The Ups and downs of Lacto fermentation
Well winter has come, the harvests are done and my fermentations have all run their course and well there is much to report. This year I experimented heavily with lacto fermenting a whole variety of fruits and vegetables with great success and some failures. The full list of fermentations are as follows:
12x one gallon cucumbers - in 1 gallon glass fermenting jars
6x half gallon cucumbers - in half gallon mason jars
1x seven gallon cucumbers - in 8 gallon ceramic crock
1x four gallon cucumbers - in 4 gallon glass carboy
4x one gallon sauerkraut (green cabbage) in 1 gallon glass fermenting jar
1x four gallon Peach - in 4 gallon ceramic crock
1x three gallon Autumn Olive Berries - in 4 gallon ceramic crock
1x one gallon summer squash - in 1 gallon glass fermenting jar
1x one gallon mixed green beans, carrots, cucumber - in 1 gallon glass fermenting jar
So, quite a few fermentations going in a variety of vessels to say the least. So let’s roll with a breakdown.
All four sauerkraut ferments went performed flawlessly, they all kicked off quickly and ran their course properly. They only needed light topping back up with brine to maintain fill level twice. When a fermentation happens it produces Co2 gas, which has its own volume, which with its expanding volume the brine will overflow. As the Co2 produces and expands it escapes the vessel through the airlock, so once it escapes the volume in the vessel reduces and the brine level drops below the original fill level, thus you need to top it back up to the appropriate level. So each one gallon jar only needed to be retopped twice and lightly at that, which is nice as it is lower effort. Flavor profile on the sauerkraut is great, texture is still nice and crisp, the salinity is present but not at all on a level of being perceived as salty, the acid is bright and even somewhat citrus like, think more lemon like than vinegar like.
All in all I would consider the sauerkraut very easy and the best beginner level ferment.
Peach fermentation was very simple and straight forward, I used peaches acquired from my neighbors orchard, they were not peak ripe with a moderate sugar content and still rather acidic. The fermentation was simple and quick, I halved the peaches, removed the pits, tossed them in the crock, salted them down in a 2% salt ratio by weight, mixed thoroughly and pressed them down enough to work out any air pockets, weighed down with a plate and the crock cover in plastic wrap. Fermentation was very quick, only 6 days total, juice pushed up above the plate as it fermented and the oxygen exposed juice grew a layer of white mold which was scraped off. Once the peaches hit the level of fermented I wanted, based on taste, I broke it down to one gallon jars and moved to the fridge to prevent further vigorous fermentation. After given a week in the fridge to settle, the flavor profile is fascinating, imagine a salty, very peachy and yet also savory mashed fruit. Not something you want to eat spoonfuls of but it will make a very interesting addition to other foods and sauces. I plan for a future experiment mixing a portion of fermented peach with fresh peach in a classic southern handpie.
Overall a very easy fermentation but it did require a watchful eye for the sake of timing, otherwise it was not complex.
The Autumn Olive Berry fermentation was a fascinating one as it was the one that is the most similar in some ways to fermenting a red wine. I harvested autumn olives, floated them in water to more easily separate them from leaf and limb debris, strained them mostly dry and tossed them into the crock, still as whole berries. The berries were salted in a 2% by weight ratio, mixed together to distribute the salt evenly, pressed down with a plate until juice came up to plate edges(very light) and covered the crock in plastic. The crock was left on my kitchen counter to ferment warm for four days. Fermentation kicked off nearly immediately, the following day the whole berries formed a cap, much like fermenting red grapes, which needed to be pressed down so that they would not be exposed to oxygen and cause unfavorable bacterial growth. After the four days the berries reached the flavor profile I was looking for, salty, fruit forward, a hint of fruit sweetness remaining and a great balance of bright acidity. My goal with this ferment is to press the berries off for liquid and incorporate it into sauces and experiment using it in place of vinegar in other applications. This fermentation is also easy but has a daily level of effort for the 4 days to ensure it is healthy.
The summer squash ferment was a random throw in, my buddy was flush with big beautiful yellow squash and a few had gone beyond the point of tender and they had developed a thick skin, so I decided “well lets see what happens”. The squash were sliced into thick wheels, tossed in the jar, covered with water and salted at a ratio of 2% by total weight of squash and water. It was easy, just like the sauerkraut, did it’s thing, needed little checking in and ran it’s course. The results were good, the wheels stayed pretty crisp, they have a nice acidity and moderate salinity, a very mild and clean flavor overall. They will make a great addition mixed salad, sliced up and tossed into slaws etc etc.
Very easy, beginner level, just unique for being a random toss in.
Now the cucumbers, the damn cucumbers. So when reading the volumes listed above you may have thought “damn that’s a lot of cucumbers, why so many dude?” this is a perfect example of why when experimenting I like to do as many batches in as much of a variety as possible so I can accumulate some data. Take the summer squash ferment, it went great but it was only a single ferment so that could be a fluke, the sauerkraut was four separate ferments and all went well, so that is a moderate ample size to base an idea of the success rate. The damn cucumbers were a mess results wise, some batches did great, some batches were a little soft but acceptable, others were mushy and a fail and some were a total failure resulting in a rot smell that kicks off the gag reflexes. So lets break them down.
The one gallon ferments were mostly successful meaning the texture of the pickle was not mushy and were overall acceptable. Those cucumbers were left whole aside from the bloom and stem ends being trimmed. roughly 75% success rate. The half gallon ferments were cucumbers that were quartered into pickle spears, majority fail. 2 jars were perfect, 4 jars went mushy and were failures. Those also tended to constantly build Co2 pressure far beyond the time when the cucumbers should have stopped building gas, which signifies some undesirable bacterial fermentation. Fail. The four gallon widemouth carboy fermentaion had a negative bacterial growth which caused a failure of the fermentation, the brine was compromised and the batch was a loss. Sad. Now the worst one, the eight gallon crock, this was a catastrophic failure. The crock had a crack down the side that had been sealed, in moving the crack had opened up again and was seeping brine, I tightly wrapped the crock in shrink wrap which captured the seeping and stopped the leaking, I believe this was the source of my compromisewd brine in this instance. The Cumcumbers were whole, salted with a 2% salt by weight ratio then covered with a 2% salt brine, weighed down with a plate and covered with plastic wrap. I checked on the ferment a week in and things looked great, I allowed it to continue in it’s brine for 3 months, checking periodically. Finally when I intended to move the pickles down to smaller jars for storing, I removed the plate and was wafted with rotten cucumber juice and discovered a layer of brown mushy liquified cucumbers. The entire top layer had rotted into liquid, the smell was gag inducing, total fail. I believe the crack was allowing oxygen in and rot occurred over time. I dumped the whole batch, the bottom layers looked passable so I felt them to see if they were mushy or not and in an insane and regrettable moment I took a nibble from the best looking one, fools errand. The cucumber itself was fine but the flavor of the rotten layer had permeated it, disgusting, the things I do in the name of being thorough are generally not well thought out.
Overall, each batch of cucumbers was handled in a consistent manner with some variations for the sake of experimenting. The one gallon and half gallon cucumber ferments were prepared as follows. Cucumbers were rinsed, ends trimmed then cucumbers stuffed into their vessels either whole or quartered into spears, covered with water and then salted at a 2% salt by total weight ratio. In the jars pickling spices and oak or grape leaves were added as reccommended for preserving crunch. In gallon jars 6-8 leaves were added and in half gallon 4 leaves were added. The inconsistencies in the results for these batches I chalk up to potential quality issues with the cucumbers used or my well water being too hard for cucumber fermentations, the leaves added do not show a consistent pattern that would point to them simply being the issue. The fact that such a large percentage of the speared cucumbers shows me that attempt is riddled with issues and needs a complete shift in approach.
Needless to say I will not be publishing a recipe for how to ferment cucumbers. Based on the results I would place this in the hard category as it is clearly not as forgiving as something like sauerkraut.
Last but certainly not least, the mixed ferment. With this I stuffed fresh green beans from my buddy’s garden, 5 cucumbers and as many julienned carrots as I could fit into the jar, covered it all with a large cabbage leaf that would hold down any floaters and filled with water. Salted at a 2% by total weight ratio, this one was as easy as the kraut, went flawlessly, needed to be topped up only twice like the kraut and 4 weeks later I had this delightful mix and moved to the fridge. The Carrots, green beans and cucumbers were all perfectly crunchy and bright with the acid, the salinity was lovely and moderate, we polished this gallon off pretty quick! I would pull out the trio as desired, tossed into a bowl and enjoyed alongside good cheese. Diced up and tossed onto sandwiches, into tuna salad and a variety of whatever else I could think to do with it. This ferment is easily the most widely enjoyable and a delight to have on hand.
So, thats my end of fall report, lots of success and some horrific failures, but what else are we going to do, sit around and think about doing it some day? Go out and ferment something, enjoy it and get creative with how to use it.
With much reverence for you all,
Mr. Grey Pill
