. That’s not at all what I intend. I simply share what works for me.
Amanda says
Hi Melanie,
As it turns out, I haven’t been reading your blog, but it looks like I should be! Lovely stuff. My point here, and I hope it comes across, isn’t that fermenting with airlocks is bad, just that there are lots of ways to do things and that when people (as many do) say that the only right way to do it is THIS way, meaning whatever way they’ve chosen to do it, they are potentially misleading newbies and discouraging people who are just becoming interested in fermentation. I think this is especially true when the “this way” involves purchasing unnecessary equipment. I’ve always used weight (mostly the ghetto jar method) and usually mason jars and I can count the batches (out of hundreds if not thousands) in which I’ve had mold on one hand. One of those was with an airlock and another was in a water-sealed crock.
I hope no offense was taken. In my quick jump over to your site, I didn’t see anything specifically about specialty jars, so I’m not sure if that’s what you recommend, but if it is, that’s completely your prerogative! No judgment. Plenty of people swear by them, and that’s great!
Thanks for reading! I’m excited to check out your site!
Melanie says
I took a bit of a hard line last year but have since softened my views quite a bit. No offense was taken at all. I’m always overjoyed to meet fellow fermenting freaks.
Becky says
Omigod, the kimchi I thought I made this fall was in fact, not kimchi because I didn’t bury it?
Amanda says
Hahaha, Becky! I’m having a little fun. I do get that question like 60-70 times a year, though 🙂
S says
Amen. I actually think it’s one of the cooler things about food/fermenting etc. that there are so many methods that work-and one that just clicks with you is a PITA for someone else. Its always a revelation too when you change something you ALWAYS do and it still works–or is a million times easier. And while I totally get people’s varying squeamishness on mold (or fruit fly larvae, that one happened to me) I really try to remember that humanity has probably consumed such things since the beginning 🙂
Amanda says
Totally agree! I don’t know if I could deal with the fruit fly thing. I’m so afraid of that. How did you deal with it?
S says
Well, there was a lot of frantic googling! With research I realized that it’s not uncommon, and that fruit flies have like an 8-hour hatch rate, and it wasn’t my uncleanliness/neglect (I had JUST skimmed and cleaned the jar the morning before!). The critters were only on the outside of the jar, and the pickles were ready…so I just rinsed them (REALLY REALLY WELL), boiled the brine after straining it, just to be anal, and we went ahead and ate them! We just didn’t give guests the pickles that have “FF” marked on the lid, ha. And I am way more careful with tight-fitting covers now 🙂
Amanda says
Hi S,
Oh, I TOTALLY know that contamination can happen in a pristine environment with all precautions taken. It’s definitely no reflection on you. And I’m all for eating anything that tastes and smells delicious (I’m also careful never to feed anything with funk to friends or family. I truly did eat that whole quart of snap peas by myself and it was delicious!).
Here’s hoping we both stay fruit fly free forever!
Best,
Amanda
Ann says
Very interesting that Melanie stopped by from Pickle Me Too. I used to read her blog (some great links for flavored kombucha recipes as well as some good water keifer recipes), but she was one of the ones that kept making me feel as though I was wasting my time and money by not using a pickle-it, so I stopped checking out her blog about a year or so ago. I’ll start checking in on her again since she says she is softening up on that. I did enjoy her recipes.
I’ve almost always used a mason jar and a bag of brine and I have only had a problem with mold twice. The first time, I just scrapped it off the top and ate up. The dill pickles were so yummy. The second time the mold left a flavor that I wasn’t very fond of. I ate about half the jar then decided I just wasn’t enjoying them, so I threw the rest out. Both were with cucumber pickles.
Love this post, as you could probably guess!
Branden Byers says
Thanks for posting the link to Sandor’s response. I hadn’t read that before. We’re actually planning a future podcast episode in regard to some of these topics you mention here.
These kinds of issues are important to discuss and consider. As with anything related to health, it can be challenging to sift through legitimate research, anecdotal evidence, historical perspective, gurus, sales copy, and full-on snake oil. I worked as a licensed massage therapist for over 10 years and that field is full of false claims and woo-woo science. Most of the people dishing out these claims seem to believe in what they are saying (as opposed to the far fewer crooks). However, good intention does not equal truth nor evidence.
Maybe one day we (or future generations) will realize that our thoughts, experiences, and evidence regarding the safety and/or health claims regarding fermented foods were all wrong. This is why I like to focus on taste and experimentation. And fermented foods sure do taste good no matter which vessel was used as the space for transformation.
Here’s to the mold skimmers. Raise those mason jars high!
Geoff Robinson says
Great article. I appreciated the fact that you and recognize that variation exists and is in fact that allows for recognizing a “mistake” that might improve a process. How else could fermenting have developed?
I personally ferment in a range of crocks, glass jars and even plastic buckets. They all work well.
By the way, Korea is a very cold place in winter. Chances are, if you were making Komechi outside in a Korean winter, you would bury it in soil to keep it from freezing. In the summer, you might bury it in soil to keep it cooler. The issue is temperature, not the fact itself that it is buried.
I’ll try to read your articles more often. Take care.
Geoff
Brett says
Geoff,
Actually there is a bit more to burying Kimchi than what you assert. From my elderly Korean neighbor & my own experience with doing Kimchi both ways.
1)Taste, bouquet & Energetic properties – Earth(ier) taste tones & perhaps more bacterial growth from being underground all that time. Not sure on that though, just a theory. Earthy (buried) kimchi, in my opinion, is worth the wait!
2) Tradition of seasonality with harvests & stockpiling of differing veggies.
Diane Cook says
I made my first batch of sauerkraut and have been eating it for several weeks and it is delicious and crisp. Yesterday when I transferred it to a smaller jar, I noticed the brine from the bottom of the jar was slimy and came out in long strings. It was a little milky looking. Do indeed to throw it out. Several people have eaten it lately with no adverse effects.
Amanda says
Hi Diane,
The most important thing here is to use your own discretion. If it seems off, in terms of flavor, smell or appearance, you need to use your best judgment. If it were me, I wouldn’t worry about it. Without seeing it, I can’t say for sure, but sliminess in vegetable ferments is usually caused by one of two things: too much sugar (naturally occurring in very sweet vegetables, more common on carrots and beets, or added sugar) or using whey as a starter. Slime is just a buildup of excess yeast and nothing to be concerned about, but if you do get it, you may want to tweak your process a bit.
If you used whey, know that it is DEFINITELY NOT necessary for vegetable fermentation, and that it often has the side effect of gross slimy yeast.
I hope that helps!
Amanda
Ksenia says
Thank you for this guide. I am not very new to pickling and fermenting, having grown up in a typical Russian household (where that Portlandia skit really just sounds like my grandmother’s kitchen ruminations). However, I am definitely new to food blogging, and to sharing (some) of my fermentation online. One of the main reasons for that is because I keep expecting someone to jump up and scream that I am poisoning people, that mould is deadly, yada yada. Having a very sensible Canadian boyfriend who treats muold with suspicion also doesn’t help (or does it? I’m not sure. It may have saved me some discomfort somewhere).
In any case, thanks for the encouragement, and for ignoring the naysayers! I love your blog, and own Wild Fermentation. So this whole post resonates very well with me.
Gunter Nobis says
Hi!
Couple Questions for my Sauerkraut experiments. 1- I live in a dry climate and struggle to keep the fluid levels up, I add fluids twice a week some with and some without salt…any advice. And 2- you describe not eating fermented veggies that smell bad….I have a batch of red cabbage that has been producing a grey mold which I skim off…but it has a slight odor of feet? Would you have that in the do not eat category? Sauerkraut already has a funky smell, is this normal for red cabbage? I’ll wait for your response before I eat it!!
Amanda says
Hi Gunter,
For your first question, I would recommend maybe fermenting in a larger vessel and intentionally introducing lots of extra brine right from the start. This may actually be a situation where using a more expensive airlock system or waterlock crock makes sense, since those will help prevent too much evaporation.
As for your weird smelling kraut, I can’t say exactly. My rule of thumb is that if it smells off to me, I don’t eat it. Is the stuff on the top definitely mold? If not, it could be the famous kahm yeast, which is harmless, but does have a strange odor and kind of unpleasant taste. If it is definitely mold, it is a tiny bit odd for it to repeatedly produce mold even though your cabbage is submerged (assuming it is). I have not had any kraut that smells like feet. How long has it fermented so far? If it’s early in fermentation, skim the mold, make sure it’s submerged and then let it go for a couple more weeks before messing with it. If the smell persists, it probably not worth it. There is also the possibility that you got a really sweet head of cabbage and somehow too much air was introduced. Both of those things together could favor yeast fermentation over bacterial fermentation and could give you some off flavors and smells. If that’s the case, I would probably ditch it.
All of this comes with a grain of salt, of course. Ultimately, without seeing and smelling it, I’m not totally sure what I would do. Let me know what you decide! I hope this was helpful.
Gunter Nobis says
Thank You!
They’ve probably in in there for two months now. I’ve eaten the regular kraut batches and they were great. I’ve left these in longer because I figure it would take longer for the more hardy red cabbage.
No I’m not sure if it’s mold. I’ve had a couple small pieces float to the top which would grow a white ear shaped mold. This however is grey and lays flat, so I’m not sure. After skimmimg, it’s a very faint odor. It’s not a total turn off, but since these are my first attempts, I’m somewhat suspicious of anything “different”.
One other question, is it possible to pack the cabbage too tight? My regular batches had a mixed bag of tenderness…from the outer kraut being very tender to the inner being fairly krunchy. I have a jalapeño hot sauce batch going and it seemed difficult to un-trap some of the air bubbles, unless they were for some reason producing their own air.
Like I said, this is my virgin attempt, so I really appreciate your help/advice/site to give me both knowledge and confidence!! Thank you again! G
Amanda says
Hi Gunter,
In my experience red cabbage does take a bit longer to get that kraut texture, so I tend to ferment it for a few days or a week longer than similar green cabbage batches as well.
I do not think it’s possible to pack cabbage too tight. I really shove mine in there and work it into the corners of the crock or jar. There are even old tools that were used for pounding it down! you don’t really need to worry about air bubbles like you do in canning. The fermentation process produces gases, and as they make their way up, some may get trapped. I’ve never had a problem with a random mold patch forming in a CO2 bubble, and I’ve never heard anyone else speak of having that issue either, so truly, don’t give it too much though.
I’m glad you’re giving it a try! I hope they all come out perfectly, but do give yourself some leeway in potentially discarding the one jar that seems off. It may be fine (and I’m not telling you to trash it if it is), but sometimes eating those funkier batches takes some working up to. I doubt I would have eaten the snap peas pictured in this post if that had been my first ferment. I had to get comfortable with the process and with things working great before I was okay with the more questionable results.
I hope that helps! Good luck!
Dave says
Just a note that mold does not grow without oxygen so the CO2 gasses that develop throughout the jar and are trapped around the fermenting vegetables will not grow mold or cause problems.
Amanda says
The CO2 generally needs to be vented, and the later stage LAB are usually more homofermentative, so the CO2 usually only serves as a protective barrier in the earlier days of vegetable fermentation. Molds on the surface of vegetable ferments are relatively common.
Lindsey says
I’m so glad I just read this. I recently read another blog post that was just as you describe where it tried to frighten me that everything I was doing was wrong and was going to kill me and my loved ones. Which was a bummer because my fermentation path had already been long and winding. My first few attempts were thrown out because they got mold. Then I was introduced to Sandor Katz’s philosophy and finally got through a full fermentation, did not die, and did not kill the many friends and family since receiving kraut gifts of varying sorts from me. So thank you for the additional encouragement!
My husband is a winemaker and seeing the winemaking process has also helped. When you make red wine the juice from the pressed grapes is left to ferment with the grape skins (that’s where the tannin is). The carbon dioxide produced during fermentation pushes the skins to the top of the fermentation vat, where they all sit on the top and form a “cap.” While fermentation proceeds the winemaker does “punch-overs” multiple times a day where the cap is broken up and pushed below the surface of the juice. There’s multiple reasons to do this but one is that If you didn’t, the cap would develop mold too. I realized you could use the same method with any other kind of fermentation. So I started simply giving my ferments a good stir as often as I remembered. The mold doesn’t even get a chance to start.
Sera says
This is exactly how I feel about both fermentation and religion!
Jonathan says
Hi!
So I had an idea for a setup to recreate the Korean style ferment as I would like for the ferment (potatoes and sauce – separately) to actually ferment, thus, no lids but I have someone in the house who is EXTREMELY sensitive to this kind of stuff. I have these cat litter containers that fit into a 53L tub. Can I create a ferment in the cat litter containers, cover it with a sheet and elastic, bury everything in soil after the sheets are over-top and lastly, put the lid on the 53 container? Thanks ! 😀
Amanda says
Hi Jonathan,
Lids do not prevent fermentation, so I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to create, but I would definitely NOT ferment in cat litter containers. You should only ferment in food grade containers, and definitely not where something toxic was previously stored.
I hope that helps!
Jonathan says
Yes, this does help. To be honest I didn’t even think of that. I only took into consideration the BPA. Long week :p
Anyways, I was trying to simulate the ‘underground’ part, because there is no oxygen in the soil. Unless my reading is incorrect. Would it work to just throw them all into the 53L tub then and put a lid on it for a few months? And the reason I thought that about the lid is because when I used lids on jars, you can’t tighten them. Well, actually, that contradicts my thought because it does to show the fermentation will happen ANYWAY and will result in an explosion.
I am doing a mass ferment to prepare for winter. If the lid idea works I’ll just do that.
PS: Thanks for the quick reply!!
Jonathan says
Also, a few of my ferment layers are getting moldy but the ferments are fine. Will lids prevent this? Will lids and or something else prevent it? As I said, someone in my house is sensitive to this mold but I don’t want to give up fermentation.
Amanda says
Hi Jonathan,
What are you using to keep them submerged now?
Amanda says
Hi Jonathan,
I have never done an in-the-ground ferment, so I can’t answer the question specifically, especially for such a large batch. Depending on where you live, the temperature may be too cold for them to stay in the ground for very long. They certainly don’t need to be in the ground to achieve sufficiently airless conditions if that is your concern.
matias says
hi, I just made some Kimchi…on the outside there was a little mold but also some larva…underneath it all seemed good…. I cleaned the outside but found a few floating larva in the brine…It is very possible that they just fell in as i was cleaning the sides but there is no way to tell if there are more…should I throw it away?
Amanda says
Hi Matias,
According to Sandor Katz’ The Art of Fermentation the larva will work their way towards the surface rather than burrow down. You could try removing another layer to see if there’s anything else down there. I have to admit that I’ve never had any larvae in my ferments and the thought of it makes me quite squeamish. If you feel alright about it, skim a bit more and see what you find. Although there are famous cheeses that contain maggots, casu marzu, for instance, the FDA says they can survive digestion and cause intestinal issues. I’ll leave you to do your own research on that topic.
Please let me know how it goes. In the future, make sure that your jar is covered in a way that prohibits flies from getting in there and you should be free of this issue!
Carol Rose says
Hi there,
I left my kimchee with the lids on but not screwed on tight. I also made sure that I had extra leaves on top to remove. Then I read that I should have had the lids on tight. So I immediately screwed the lids tight. What are your thoughts? I thought that I had read that if I had the leaves on top to later remove that I I could wait a week, remove moldy leaves then screw tight. So I will definitely use my nose to determine my batch, but can you tell me if some people make it the way with out the lid and then seal and put in fridge? I have read that others leave it out much longer for a more intense pickle? What say you?
Thank you,
Carol
Amanda says
Hi Carol,
Screwing the lids on tight has its advantages and disadvantages. If you’re going for “fizzy” kimchi, you’ll need to add a sugar source and keep the lid tight, at least for part of the fermentation process. In my experience fizzy ‘chi comes after a longer fermentation, though, so you can definitely hold off on tightening the lid until you stick it in the fridge or until the initial days of super bubbles have passed.
If you’re not going for fizz, there’s no reason to fully tighten the lid. I don’t care about fizz usually, so I often just pack it in the jar and place the lid on top without fully tightening so that CO2 can escape. If you’re only fermenting for a week (which is totally fine, as is letting it ferment for much longer. It’s up to your tastebuds!) I would be extremely surprised if you ended up with mold. Kimchi is really not prone to molds, so just keep on keeping on.
Tightening the lid will not prevent mold or cause mold.
Let me know if you need clarification on anything!
Patty says
I’m so happy to come across this blog! I’ve just started on my second batch of fermented veggies, and saw what I thought were a few tiny air bubbles – and got concerned that this meant something very bad might happen. I’m going to relax about that now. I have had success using glass jars, with coffee filters secured by rubber bands. I will probably need to upgrade to more sophisticated equipment if I get serious about it, but my first batch turned out so well, if it ain’t broke I’m not going to fix it!
Sarah says
If you have mold in your house is it ok to ferment beverages, and sour dough, etc.?
Thanks!
JimmyFromTheBlockWayOverThereAndAroundTheCorner says
I have no idea if this will work, but I think that it should, I have not tested it as I only thought of it as I read about the concerns.
If you need to remove the oxygen from the container to increase success/flavor/etc,. then I would suggest grabbing a pitcher, vinegar and some baking soda. Add the vinegar and baking soda to the pitcher, let it react, pour the CO2 released from the reaction into the fermentation vessel just before you place the lid on it. The CO2 should displace the general air within the vessel, and is the same stuff the bulk of the LAB output is if I remember biology correctly.
I mean, if you have a tank of argon gas handy, by all means, but I think that is less likely and more expensive in these kind of volumes.
I will be trying this with my next fermentation this week and I will likely forget to post any followup, which would likely be subjective anyway.
Amanda says
You definitely don’t need to remove oxygen. LAB are facultative anaerobes, meaning that the function in the presence of oxygen. Certain bad bacteria (such as the deadly C. botulinum) need completely oxygen free environments to sporulate, though.
The concern with oxygen exposure is merely that undesired (but not deadly or even harmful) surface microbes could set up shop. If that happens, you see it. If that happens, it’s generally because something was poking out of the brine, so submersion with a 1/4 of an inch (or even less) of a brine barrier at the top is totally sufficient for a great-tasting and surface yeast-free ferment.
Having said that, I would never discourage experimentation and yours sound fun. (Keep in mind that in the early days of fermentation, the ferment will be producing its own CO2 layer!).
Al says
I’ve been fermenting carrots in whey, just whey, derived as a byproduct from cheese (citric acid was used). I’ve tasted variants of pure whey ferments and natural ferments, gastronomically there seems to be a difference. to my palate at least. I decided now to ferment a batch in whey. There is a white film at the bottom of the jar and a few bubbles at the surface with a similar white sediment around them. After 8 days the pH level is at 3,8. There is also a funky smell, carroty yet cheesy. Do you think this batch should be discarded if it doesn’t lower to a 3,3 pH within the next 2 days? Salt percentage was 2,6%
Thanks for the response!
Amanda says
I would definitely look for the pH to keep dropping. I have very little experience fermenting with whey (my experience with it has been less than positive, so I stopped doing it that way), but the pH rules will always apply, so it’s definitely a good thought.
If the whey is from an acidified cheese rather than a fermented cheese, it’s not going to be adding any beneficial bacteria. That could be the issue here. If you’re starting with a low(ish) pH, you won’t be starting with the bacteria that normally kickstart veg fermentation (there are others that will work in a higher pH environment, so it’s not necessarily a safety concern). Normally in the case of inoculating, the added bacteria would take over and ferment the thing for you. If your cheese wasn’t bacterial, you might have lowered the pH so that it’s harder for LAB to do their work without adding any different LAB strains that would be present in a fermented whey. I hope that helps!
Chris says
Good afternoon!
This is a bit like Carol’s question, so I apologize for what may seem like a duplicate. I made my first batch of fermented items, curtido, and my daughter loves it after opening the first jar today. I used mason jars and sort of pieced together a bunch of recipes – green and red cabbage, carrot strips, onions, jalapeno and radish in a couple of the jars.
The general consensus I found was to put the metal disc in place and then very lightly secure the outer ring so it can burp. So after doing this and letting it sit approximately two weeks, I’m second guessing myself because I don’t want to get my kid sick. There is no mold, it’s not slimy, the solids stayed submerged under the liquid – I should be good, right?
Thanks!
Amanda says
It’s good! No mold, not slimy, crisp and sour = all is well. The top layer, if exposed to air, will be prone to molds, surface yeasts, oxidation, etc. So if you’re not submerging, I would definitely look into a way to start doing that for the future. Make sure you’re fermenting for no shorter than 5 days and ideally longer than that!
Sarah says
I would like to learn how to ferment cucs at home (in Cambodia) in salt brine. My situation: The only cucs available are slicing cucs. The only salt is not labelled about iodine. The air temp is hot (usually about 40 degrees C indoors). Mostly plastic containers are available (very few glass jars). Very few spices are available, but hot chili peppers are here. Only bread yeast is available. No other starters or mothers are available.
All of my trials so far have resulted in lots of trapped gas in the plastic containers and the containers bulge a lot. Are these safe to eat????
Please help me with other suggestions.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH
Amanda says
Hi Sarah,
Welcome! A few things: cucumber pickles might not be your best bet in a hot humid climate. If you’re fermenting, trapped CO2 is normal and part of the process (it is NOT for canned pickles and indicates serious danger, so if you’re canning rather than fermenting, please keep that in mind).
For fermented pickles, feel free to vary spices and amounts as you have them available. Starters are never necessary and yeast wouldn’t be a good thing to add (that’s a different type of fermentation, not the one we want for pickles). Everything else you say is fine, but heat can definitely be an issue.
With high temps, fermentation will happen quite quickly. Your pickles can be prone to be softer. Kahm yeast could be more of an issue. You might want to use more salt than called for in recipes from cooler climates (which you may then need to rinse to remove salt, but you can also end up removing beneficial nutrients and probiotics in rinsing).
I would definitely take a peek at some of my pickle recipes, and especially the fermented pickle primer, before giving it another shot. I’m sure you’re doing fine, though!
Good luck!
Angel says
I tried my first ferment 4 days ago with carrots. I got impatient and tasted it and am in the typlical freak out/panic attack about botulism. It was bubbling, and the brine had turned cloudy in the few days I left it alone and I had the white yeasty liquid starting. I grabbed litmas paper and the ph seems to be between 4 and 5. Please tell me I won’t die. Is there any way to tell how many days is long enough to wait by looking?