Tomato Seed Fermentation in Closed Jars.

[ContainerTed]

I do this all the time, but had not showed it in pictures here. The question this time is, " What happens to the fungus if the jar is closed??"

To set this up, I had some seeds from the Stick variety to do. So, like I ususally do, I got out a half pint canning jar and a lid and ring. Processing was unchanged from my usual methods with the seeds removed from the fruit with the point of my knife and dropped into the strainer. They were then masaged to break the seed sacs and release as much juice as possible. The contents of the strainer and all juice was placed in the jar with a small amount of water - nothing else. The lid and ring were placed on the jar and tightened enough that nothing could leak out if the jar was inverted. It was then set into a quiet place and was swirled once a day.

On day three, I began to see the beginnings of the white fungus and on day four, it was going strong. In the first picture below, I had just swirled the liquid to mix it up break up any fungus lumps. Note that it is still easy to see the fungus. At this point, the lid on the jar has not been moved at all since the jar was first placed on the shelf. The second picture was taken about 4 minutes after the first one.

So, in the 3rd picture, I show the strainer after the contents of the jar were poured into the strainer. Note the remnants of some tomato pulp and especially at the bottom, the small pieces of the white fungus. At this point in my process, i usually use the spray attachment on the sink to blast the seeds. This will cause any fungus or pulp that is really soft to be blasted thru the weave of the strainer and down the drain, leaving seeds.

Picture #4 shows how most of the debris is gone and 99% of the stinky. Note that you can see a few of the seeds are darkly discolored. They were like that when they came out of the tomato. My tests with these discolored seeds is that the germination rates are much less than the uncolored seeds, so I just throw them away.

After I remove the good seeds with a soup spoon, there isn't much left in the strainer so it gets rinsed and the remaining debris removed. Now, the seeds go back into the rinsed and cleaned jar. The normal rinses are performed to finish cleaning out the debris. Then the seeds get a chlorox rinse followed by water rinses, and then spread out on a paper plate to dry.

My message here is that you can keep your fermentation jars inside and still not stink up the house. The stable temps inside help us control the process. No widely varying temps and such to create variability. In the final analysis, we get a much more reliable job of fermenting done.

Hope this helps some of you with this "aromatic" side of our hobby.