Fermented edibles

[ZwolfUpir]

I also love making fermented foods. I learned largely from the book "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Katz. ... One thing I love to make is lacto-fermented hot sauce. I buy a variety of hot peppers in the fall, food process them up with the seeds and some garlic, then put them in a salt brine with a weight to keep them submerged. It makes a really nice and nuanced hot sauce, better than I think I would get by using vinegar.

I so want that book. Picked it up at the library once and loved it.

Would you be willing to expand on your hot sauce recipe there? My boys love hot... well... everything. Going to make a flaming hot chili mead for them in a year or two so for when they turn 21.

 

[mccann51]

I also love making fermented foods. I learned largely from the book "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Katz. My favorite book on food. There is a good section on making tempeh in there. A friend of mine has a small cottage industry making tempeh, and the fresh stuff is incredible.

I enjoy juniper berries in sauerkraut, too. I also love caraway, but it is not for everyone. The kimchi I've made with napa cabbage has been a lot better than the stuff I've made with the big heads of cabbage, in my opinion.

One thing I love to make is lacto-fermented hot sauce. I buy a variety of hot peppers in the fall, food process them up with the seeds and some garlic, then put them in a salt brine with a weight to keep them submerged. It makes a really nice and nuanced hot sauce, better than I think I would get by using vinegar.

I'm with ZwolfUpir, please post a recipe! This is a great idea that I'll definitely be trying. I made an impromptu hot sauce recently with some vinegar and it made me realize how easy it would be to produce it all the time. I would have never thought to do it as a ferment.

I've looked into getting that book, or at least checking it out from the library. Glad to hear it comes recommended.

"Fermentation" when applied outside of alcohol production (or even within making booze, look at MLF) is a pretty wide term, more of a "microbes ate something in this and turned it into something else which is tasty" kind of a definition, rather than a strict scientific definition.

[strike]"microbes ate something anaerobically in this and turned it into something else which is tasty"

FTFY

Though perhaps this doesn't apply to tempeh? Wikipedia here I come...[/strike]

 

[mccann51]

Hmm, reading more about it I have to rescind my "correction". I had assumed all "fermentations" conformed to the biochemical definition, but this doesn't appear to be the case. I guess vinegar production is probably the most obvious example of this.

 

[AToE]

<s> "microbes ate something anaerobically in this and turned it into something else which is tasty"

Ha! Well with most "fermented" foods, anaerobic is the case - but if that's what we're using to define the word... then I guess making alcohol isn't fermentation because quite a bit of the "fermenting" actually happens in the presence of O2 which the yeast need.;D

EDIT: Sorry, figured I should add to that! My cheeky point is that while anaerobic is in the textbook definition, people still use the word to apply to non-anaerobic situations.

 

[mccann51]

Ha! Well with most "fermented" foods, anaerobic is the case - but if that's what we're using to define the word... then I guess making alcohol isn't fermentation because quite a bit of the "fermenting" actually happens in the presence of O2 which the yeast need.;D

EDIT: Sorry, figured I should add to that! My cheeky point is that while anaerobic is in the textbook definition, people still use the word to apply to non-anaerobic situations.

No prob; you are right (see my comment above, I think you were writing when I posted it).

That said, I would argue that fermentation by yeast is still anaerobic: it's not fermenting in an anaerobic environment (because we aerate), but the process of converting sugar-to-alcohol is done sans oxygen, and thus an anaerobic process (least that's my understanding of it).

 

[AToE]

No prob; you are right (see my comment above, I think you were writing when I posted it).

That said, I would argue that fermentation by yeast is still anaerobic: it's not fermenting in an anaerobic environment (because we aerate), but the process of converting sugar-to-alcohol is done sans oxygen, and thus an anaerobic process (least that's my understanding of it).

It's a convoluted topic! I honestly have no idea of the chemical reaction of sugar to alcohol, but I know part of it is sugar to CO2 as well, which obviously has O2 involved, and I know the yeast are consuming O2 during at least 1/3-1/2 of the time they're fermenting sugar into alcohol... to be honest it's really not one of my areas of expertise!

EDIT: so anyways, I stand by my whacky definition of "microbes ate something and turned it into something tasty"!

 

[mccann51]

so anyways, I stand by my whacky definition of "microbes ate something and turned it into something tasty"!

I see your "microbes ate something and turned it into something tasty" and raise you... oh, wait, no, we already did this.

I accept your definition, and henceforth will be the official definition of this thread (since I'm OP and all, I can do stuff like that, haha!).



As for the CO2, since the oxygen is bound it is not oxidatively reactive, and thus anaerobic. I could be wrong on my reasoning and welcome any corrections.

 

[AToE]

As for the CO2, since the oxygen is bound it is not oxidatively reactive, and thus anaerobic. I could be wrong on my reasoning and welcome any corrections.

Well, in the fun-ness of debating things neither of seem to be experts on - yes the CO2 has the oxygen bound, but the CO2 is produced during the turning of sugar into alcohol, so it was reacting that made the CO2! That said, wikipedia says alcohol fermentation is anaerobic because it takes place without the presence of oxygen... not sure how you can get a product tht has O2 in it without having O2 though. Maybe what they mean is that the O2 starts off bound up in the sugar, then ends up bound in the CO2, so it's never really on it's own? But we know the yeast need and use O2 for a large % of the fermentation...

Well I've confused myself so I'm going to go read wikipedia on the matter for a little bit!

 

[Chevette Girl]

Well, in the fun-ness of debating things neither of seem to be experts on - yes the CO2 has the oxygen bound, but the CO2 is produced during the turning of sugar into alcohol, so it was reacting that made the CO2! That said, wikipedia says alcohol fermentation is anaerobic because it takes place without the presence of oxygen... not sure how you can get a product tht has O2 in it without having O2 though. Maybe what they mean is that the O2 starts off bound up in the sugar, then ends up bound in the CO2, so it's never really on it's own? But we know the yeast need and use O2 for a large % of the fermentation...

Well I've confused myself so I'm going to go read wikipedia on the matter for a little bit!

I'm going to stick my nose in for a moment and remind people that water contains oxygen, anything that ends in "-oxide" does too and a lot of these things dissociate in water to make ions (including water itself, makes an H+ and an OH-), plus the sugars as well. Plenty of places to get oxygen atoms without it being present as the O2 in our atmosphere.

 

[mccann51]

Well, in the fun-ness of debating things neither of seem to be experts on - yes the CO2 has the oxygen bound, but the CO2 is produced during the turning of sugar into alcohol, so it was reacting that made the CO2! That said, wikipedia says alcohol fermentation is anaerobic because it takes place without the presence of oxygen... not sure how you can get a product tht has O2 in it without having O2 though. Maybe what they mean is that the O2 starts off bound up in the sugar, then ends up bound in the CO2, so it's never really on it's own?

Definitely in the heart of cooperatively bringing our understanding to a higher level via debate.

Your point about CO2 being a product is well-taken, kinda forgot about that, haha. Yeah, it must be oxygen from the breaking up of the sugars.

But we know the yeast need and use O2 for a large % of the fermentation...

I think it's important to separate the metabolic processes here, and not look at it from the scale of a full life history (of the yeast). For the fermentation of alcohol and CO2 from sugar, the biochemical process is classified as anaerobic, but that doesn't mean that all other metabolic or reproductive processes have to be classified similarly.

Pasteur showed that by bubbling oxygen into the yeast broth, cell growth could be increased, but fermentation was inhibited – an observation later called the "Pasteur effect".

 

[AToE]

I'm going to stick my nose in for a moment and remind people that water contains oxygen, anything that ends in "-oxide" does too and a lot of these things dissociate in water to make ions (including water itself, makes an H+ and an OH-), plus the sugars as well. Plenty of places to get oxygen atoms without it being present as the O2 in our atmosphere.

I know, I was just being a smart ass about the definition of fermentation being in an environment without oxygen when there's clearly oxygen right in the chemical reaction in question! Free O2 is a different matter of course!

I think it's important to separate the metabolic processes here, and not look at it from the scale of a full life history (of the yeast). For the fermentation of alcohol and CO2 from sugar, the biochemical process is classified as anaerobic, but that doesn't mean that all other metabolic or reproductive processes have to be classified similarly.

That's a good point, probably what had me confused. The yeast are using the raw O2, but not in the actual biological process of fermentation.

 

[ZwolfUpir]

Listen. I think we are drifting way away from the main focal point that must still be covers... Braxton mentioned a hot sauce recipe that I still haven't seen yet... ;D

 

[TheAlchemist]

And I've decided making sauerkraut is on my to-do list for the next head of cabbage my CSA box sends me.

 

[Guinlilly]

And I've decided making sauerkraut is on my to-do list for the next head of cabbage my CSA box sends me.

Homemade saurkraut is the only way I eat it now. The store stuff doesn't even compare!

 

[Braxton]

Yes, that was a bit of a tangent there. Quickly: my understanding is that yeast actually do create alcohol in their aerobic stage, but through a different pathway than during anaerobic fermentation. This pathway does not produce as much alcohol and is of less interest to the brewer. Usually brewers are interested in the aerobic stage because of ester production and yeast cell reproduction. Yeast fairly quickly consume most of the available oxygen in a solution like water, which means that the majority of time afterwards is dedicated to anaerobic fermentation (at least in the type of fermentation that we commonly do).

Recipe? Uh, I'm not too much of a recipe type of person; even in brewing. The recipe in my head is:

Get fresh peppers. I like to use a 50/50 mix of flavorful peppers (like jalapeno or anaheim) and hot peppers (like thai peppers, or cayenne)
Remove stems and food process, adding water as needed. Toss in peeled cloves of garlic as needed.
Put in a glass vessel and double the volume with salt brine, which is just salty water.
Weigh down solids with a weight of some sort. If fermenting in a jar, a smaller jar sometimes works as a weight. Otherwise, a small plate with a weight on top of it (like a sealed mason jar full of water) can work well.
Cover with a clean cloth and let sit in a dark place at room temperature for a week, then taste. Leave for longer if sourness is not high enough, skimming off any skum on top, then refrigerate when ready.

Because of the hotness of the peppers it seems more stable than other lacto-fermented stuff I've made, and less likely to get mold on it during the fermentation. I would often use this stuff to add heat to a stir fry or thai-style curry, or as a really spicy hot sauce for burritos/tacos.

It's coming around to hot pepper season here in Minnesota, so they are cheap and plentiful at our farmer's markets.

I definitely think that brewing knowledge helps in making fermented foods. I will usually sanitize all my equipment and vessels before making fermented foods, and like to reuse cultures that ferment well and produce good flavors.

 

[mccann51]

We have a bunch of peppers right now, so I think I'm gonna give this a try. Considering throwing some cut veggies in just because we need to use everything up since we're moving.

 

[mccann51]

Haven't tried the fermented hot sauce yet, unfortunately, soon though.

My girlfriend made some kimchi the other day, but didn't use miso for the first time cause we're out of it. She told me she was reading somewhere on the interweb that kimchi made w miso has a longer shelf-life than kimchi without. I'm having trouble finding anything about that; has anybody here heard of this?

If it's true, I'd guess it has to do w some stabilizing factor of having other micro-organisms in the environment, but not sure.

 

[mccann51]

Random: anybody ever heard of mushrooms being fermented, kimchi style?

 

[AToE]

Haven't tried the fermented hot sauce yet, unfortunately, soon though.

My girlfriend made some kimchi the other day, but didn't use miso for the first time cause we're out of it. She told me she was reading somewhere on the interweb that kimchi made w miso has a longer shelf-life than kimchi without. I'm having trouble finding anything about that; has anybody here heard of this?

If it's true, I'd guess it has to do w some stabilizing factor of having other micro-organisms in the environment, but not sure.

I would just think it had to do with the acidity and salt in miso, but what do I know, I didn't even know kimchi ever had miso as an ingredient!

 

[TheAlchemist]

I'm making lactofermented sauerkraut today!