Fermenting.

[Worth1]

Trop for one thing I meant dont not do fill the crock past the ears.
If you will look you will see the crock has ears on the side.
When you first put the cabbage in you dont want to put it past the ears because toy them have to put the weights in.
These weights together are bigger around than the hole at the top so you have to tip them sideways to get them in and out.
As the cabbage swells it shoves the stone weights up against the rim of the crock.
The pictures are in order and I fish it all out with my bare hands.
I got close to 33 pints out of this thing.
This stuff tastes nothing like store bought.
You want to put the lid on and then fill it wot water.
Also with a drop in 5 degrees or so the the water will go to the other side of the lid.
Sou want to keep an eye on it and put more water in if needed but as it warms up it will come back to the other side and spill over.
No big deal.

[Tropicalgrower]

Ok I understand now.Thanks for the explanation Worth.I was looking around for crocks and found Schmitt crocks on ebay.One vendor is offering the 5L for $105 approx.It stated that it was oversized and will hold 5L of sauerkraut without the over filling issue.

I'm sold on this...just need to be patient until we decide where we are going to end up.

[Worth1]

Trop and the rest there are a few things I would like to say about this crocks and other glazed products.
The one I bought from the sausage maker at a lower price is lead free.
I wont go into great detail about stoneware and lead but do some research on it.
The lead is in the pigment of the colors and the glaze and in only certain colors.
For the most part they dont use this type of pigment anymore.
The other thing is using metal, I use metal containers to brine all of my meat.
Shocking isn't it?
The say not to because they have dumbed down the instructions for everyone.
I dont blame them to an extent but it is misleading.
All of my stainless is 18/10 food grade stainless.

[Rajun Gardener]

I've been playing with my ferment and probably messed it up but I think it will be OK if I just forget about it.

I didn't like the way the mash was floating over the plastic lids I used to hold it down so I took those out and stirred it to settle all the pepper mash, it settled back to the original level but it hasn't been perking like before I messed with it. So I got this idea that I should've added carrots(Julienned) and garlic(whole cloves) so I did then after I couldn't find a culture starter at Wally World today(Sunday=all stores closed) I found some Yakult containing live Lactobacillus Casei Shirota so I used about a teaspoon of that to kick it in gear.

It smelt like pepper mash but not as strong as when it was 1st put in so I guess it's not going bad.

Give me some thoughts on this Ferment Master.

[Worth1]

I'm not the ferment master but I will give a thought or two.
When I get interested in something I get interested and go full bore at it.
Here is what happened.
There are two types of bacteria going on and I cant remember the names of them.
One starts out active as all get out and settles down.
Another bacteria takes over and I thing it produces more acid and complex flavors but isn't as active.
This complex knowledge has only recently been researched to any extent.
Personally I wouldn't have added the carrots after this was going on but it should be okay.

The Fresno peppers I fermented last winter practically stopped bubbling so I figured they were ruined.
I have no idea how long I let these things ferment because I forgot about them.
So I decided to try one and it was very good and I didn't get sick or die.

I am also not very sanitary when I do this, at least not to some peoples standards.
Yes I have a clean sink and clean containers but I dont go over board.
I dont want to wash off the good bacteria that in on the vegetables all I do is put the peppers in a clean sink of water and swish them around a bit.
The cabbage only gets the withered outer leaves taken off and no washing at all and I dont use starters.
I want to keep it as traditional as I can and think about what folks had back then and what they didn't.
I think about how we did it at home growing up.
Rght now I am eyeballing a big sake of limes the other day and thinking about fermenting them.
I cant seem to find any definitive information on it but it has and is done the internet is cluttered with stuff.
I am going to go ahead and do it the way I think they did it for ships in the days of scurvy.
What have I got to lose the stupid things were 99 cents for 15 at the Mexican market.
What I have read is they are to die for and the big treat for kids back in the day.


Worth

[Rajun Gardener]

Did you keep those Fresno peppers refrigerated? It seems most sites say to refrigerate after a few days but others say just cap it off and it will stay good till you open the jar, then refrigerate.

[Worth1]

Nope they just sat out on the counter.
eventually I put them in a blender added a little more salt and never knew where I would find them next.
Lets look back in time a little.
How long have we had refrigerators and how long have they been fermenting.
Olives have been this way for countless ages.
Here I will submit to you three items in the pictuer.
The one on the left is my fermenting sweet potatoes from last winter.
they have been on the counter since then, the middle is the limes I just started the far right is the carrots I started last winter.
The sweet potatoes I forgot about on purpose I just checked them and they are still just a as firm as can be and the most lovely sweet clove smell came out of them you have ever smelled.
Started 12/21/2015
Worth.
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[Cole_Robbie]

The oldest discovered wine-making equipment dates to 6,000 BC, and that's just what we happened to have found. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wine

New evidence suggests that Neanderthals were much more intelligent than previously thought. They used fire and made tools. They could have been fermenting 200,000 years ago.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

The oldest discovered wine-making equipment dates to 6,000 BC, and that's just what we happened to have found. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wine

New evidence suggests that Neanderthals were much more intelligent than previously thought. They used fire and made tools. They could have been fermenting 200,000 years ago.

Here is one for you Cole.
The carrots were in the refrigerator and started last winter too.
I tool them out stirred them up.
The jar had pressure on it.
When I took the lid off they started foaming and I tasted them and there isn't one thing wrong with them.
Look at the foam on these things.
Who in their right mind would eat foaming carrots.
Worth
20160731_172539.jpg

[Rajun Gardener]

Worth, what's that in the sweet potato lid? Are you doing these in jars using airlocks and what salt are you using? I saw you had pickling salt in 1 pic you posted, is that all you use?

Cole, it seems like the more we discover the more we discover we don't know. That was the original Man Cave.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Rajun Gardener

Worth, what's that in the sweet potato lid? Are you doing these in jars using airlocks and what salt are you using? I saw you had pickling salt in 1 pic you posted, is that all you use?

Cole, it seems like the more we discover the more we discover we don't know. That was the original Man Cave.

Yes just pickling salt.
All salt used to be pickling salt they didn't iodize salt until recently Morton in 1924 to supply iodine for thyroid problems because some areas didn't have it naturally.

Worth

[Worth1]

I just tried one of the sweet potatoes.
We will sick if I get sick, not likely.
They were as crunchy as can be sour, salty with a hint of clove.

Worth

[Worth1]

Yet another post for information.
I just tried one of those fermenting habanero peppers seed and all.
There is a LOT going on with these things and I mean a LOT.

Here is a trick I am doing with the jars with just lids on them,
I let off the pressure but as I do it I put my ear up to the lid.
Just before it stops hissing I close the lid.
What this does is push out gas but not let oxygen back in.
No oxygen no mold.

Worth

[Worth1]

One last post.
I decided the sweet potatoes had gone as far as they were going to go.
So I took them out and cleaned them in fresh water and cleaned the jar out.
I then made a solution of 50/50 vinegar to water and added enough sugar to make it real sweet.
9 fresh habanero peppers were cut in half and all of this was put back in the jar with one drop of red food coloring.
The solution was brought to a rolling boil and poured over the potatoes and peppers along with a few fresh cloves.
The jar was filled above the level of the head space rim to where it was halfway between it and the top.
The lid was put on and let to cool.
It took about ten minuets for it to seal.
Why did I do this?
Because if you look at the pickle jars from factory pickles the fill line is much higher and I know they dont hot water bath or pressure cook them.
At the most they will pasteurize them.
What this does is make the air inside the jar less so as the jar cools it has less trouble sealing and causes a tighter seal.
This just dawned on me today as I was looking at my jars and the Best Maid jars.
That fill mark on those ball jars are there for a reason, pressure canning, if you over fill them they will often blow out under the rim as they get hot in the canner.
Worth
These are already in the refrigerator.

20160731_183912.jpg

[Rajun Gardener]

I still can the old way, open kettle canning and I've never had a problem with anything going bad. I also use it for salsa, still no problems. Anything that has vinegar and being boiled when canned will not spoil unless you have bad ingredients. This is from making at least a 1000 cases of jelly, jams, salsa, pickles and chow chow. The water bath thing is SOOOOO overrated. If all those old methods didn't work, we would all be dead.