OT- Lacto Fermentation Fun- Peppers and Sriracha

fishlessman

Put champagne in a bean pot about 2.5 years plus. Is it vinigar or should I look

lkapigian

fishlessman said:

Put champagne in a bean pot about 2.5 years plus. Is it vinigar or should I look

Please look and report back lol… I bet it’s vinegar 

HeavyG

Botch said:

 
One of my food channels referenced this book, I looked it up on amazoid and it was going for $25, on sale from $40.  This damn tome is a textbook, 455 pages.  Lots of color photos and so far it reads really well.  Just got it this morning.
 
My first attempt at salsa went okay.  My first and second attempt at pickled cukes did not, shattered glass/mold.  I made up two more jars this afternoon, we'll see how it goes.  
 
On a somewhat related note, Grillo's seems to have modified their plastic containers a bit, much easier to open/close; but I still don't like paying $7~8 for a stupid jar of pickles.  Hopefully this book will fix some things for me.  

That is pretty much the normal price. Amazon tells me I bought that in Nov. 2018 for $24 (tax brought it up to $25.44). Good book.

The only Grillos I've had are actually pickled not fermented - didn't know they made/sold any fermented pickles.

If you want to try some fermented pickles I buy a lot of stuff from olivemypickle.com

All their pickles are fermented not pickled and they have some good kraut and olives. Their kimchi is ok. All a little pricey but generally good tasting stuff.

Have fun!

caliking

How does this book compare to Sanford Ellix Katz’s “The Art of Fermentation” ? Great book about fermented foods and drinks around the world, but is sparse on details about how to make some of them. 

@Botch or @HeavyG could you share a pic of the table of contents?

HeavyG

This is just a capture of the book from Amazon...

Chapter 1 contents page has more detail...

The "look at me" for the book does show the whole index so if you peruse that and want to see a specific recipe(s) let me know and I can post some pix.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1579657184/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1&asin=1579657184&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1

caliking

Thanks @HeavyG . I didn't see the "look inside" link on the Amazon listing. 

Seems like an excellent resource for getting nerdy about fermentation. The Katz book is more of a hippy take on the subject, with info on beer, yogurt, fermented batters, etc., but doesn't take the deep dive into the scientific details (or others) as much. 

dmchicago

I don’t have a lactation kink but I feel sorry for this thread being in this no man’s land of the forum. 

Botch

caliking said:

The Katz book is more of a hippy take on the subject, with info on beer, yogurt, fermented batters, etc., but doesn't take the deep dive into the scientific details (or others) as much. 

I read about the first 50 pages last night before bed.  Redzepi/Zilber (the authors) describe the known "good" bacterias, molds and enzymes that ferment food, but then stated that microbes that produce beer, breads, wines and cheese all deserve their own books.  They do cover the stuff outlined in the ToC, above.  

Botch

So, Amazoid just tried to sell me something, "Based on your purchase of The Noma Guide to Fermentation" :  1 Gallon of 99.9% pure, food-safe Polypropylene Glycol.  
Any idea what that's used for?  I don't remember it being mentioned in this thread.    

lkapigian

Botch said:

So, Amazoid just tried to sell me something, "Based on your purchase of The Noma Guide to Fermentation":  1 Gallon of 99.9% pure, food-safe Polypropylene Glycol.  
Any idea what that's used for?  I don't remember it being mentioned in this thread.    

Propylene Glycol is food grade “ antifreeze “ and is used in chilled water systems in food processing plants, not something you want to ingest even if food grade , we also use it in our fog machines when we test duct systems 

Botch

One of my favorite channels on EweTube is "Pro Home Cooks".  This guy experiments with all the same things I do, and he's now growing most of his own produce (which I'd love to do but can't because of the deer/coons).  
I get his weekly newsletter, and he talked about a new lacto-ferment that I found interesting: garlic honey!  Its the first 1/4 of this video: 
 
https://youtu.be/94KhDUapXbQ

He fails to mention it in the video, but in his newsletter he said that, along with inverting the jar once a day for the first couple weeks, he also "burped" the jars every other day, which confirmed my idea that I and Ikapigian discussed at the top of the previous page.   There's a Whole Foods just down the hill from me, and I'll be picking up some organic garlic and raw honey, and give this a try.  
 
I'm also happy to report I finally  had a successful dill pickle ferment, using straight pint jars (I finally bought a case of them) and a different "venting" trick I saw on EweTube: just fill the jar, put the lid on, and then spin on the threaded ring but don't tighten, just have it make contact.  This allows CO2 to escape, but not let in O2 or dust, so the airspace environment in the top of the jar kills off the bad bugs without having to do anything.  I made up two jars, sampled the first one after a week: no mold, no bad smells, edible, and I didn't die, so into the frig it went.  The second jar I'll sample next Tues (2 weeks) and see how that one went.  I did forget to add Pickle Crisp or any bay leaves, so they weren't very crisp, but that's just part of the learning process.  This is fun!  

Ozzie_Isaac

I made some sous vide pickles yesterday.  My first try at that stuff.  I have made lacto fermentation hot sauces.  Maybe I will try some fermented pickles next.

caliking

@Ozzie_Isaac - nice mix of stuff you have there. I haven't tried SV pickling yet, but maybe I should, since I've really liked the lacto-fermented veg I've done in the past. 

lkapigian

Ozzie_Isaac said:

I made some sous vide pickles yesterday.  My first try at that stuff.  I have made lacto fermentation hot sauces.  Maybe I will try some fermented pickles next.

Tell me more about this 

Ozzie_Isaac

lkapigian said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

I made some sous vide pickles yesterday.  My first try at that stuff.  I have made lacto fermentation hot sauces.  Maybe I will try some fermented pickles next.

Tell me more about this 

This is my first go, and I expect to dial it in.

For this batch I did a mixture of veggies.  Green Beens, cucumbers, asparagus, and brussel sprouts as the main.  Then I used carrots, onions, garlic, and radishes as fill.  Radishes bleached out and made it all pinkish tinged.  I will probably leave those out in the future.

Basic brine for all.  2 cups white vinegar, 2 cups water, 4 oz sugar, 1 oz salt.  That basic amount was enough for 2 pint jars.

Then some I used dill in some and one I used a dried Scorpion pepper.

I put them all in the jars, 1/2" head space, and put lids on finger tight.  Cooked at 140 for 2 hrs 45 min.  The low temp cooking is supposed to make for crispier veggies.

Ozzie_Isaac

Update to above:

Keep radishes (they are excellent) use white onions instead of red onions.

For my personal taste, only do about half the sugar above.  2oz instead of 4oz.

The pickles with a single Scorpion pepper are amazing.  Enough heat to feel, but not stupid hot.

Botch

I thought 140˚was the borderline between the Danger Zone, and killing all bacteria.  So will these ferment, or are they more "canned"?  Are they shelf-stable afterwards, or need to be in the frig?  

lkapigian

Botch said:

I thought 140˚was the borderline between the Danger Zone, and killing all bacteria.  So will these ferment, or are they more "canned"?  Are they shelf-stable afterwards, or need to be in the frig?  

Not fermented and yes kills the lacto bacillus, but the vinegar will keep it shelf stable, this is a form of quick pickling … may give this a go, once in a while I do a quick pickle 

Ozzie_Isaac

Botch said:

I thought 140˚was the borderline between the Danger Zone, and killing all bacteria.  So will these ferment, or are they more "canned"?  Are they shelf-stable afterwards, or need to be in the frig?  

Real Danger Zone depends on bacteria, but 129 is my personal comfort zone.

Doing this at 2.5hrs essentially pasteurizes the mixture.  Then a very low pH keeps it that way.  Assuming you keep foreign material out.  After I open them, I will refrigerate them.

fishlessman

.Ozzie_Isaac said:

Update to above:

Keep radishes (they are excellent) use white onions instead of red onions.

For my personal taste, only do about half the sugar above.  2oz instead of 4oz.

The pickles with a single Scorpion pepper are amazing.  Enough heat to feel, but not stupid hot.

The green beans with scorpion are good. I make those with Mrs wages dill

HeavyG

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Botch said:

I thought 140˚was the borderline between the Danger Zone, and killing all bacteria.  So will these ferment, or are they more "canned"?  Are they shelf-stable afterwards, or need to be in the frig?  

Real Danger Zone depends on bacteria, but 129 is my personal comfort zone.

Doing this at 2.5hrs essentially pasteurizes the mixture.  Then a very low pH keeps it that way.  Assuming you keep foreign material out.  After I open them, I will refrigerate them.

Sous vide guru Douglas Baldwin recommends a minimum pasteurization temp of 131°F but 129°F is probably close enough... probably.

Ozzie_Isaac

HeavyG said:

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Botch said:

I thought 140˚was the borderline between the Danger Zone, and killing all bacteria.  So will these ferment, or are they more "canned"?  Are they shelf-stable afterwards, or need to be in the frig?  

Real Danger Zone depends on bacteria, but 129 is my personal comfort zone.

Doing this at 2.5hrs essentially pasteurizes the mixture.  Then a very low pH keeps it that way.  Assuming you keep foreign material out.  After I open them, I will refrigerate them.

Sous vide guru Douglas Baldwin recommends a minimum pasteurization temp of 131°F but 129°F is probably close enough... probably.

Here is an excerpt from Douglas Baldwin's excellent book "A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking", this explains why 130 deg is a good min safe temp:

https://douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Table_5.1

(Note the 126.1 deg F is not a safe temp, because Clostridium just stops growing, but is not dying. Also variations in measurement accuracy and such mean you want to give yourself a bit of a margin. That is why they say 130 min. Also of interest Salmonella stops growing around 115 deg F, and E. Coli and Listeria round 113 deg F.)

https://food.unl.edu/listeria-monocytogenes

Botch

Damn I'm an idiot.
Using my "lightly screwed on" technique with pickle jar lids I mentioned above, has given me about a 50% success rate.  So, I bought some glass weights, and a 4-piece set of those "burping" jar lids; both will fit in "wide-mouth" 1-pint mason jars, so I tried to find a place where I could buy just four, and came up empty; finally broke down and bought a case of them (my single fridge isn't that big, so I wouldn't have a dozen fermented jars in there).  
Bought some more cukes, and green beans tonight, along with dill and some serranos, packed four jars, and discovered neither the glass weights nor the burping tops would fit; I had purchased reg mason jars, not the wide-mouth ones.
Damn I'm an idiot.
 
So, I "lightly screwed on" the regular mason jar tops, we'll see how these go.  One thing I did differently is leaving a bit more head-space in the jar.  I thought 1/4" would be enough, but as fermenting began, they were spitting brine onto my countertop, instead of the CO2 just gassing off.  My theory is that some CO2 forms within the pickle, swelling it and the increased volume pushes out the brine.  I'll see how 3/4" headspace works out.  I'll jar up some of the green beans tomorrow, kinda grouchy right now.    

lkapigian

Keep us posted @botch , yes the overall c02 “ swells” the overall volume, you may want to try , at some point, doing pickle spears … much more forgiving and lend themselves to a quick “ half sour” pickle… 

HeavyG

Botch said:

Damn I'm an idiot.
Using my "lightly screwed on" technique with pickle jar lids I mentioned above, has given me about a 50% success rate.  So, I bought some glass weights, and a 4-piece set of those "burping" jar lids; both will fit in "wide-mouth" 1-pint mason jars, so I tried to find a place where I could buy just four, and came up empty; finally broke down and bought a case of them (my single fridge isn't that big, so I wouldn't have a dozen fermented jars in there).  
Bought some more cukes, and green beans tonight, along with dill and some serranos, packed four jars, and discovered neither the glass weights nor the burping tops would fit; I had purchased reg mason jars, not the wide-mouth ones.
Damn I'm an idiot.
 
So, I "lightly screwed on" the regular mason jar tops, we'll see how these go.  One thing I did differently is leaving a bit more head-space in the jar.  I thought 1/4" would be enough, but as fermenting began, they were spitting brine onto my countertop, instead of the CO2 just gassing off.  My theory is that some CO2 forms within the pickle, swelling it and the increased volume pushes out the brine.  I'll see how 3/4" headspace works out.  I'll jar up some of the green beans tomorrow, kinda grouchy right now.    

"My theory is that some CO2 forms within the pickle, swelling it and the increased volume pushes out the brine."

Do you not poke your pickles (so to speak)?

nolaegghead

Lactobacillus don’t produce any gas, but I’m sure there are some yeast in there that do.  Although there isn’t much in the way of sugar for them to chow down on.

lkapigian

nolaegghead said:

Lactobacillus don’t produce any gas, but I’m sure there are some yeast in there that do.  Although there isn’t much in the way of sugar for them to chow down on.

It’s the product that’s off gassing correct? The lactobacillus produces lactic acid through the metabolism of carbohydrates, I think… I just use salt water and make hot sauce LoL

nolaegghead

I dunno what it is.  Is there a lot of gas?  My best guess would still be yeast.  There are many natural strains of yeast that are extremely salt and acid tolerant.  But yeast doesn’t consume complex carbohydrates, they must be converted to sugars first, just like malting grain to convert starch to sugar to make beer.

Ozzie_Isaac

nolaegghead said:

I dunno what it is.  Is there a lot of gas?  My best guess would still be yeast.  There are many natural strains of yeast that are extremely salt and acid tolerant.  But yeast doesn’t consume complex carbohydrates, they must be converted to sugars first, just like malting grain to convert starch to sugar to make beer.

My lactoferments get very fizzy and bubbly.  That's how I know they are doing good.  Eventually they stop.  I also put my jars in aluminum half pans or a bowl.

Currently I my ferments are in my office.  Gives a very noticeable when out gassing.

Ozzie_Isaac

@Ikapigian one of my cherry tomato ferments has some crystals developing through my air lock.  This is a recent development.  Any idea what it is?  It actually smells amazing, like a well progressing ferment, but haven't seen crystals before?