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Post by khoomeizhi on Dec 2, 2014 5:00:53 GMT -5
spring shoots, right?
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Post by toad on Dec 2, 2014 15:20:53 GMT -5
I ferment the springshoots, but young leaves should do well also.
I also ferment them in a milder version, where I add live kombucha. The acidity of the kombucha give a starting point not so far from the ending acidity, and a milder ferment results.
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Post by kyredneck on Dec 3, 2014 7:46:46 GMT -5
If you think the kombucha gets too much vinegar, use less sugar, bottle when ready. Actually my best kombucha was stored a half year in an old wine bottle. But I'm only drinking kombucha occasionally. Did it almost daily for a year, that kind of satisfied my desire. I also add herb for flavour now and then, but only when bottling. Would you share your recipe and method for making kombucha? |
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Post by toad on Dec 6, 2014 13:42:57 GMT -5
I got my kombucha SCOBY in Irkutsk, Siberia. But I'm pretty sure you can use any "mother of vinegar", and if you do not have access to them, you can culture from wild.
I start adding 10% ready kombucha (from last batch), and the SCOBY. The SCOBY is not imperative. If starting with only a SCOBY first time, then add 10% of vinegar (5% acetic acid).
To this add a strong black chinese tea, sweetened with 10% sugar. Cover with a cloth, to allow oxygen and keep insects away. Keep at warm room temperature. Actually, in Siberia they prefer 30 C, but in my house its more like 21 C. If much cooler, the process slow down, giving mold a chan e to establish on the surface.
I start drinking after 5-10 days. If corked and left on the counter a few days, it will carbonate.
For other purposes I leave it fermenting 1-2 months, then bottle, cork and store in the larder. This I use for cooking and for fermenting vegetables that to my taste dosn't lend themselfes to lactofermentation. I.e. green pepper. Also some edimentals, like hosta and Syrian rose, ferment much milder, if covered in live kombucha or live apple vinegar. (I also ferment applejuice with kombucha SCOBY). It is wild fermentation, but I can nurse the acetic fermentation by air, or give room for lactofermentation in the vinegar, by excluding oxygen.
If difficult to understand, imagine a sourdough.
First movers are the yeast. The grow quickly, but also need lots of sugar.
Seconds are lactobacillus. More slow, thriving on more complex carbohydrates.
Third comes the vinegarbacillus. Very slow and need alcohol and oxygen to multiply and produce vinegar.
A quick turnover in the sourdough favours yeast.
A somewhat slower turnover favours lactobacillus.
And an ignored sourdough favours vinegarbacillus. This can be nurtured and turned in to a SCOBY, if a little sugar or honey is added every fourteen days.
The SCOBY consists of a whole society of microorganisms, including yeasts, turning all sugars into alcohol, and vinegarbacillus turning alcohol and oxygen into vinegar. Very complex, forgiving and wonderful.
This autumn I harvested a wild SCOBY from my whasp trap, a bottle with wager, sugar and honey. To clean all the dead insect corpses, and what could be in them of nasty stuff, I now make a serie of small batches, to clean it up, everytime starting a new, the original mix is strongly thinned, and I ferment it in a way that strongly favours the beneficial microorganisms.
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Post by copse on Dec 6, 2014 14:11:31 GMT -5
I got my kombucha SCOBY in Irkutsk, Siberia. But I'm pretty sure you can use any "mother of vinegar", and if you do not have access to them, you can culture from wild. I've read various things claiming different acetobacteria are involved. And other things claiming if you make one from a "mother of vinegar" and you think it's kombucha, it is kombucha.. |
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Post by toad on Dec 6, 2014 14:38:15 GMT -5
I got my kombucha SCOBY in Irkutsk, Siberia. But I'm pretty sure you can use any "mother of vinegar", and if you do not have access to them, you can culture from wild. I've read various things claiming different acetobacteria are involved. And other things claiming if you make one from a "mother of vinegar" and you think it's kombucha, it is kombucha.. Sourdough adapt to environment, and it seems to me to be true for kombucha end vinegar SCOBYs too. Actually, what I first got in Siberia was a "Чайный гриб", a tea mushroom. English wikipedia translate kombucha into this in russian. I also had a european "mother of vinegar", couldn't tell the difference, but the latter died from sulphur in a red wine. My "Чайный гриб" also makes excellent vinegar. I always keep a pure line of Чайный гриб, only grown in black tea.. |
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Post by greenfinger on Jan 1, 2015 2:26:24 GMT -5
Huckleberry Meade. MMMM!!!!!
Purre 1 gallon of garden huckleberries
1 1/2 gallon honey
water to fill 5 gal carboyle
yeast
My own Honey's creation, but he don't do recipies... this is an approximate ingredients list.
awesome
Happy new year!
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 1, 2015 14:04:03 GMT -5
IF you have started fermenting yet and are interested here's a pretty good site for real food. nourishedkitchen.com/?s=fermented I make sourdough every week and both pickled and fermented veges. The men at my house are making beer  |
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Post by Tiirsys on Jan 20, 2015 22:55:12 GMT -5
I really like fermenting things. I have salsa fermenting on the kitchen counter right now. Kombucha, Jun, Water Kefir, Sourdough. I have tried making kraut a couple times, but it always got nasty a couple weeks in. I don't think I had enough brine. The next thing I'd like to get would be Milk Kefir.
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Post by templeton on Jan 23, 2015 2:55:00 GMT -5
... The men at my house are making beer I've been fermenting sugar mixes in 20 litre fermenters, but then 'processing' it through a copper contraption   ... mmm, juniper berries.... T |
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Post by templeton on Jan 23, 2015 2:59:03 GMT -5
I went off sour dough bread after cooking it for years, when a few batches gave everyone the shits - tasted wonderful, tho. The starter must have mutated.
Then a few years ago I tried vinegar using cheap wine, worked for a few generations, then got infected and went off. Hadn't thought of the sulphur issue, maybe that was the problem.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 26, 2015 13:30:47 GMT -5
Templeton.... Did you keep your sourdough on the counter or in the fridge?
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Post by templeton on Jan 26, 2015 16:19:04 GMT -5
Templeton.... Did you keep your sourdough on the counter or in the fridge? In the fridge. Been meaning to give it another go, but if I brought a stack of breadtins into our already overcrowded kitchen, there might be trouble T |
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Post by Tiirsys on Jan 29, 2015 22:18:48 GMT -5
I have not had to run to the bathroom because of any of my concoctions... yet. :3
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Post by templeton on May 13, 2015 21:43:19 GMT -5
With a bit of time on my hands, and a crop of chilis that need to be picked, been thinking of fermenting stuff. Would a jar of fermented beancurd contain the right sorts of cultures to ferment chillis and maybe kimchi?
I've also got some limes that need picking, and made up an Aji Limon ans lime juice sweet chili sauce last week, any suggestions for fermented lime and chili recipes?
In my limited experience the wild stuff floating around down here doesn't seem to produce tasty ferments,but it might be my lack of experience.
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