Let’s Get Fermented!

As I mentioned in my last article, “Visualize a Meal Differently“, one of the foods that I recommend eating is fermented vegetables. Fermented vegetables are full of organisms to supplement your body’s gut health. In addition to the microbes, they are full of nutrients from the vegetables themselves. Fermentation adds a source of variety to snacking and meals that I am always seeking out. Lastly, the fermentation allows me to digest certain foods much more easily than I can in their raw form, like cucumbers and cabbage.

Read and Research

Take some time to read current information regarding introducing fermented foods to your diet. You will find a great deal of research on fermented foods, like kimchi, kombucha, and dairy foods. Examine the conclusions reached in research papers about findings linking proper gut health to improvements in mental health and longevity, as well as potential decreases in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Don’t take my word for it. Let’s learn from the anti-vax movement. Educate yourself and make the best decision for yourself based on available data, and not social media. Remember, these are not the easiest foods to consume. If you are not convinced they are good for your health, you might want to consider skipping the rest of this article.

Go Ahead, Take the Plunge

If you are still reading, I trust you have decided you want a healthier body and brain. To start eating fermented foods, there are two main ways to obtain them. I endorse using both options. The first way is visiting your local grocery or health food store. You will find fermented foods located in the refrigerated section. You want to make sure they are refrigerated and they have not been pasteurized. If they are being kept at room temperature or they are in a can, the real benefits of live cultures are forfeited. Depending on the store, finding a great variety may be challenging. They may also be rather expensive.

Purchasing fermented vegetables has several nice benefits. It’s convenient, consistent and quality is monitored by the FDA. You may have trouble finding a great selection of different vegetables and flavors. By purchasing fermented vegetables, you will get a taste for what you like and do not like. It also will set the stage for understanding if your home-brewed veggies are turning out “right” or not.

Ferment Your Own!

The other way to obtain fermented vegetables is to do it yourself right in your kitchen using any type of vegetables you like. The process is simple:

• Grab one or several jars to fit the vegetables you want to ferment. I prefer wide mouth mason jars from Ball.
  • Fill the jars with vegetables
  • Add tap water to fill the jar to the bottom of the rim
  • Grab a nice sized bowl. You will be using this to capture the water from the jars.
  • Weigh your bowl and create a tare on your digital scale to account for the bowl’s weight.
  • Using a colander, empty the jars into the colander and capture and weigh the water. This is the precise amount of water you will be using to create your fermentation brine.

• Determine the amount of salt by multiplying water required by 2.5%
  • My one jar sauerkraut recipe requires 16.1 ounces of water. I take that amount and multiply it by 2.5% and I formulate that I require 0.56 ounces of salt.
  • It’s critical to weigh the water and the salt to get an accurate brine mixture. Trust me! If you just measure it, you will likely get too much salt and you will not enjoy your product.
• Heat distilled water and add the calculated amount of salt
• Put your vegetables into the jar and add desired spices
  • For my kraut, I bruised the cabbage with a pestle and added dill, garlic, rosemary, peppercorns, bay leaf, and celery seed
• Pour the water over the vegetables, leaving the rim area for expansion.
• This is the trickiest part. Use airlock fermentation lids or fold a cabbage leaf to hold the vegetables underwater to prevent molding.
  • I highly endorse the lids. They seal your vegetables in but let air vent out to allow the fermentation to move along without burping your jars or adding air to this anaerobic process.
• Put the lid on tight and put it in a dark place at room temperature. It could leak, so you place the jar in a bowl or something similar.

Let the Fermentation Begin

The fermentation process takes from 10-20 days. I do not have enough room in this article to go through the whole process, but after a day or two, you will start to see active fermentation. From there, you need to “burp” the jars daily to relieve pressure. After about 10 days, everything settles down and you can start to taste your mixture, if you choose.

I am still actively working on the process and several different batches are actively fermenting in the corner cabinet (to my wife’s delight). Some look okay; others, a bit scary. I have a feeling I will have to work multiple batches and continually revise. Luckily, the vegetables are cheap and I think it is fun. Don’t you agree? I hope you experiment along with me and compare outcomes.

Admissions of Fermentation Failures

I have eaten much more of the store-bought fermented foods than my homemade versions, for several reasons:

• My batches have been too salty. My first couple of batches were not measured correctly, I think, and the brine was well above the 2.5%.
  • I believe I now have a better brine calculation defined, which I outlined above.
• One batch got moldy. I think the batch got too much air and the cabbage leaf was compromised. Still not sure on that one.
  • I have since ordered airlock fermentation lids from Amazon. So far, I have found the lids to be easier to use and my results have been improving.
• The spices make a big difference in the taste. Dill, in particular, is very yummy. The cool part is there is no limit on the creativity and combinations you can try.

Come On, Give Fermentation a Try!

The process may seem complicated but it is actually simpler when you do it at home. The first time you may have some mixed results, but after you experience it a couple of times, the process becomes much easier. I am still working through the hiccups, but my product has been steadily improving.

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I hope you give fermented foods a try. You likely need to try them multiple times before you can really appreciate them. Once you adopt them, I think you will find their unique taste and mouthfeel something that is rewarding to your diet. I am convinced that these foods improve your ability to digest food and derive the right nutrients from the food that your body requires. This nutritional benefit has to be good for your body plus scientific studies find evidence that the benefits improve your mental state. What can be better than that? Come on, give them a try!