Let's throwback to my first episode on fermenting and talk a little bit more about the basics. What are those bacteria doing? How safe is fermentation? Let's talk pickling versus fermenting, veggies versus fruits, and cold storage.
Episode Resources:
Ep. 113 – Dehydrating, Cold Storage, and Fermenting: More Ways to Store Your Harvest
Just Grow Something with Karin Velez (justgrowsomethingpodcast.com)
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Welcome back, my gardening friends, to another Focal Point
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Friday episode. Let's spend just a few minutes
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together reviewing A snippet of information from a previous
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episode, highlighting a new topic, or quickly focusing on a
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current event in the Food and Agriculture world.
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Let's get down and dirty. When it comes to food safety,
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fermented vegetables can actually be safer than raw
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vegetables because that very process of fermentation.
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Actually kills the harmful bacteria in the foods by using
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the bacteria that's in the foods.
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So obviously, having said that, you need to keep basic food
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safety practices still need to be followed while you're
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fermenting foods. And also keep in mind that the
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bigger concern is contamination after the veggies have been
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fermented. So just make sure when you're
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handling your jars and everything you have clean hands
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and it doesn't come in contact with raw meat or anything else
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like that, right? This is not a fail safe way to
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store your food, but. It is a really good way to store
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your food to improve the shelf life and also, you know, improve
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the health benefits maybe of the food.
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Things like cabbage, beets, radishes, turnips, carrots,
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those are sort of the beginners fermenting foods because the
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bacteria that's living on the surface of those foods already
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is doing the fermenting for us. We don't have to add anything to
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it in order to get it to start fermenting.
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And then once we get into these, you know, easy ones and we sort
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of figure out what we're doing with those and we can jump into
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recipes that maybe involve inoculating the foods with the
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bacteria like, you know, Lactobacillus that can jumpstart
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the fermentation process. I say that I'm new to
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fermenting, but I actually do make my own homemade yogurt with
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milk from our local dairy. And how I do that is by
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inoculating that milk with the Lactobacillus cultures from the
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previous batch of yogurt. So I'm inoculating it and then
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I'm bringing it to a certain temperature and that allows it
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to ferment and I end up with yogurt.
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Now, I should say there is a little bit of a difference
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between pickling, like how we pickle with vinegar versus
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fermenting, which could be sort of considered pickling.
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You can do Pickles through fermentation, but that doesn't
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necessarily mean that you're pickling everything when you're
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fermenting. So things can be pickled.
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With an acidic vinegar brine, or they can be pickled using a
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salty brine Without the vinegar and then it's fermenting during
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fermentation. This food is naturally going to
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develop a sort of sour flavor because of the chemical
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reactions that are going on. So even though both vinegar
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Pickles and fermented Pickles may taste vinegary.
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One is because of the added acid of the vinegar and the other one
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is because of the natural fermentation, so there is a
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difference there. So the other thing that I found
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when researching this was that it seems that fermented
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vegetables will last for a year or more in a good cold storage
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location, but fermented fruits should be consumed within just a
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few weeks and I guess the reason is.
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Fruit has a lot of natural sugars which can add to or speed
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up spoilage and also helps it turn into alcohol.
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So if that's your intention, that's one thing.
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But if it's not, you might have a very alcoholic surprise when
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you go to open your fermented fruits.
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So a lot of these beginner recipes are definitely focused
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towards fermenting vegetables. So here's the thing, people who
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ferment foods. Mainly just for their health
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benefits. We'll often just store them in
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the refrigerator when this process is done.
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But if we're looking to use this as a preservation method, that
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sort of defeats the purpose, right?
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So how should we properly store these fermented foods once
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they're ready? Well, in this instance, we go
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back to cold storage. So once it's to the point that
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you want it to be, then you transfer your ferment to cold
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storage. That's between 32 and 50 degrees
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Fahrenheit. Remember, a temperature affects
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the fermentation process, right? The warmer our home is, the
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faster the food is going to ferment.
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The same thing goes for the storage once the ferment is
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complete. So the cold is going to slow
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down the fermentation process, but it's not going to stop it
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completely. It is going to continue to
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ferment while it's in storage, but it's going to be at a much
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slower pace. So we're going to be able to
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keep our fermentations for a while in that cold storage.
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This is why the colder the location, the better.
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Now, what I've read is you can actually lengthen this storage
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life a little bit by putting them in cold storage just a
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little bit early, right? Since they're going to continue
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to ferment slowly while they're sitting there, then you could
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keep them from getting too sour or too soft by storing them just
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a little bit early. So if you have several jars of
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something and you're wanting to use one of them sooner rather
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than later, but the other ones you want to keep for the next
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six months. Then maybe put three of them
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away early and let them to continue to slowly ferment and
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let one jar go all the way to where you want it to be before
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putting it in the cold sore. Just make sure you're marking it
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properly. The one thing that you do really
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want to do though is to keep an eye on those brine levels.
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You may need to push down those veggies or add a little bit of
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brine to keep everything below the brine in order to be able to
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avoid mold. So once you put something in
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storage, remember we're always keeping an eye out for spoilage.
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And then another note was to possibly consider a higher salt
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ratio. It should help the ferments to
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store for longer, but keep in mind it's also going to make
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them taste a little bit saltier too, so you know this is
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something that you can play with.
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It seems like a lot of these recommendations are a little
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loosey goosey when it comes to fermentation, so long as you're
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keeping things under the brine. Then it's all generally regarded
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as being safe. You just have to keep an eye out
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for you know the mold and stuff and and your temperature seems
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to be the key component here. Everything else seems to be
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well. You can play with it a little
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bit. Thanks for joining me on this
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focal point Friday. I'll be back again on Tuesday
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for another regular. Episode of the Just Gross
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Something podcast. So until next time, my gardening
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friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden and we'll talk
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again soon.