Kraut Bar!

Thank you to everyone who came to The Magic of Fermentation workshop. We had a great time making water kefir and kraut with a DIY kraut bar!

Foundation for Fermentation Fervor Fantasy Camp

We were lucky enough to be accepted into a fermentation residency hosted by Sandor Katz for a week on his property in Tennessee. An exceptional experience documented exceptionally by Amanda Feifer of Phickle.com

How to taste spicy without the hurt

I love spicy food! I love making spicy fermented hot sauce. I recently fermented habanero peppers for 3 months. Fermenting hot peppers makes them less hot and they take on a citrus flavor. Don't get me wrong though, hot peppers remain hot! Especially habaneros. One way I can taste the sauce without hurting myself is to mix it with homemade yogurt. This allows you to taste all the complex flavors without all the hurt!

Beet Kvass

Beet Kvass

Ingredients:

• 2 Large organic beets
• 1/4 cup whey
• 1 Tbsp sea salt 
• 2 quarts filtered water

Directions:

1. Peel beets & coarsely chop. Do not cut beets too small or their sugars will make alcohol.
2. Add beets to 1/2 gal. glass jar.
3. Fill jar half full with water, add salt and stir.
4. Add whey & finish filling with water.
5. Loosely place lid on and set in warm dark location.
6. Let ferment for 2-3 days then move to refrigerator.

* Makes one 1/2 gallon

Serve: Pour 4oz once or twice a day. Feel good!

Tepache take 2

Second try, new recipe. Either tepache is just not for me or I'm not making it right. Can't seem to appreciate the musty aftertaste. Would love to try someone's who has been making it their whole lives. This is the close to my tepache adventure for now.

Wild Mead

I'm almost embarrassed to say I've never tried to make mead before. Our club has made beer together and I've also made it with a friend but never ventured down the mead trail. I've recently come into a lot of honey from Michigan that my mom got me. Fingers crossed that I love because SOOO much easier than making beer. The recipe I am following notes (with subtle variations) I took from Chris Byrne's "Making Mead at Home" talk at the Farm to Fermentation Festival.

warming in sun

stirred together

Ingredients

Raw honey

Spring water

Directions

1-quart honey per gallon water equals abt 12% alcohol. This is a dryer mead.

Add 1-quart honey to gal container then fill with water. Warm in sun to stir together. Bring inside and add fruit (optional).

Stir 3x a day or more.

When starts "sizzling" give it a day or 2 and keep stirring. Strain or not strain into container (apple juice jug) up to you. Add water to fill bottle to bevel​. When ferment starts tapering off then measure it with hydrometer.

Trick to fresh mead that doesn't have to sit for a yr: hydrometer reading will start at 1.12 (you do not have to measure this, it is always 1.12). Stop it at 1.02 and bottle in fling top. You can racket if want more clear.

Bottle in fling top. Leave 2-3 weeks. 60-70 degrees best for ferment.

Do you Tepache!?!?!

I got this Tepache recipe off Cultures for Health. While the final product looked beautiful it had a very different taste. I thought I could drink the whole thing but found I really couldn't. It either takes some time like kombucha to get used to or it just doesn't taste great to me. And that's ok! We don't have to like it just because we are excited about fermentation. For some reason I really don't want to give up on this though and I'm going to try another recipe...