Getting Cultured - DIY ferments

My culinary adventures have taken a new turn into unchartered territory: fermentation!

Beware, this is a lengthy post that I enjoyed writing, but if you want the quick gist of it:

·         I’ve started fermenting foods in my kitchen to improve my digestive health

·         it’s been fun to reconnect with some traditional foods from my childhood

·         milk kefir has been the greatest success while sauerkraut remains an elusive challenge

·         I will learn how to make more exciting cultured foods this Saturday

Growing up in Belarus, fermented dairy featured prominently in our diet. I still mentally swoon at the thought of the most delicious silken sour cream I would eat with a spoon. In the summer, we would eagerly bring empty jars and bottles to fill with kvass whenever the barrel-shaped trucks happened to pull into our neighborhood. 

Winter would be a time for making sauerkraut and summer for lightly fermented small garden cucumbers – crunchy, emerald-green cousins of the better-known dill pickles that were ready in just a day or two of hanging out in brine on the counter.

Mind you, I never participated in the making of any of this delectable goodness, and so only knew that it could be done. We bought all the dairy and kvass, anyway. So, it’s been exceedingly exciting to not only make forays into this whole collaboration with the world of microorganisms, but to finally have some sweet (erm, savory) success, too!

YOGURT

Once in my early 20s, I tried making yogurt. When I unwrapped the pot from its thick blanket in the morning expecting something thick inside, and only the same milk from the day before stared back at me blankly, I was very disappointed. I’m guessing the temperature dropped too low to support the bacteria. Since I didn’t even drink milk, I tossed the whole lot. Over the next few years, I helped out a few times in this multi-step process in communal kitchens in Canada and New Zealand. It all seemed quite formidable in its scientific exactness – sterilize jars and equipment, check the milk with a thermometer, incubate at a steady temperature for some eight hours… etc. It’s no wonder that when I visited my Mom one year, and she told me she was making yogurt which she started with a jar of homemade stuff from an Indian family, and after heating and cooling the milk, she simply left it sitting on the counter overnight… I just couldn’t believe that this was possible. If I remember correctly, my disbelief somehow jinxed the process, and my Mom informed me later that it had stopped working. Oops! (witness power of the mind, people!)

Finally, while visiting Rich’s sister in Singapore last year, she walked me through her regular yogurt-making ritual and I loved HOW SIMPLE IT WAS. She just washed her jars, didn’t use a thermometer and heated up the milk ‘till just below boiling (or until it boiled over, if distracted… hehe), stuck her finger in to feel if it was cool enough (it should be roughly at body temperature) and incubated it in a cooler filled with warm water. In the morning, voila: homemade yogurt!

Inspired by this, I tried again. And it worked! We don’t have a cooler, so I read about other ways to keep the yogurt warm and cozy, finally choosing to stand it on an electric heating pad turned on low, the entire contraption wrapped in blankets. I put a note with “yogurt baby” on the bundle so it wouldn’t get knocked over. Boy, was I one proud momma in the morning!

Still, there was enough process (heating, cooling and temperature control) that this didn’t become a regular occurrence. And then…

KEFIR

… kefir entered my life. I also drank kefir as a kid in Belarus. Then, it kinda started showing up in health food stores in Canada, but at that point I wasn’t eating much dairy, period, so I more or less forgot it existed. Then, early last winter, a very nice American woman living here in Taiwan who’d bought kefir grains through Amazon wanted to share them since they were growing so much, they were taking over her fridge. Kefir grains, you say??? That was my reaction. The fascinating facts are these, provided by the lovely people at Yemoos:

“Kefir grains look a lot like little cauliflower florets … [and] are a symbiotic relationship of over 30 different strains of beneficial bacteria and yeast. The bulk of the grain that you see is a combination of insoluble protein, amino acids, lipids (fats) and soluble-polysaccharides (complex sugars).”

straining the grains out

The name of the game with kefir is simplicity. Put a tablespoon of the grains into a one-liter glass jar, fill 4/5 full with fresh milk, top with breathable fabric secured with a rubber band and leave at room temperature out of direct sunlight for about 8 hours. Strain to remove the grains. Avoid using metal. Repeat. THAT’S IT! No heating, no keeping warm, and kefir is said to have an abundance of probiotic strains superior to yogurt. If you’re thinking “WOW!” I assure you, that’s how I feel about kefir. My first few batches were so-so, but as I regularly fed the grains high-quality organic whole milk, magic happened. I now get super creamy delicious kefir after simply letting it sit out overnight without needing a second ferment as typically advised to get it to thicken up.

I add a sprinkle to a teaspoon of spices like cardamom, garam masala, etc

I also directly eat the extra grains once there is a surplus. I was a little scared of this at first as bloggers warned of a rubbery texture, but actually they’re just pleasantly chewy and deliver oodles of amazing probiotic goodness directly to my gut.

strained kefir = probiotic labneh
(fresh, thick spreadable cheese - here with olive oil and za'atar)

kefir in an avocado half

NON-DAIRY YOGURT/KEFIR

Although in the process of fermentation, the bacteria devour most of the lactose thus rendering kefir and yogurt largely lactose-free, I’m still not 100% sure my gut is ready for dairy as my digestion’s been compromised for a long time (hence, this foray into fermentation to restore the good bacteria the homesteader way). These are some non-dairy “milk” ferments I’ve experimented with:

1.      Probiotic supplement as a starter: add a packet per ~2 cups of coconut or other non-dairy milk, leave out covered with cloth, check taste after ~12 hours.

2.      Using milk kefir grains in non-milk: so far the results aren’t as nice as with cow’s milk, but it’s an option worth experimenting with further. The milk grains do need cow’s milk to replenish themselves every few batches.

3.      Soaking nuts and seeds: the harder they are, the longer the soak they need, for guidance see charts here and here.

Soaked nuts/seeds can be eaten as is (and are much easier to digest than their non-soaked counterparts), or allowed to ferment a little – whole, or ground into a paste (will become nut “cheese”), or ground into a liquid (add extra water for nut “milk” and get something yogurt-like). Again, timing and tasting is everything as the nuts and seeds will begin to spoil, and I’m very new to this, but there are raw foodies who’ve really taken this to the next level!

SAUERKRAUT

Aah, “sour cabbage” – loved by Slavics, Germans and health foodies. I still remember the way it stank up my childhood apartment’s pantry as the bacteria did their thing. I think from then on, my Dad left it out on the balcony. I’d made fresh coleslaw by shredding cabbage and carrots and “massaging” the whole lot with salt, then adding a bit of vinegar and it’s delicious. But if you’re after the probiotic hit, slow fermentation is necessary.

In my attempts at ‘kraut over the last few months, only one of about 4 batches was really good. I think a large problem is that it’s summertime and it’s way too hot. I’ve witnessed some gnarly growths like kham yeast (apparently harmless but freaky) and just tossed the last of the jar I had in the fridge that had gone cloudy and was definitely adding to, rather than alleviating, my digestive issues. *sigh*

I also read that to really get the good bacteria, you have to leave it for a month, which will only be possible in the winter here.

But, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. In fact, this Saturday my friend Mara and I are going to a fermentation workshop at the nut-cheese-making place I linked to above. Although it’s called Fermentation 101, we’re actually going to learn things that are definitely a step up from beginner-level for me: an imaginative version of kimchi (Korean fermented cabbage), idlas (Indian fermented pancakes) and rejuvelac (a drink from fermented sprouted grains). Stay tuned for another update to my world of cultured ferments!

Although there is a ton of information on fermenting online, the current definitive bible of this revival movement is the 500+ page book called “The Art of Fermentation” by Sandor Ellix Katz.