Fermenting.

[Karrr_Luda]

Saw my favorite word "fermenting", had to stop by and read!! LOVE your new crock Worth! I know I'll never get one...sigh. Just got some myer lemons fermenting ina jar today, kimchi ready in the fridge, and a head of cabage waiting to become kraut. Cranberries are nice addition to kraut, I also add a little bit of carrot and caraway seeds. Only have one kind of sourdough starter - awful!
My set up is a bunch of jars that fit into each other - kraut tower. I Cover the whole thing with cheese cloth or an old pillowcase to keeping stuff out. I still think I don't know what I am doing, but the result is good ...mmost of the time.

image.jpeg

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Karrr_Luda

Saw my favorite word "fermenting", had to stop by and read!! LOVE your new crock Worth! I know I'll never get one...sigh. Just got some myer lemons fermenting ina jar today, kimchi ready in the fridge, and a head of cabage waiting to become kraut. Cranberries are nice addition to kraut, I also add a little bit of carrot and caraway seeds. Only have one kind of sourdough starter - awful!
My set up is a bunch of jars that fit into each other - kraut tower. I Cover the whole thing with cheese cloth or an old pillowcase to keeping stuff out. I still think I don't know what I am doing, but the result is good ...mmost of the time.

Attachment 54932

Glad to see another sister joining the party.
You stuff looks good.
I have also looked at all of you illustrations some time ago I like them.

Here is some fermenting carrott slaw I just started.
Worth
IMG_20151209_21714.jpg

[Karrr_Luda]

Thanks Worth! Your carrot slaw looks awesome. The one I did in the photo, pretty big jar, tasted great but went bad quickly in the fridge, we got to eat 3/4 the rest went to compost pile. That is sad. Smaller amounts that you can eat within two weeks or so are good for carrot - my experience. Whatever amount you did, looks right. Maybe i didn't have enough liquid covering it in the fridge...don't know what went wrong. Now I need to make carrot slaw too, maybe mix some parsnip with it.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Karrr_Luda

Thanks Worth! Your carrot slaw looks awesome. The one I did in the photo, pretty big jar, tasted great but went bad quickly in the fridge, we got to eat 3/4 the rest went to compost pile. That is sad. Smaller amounts that you can eat within two weeks or so are good for carrot - my experience. Whatever amount you did, looks right. Maybe i didn't have enough liquid covering it in the fridge...don't know what went wrong. Now I need to make carrot slaw too, maybe mix some parsnip with it.

I wonder if the temperature is wrong or something like not being fermented long enough.
People dont do it but it should last even on the counter for a long time.
I made some pickles that smelled like lacquer thinner and tossed them.
Worth

[akgardengirl]

I used a similar tool to pound the cabbage...a turned rolling pin. It worked good with the crock set up on a stool so I didn't have to bend over too far. Almost 3 weeks now so I will try out the taste soon.
Sue

[Worth1]

My mother fermented years and years ago.
I remember the 5 gallon crock was below the phone in the dinning room.
She was always doing something with that crock.
It may have even been a ten gallon crock.

I remember one time we are in Arkansas at a shop and the had a big 100 gallon crock for sale.
It must have been the forst thing she saw when we went in.
This was back in I think 1968 and I remember seeing her eyes glaze over when she saw it.
The huge thing had a price tag of $100 on it.
Back in 68 $100 was a lot of money and we didn't get it for thagt reason and it wouldn't fit in the car.
All she could talk about was that 100 gallon crock.

Last night I had the same feeling as she did I was looking on line some place and found a 40 liter crock for $365.95.
Not gonna get it but it made me think about my mother and that 100 gallon crock.
It made me realize just how much her and I were alike.
If I were to buy any more crock the would be small crocks and have a line of them all bubbling away.
Here is the 40 liter fermenting crock.


Now that I look at the dimensions of the 40 liter crock of 25 high by 18 wide my moms was a 10 gallon crock.
40 liters is about 10 1/2 gallons.
The little 5 liter crocks hold about 1.3 gallons and weight about 12 pounds.
The 40 liter weights 70 pounds.

[Karrr_Luda]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I wonder if the temperature is wrong or something like not being fermented long enough.
People dont do it but it should last even on the counter for a long time.
I made some pickles that smelled like lacquer thinner and tossed them.
Worth

Worth, you are probably right about not being fermented long enough, cause i don't like them too sour, but it never happened to other ferments, only carrots. Perhaps the sugars in the carrots started turning into alcohol.
I found some garlic scapes in my breezeway fermented in the summer-yikes, and they are still awesome.
About laquer thinner sounds familiar, done that the last time I killed my sourdough starter... very very bad.

[Worth1]

I just finished making about 33 pounds of sauerkraut before I was through doing it the stuff was bubbling.
The carrots haven't done anything yet.
Pictures coming soon.

Worth

[Worth1]

Here we go sauerkraut.
I worked with 2 1/2 pounds of cabbage at a time mixing in 1 1/2 tablespoons of canning salt.
squeezing and pounding until I got some good water going in the bowl.
That was then dumped into the crock and tamped some more and pressed to the bottom as good as I could get it.
I kept doing this until I had all of the cabbage in and would you know it I guessed it just right.
33 pounds of cabbage put me right where I needed to be with a 15 liter crock.
I didn't add any water because I had a little over an inch over the weights.
Before I was through the cabbage was starting to foam and work.
The last pictuer shows the water trough filled and the lid on.
I wont open this thing for another two weeks at least.
Worth
IMG_20151210_472.jpg

IMG_20151210_25951.jpg

IMG_20151210_42337.jpg

IMG_20151210_55985.jpg

IMG_20151210_33139.jpg

IMG_20151210_41477.jpg

[Karrr_Luda]

Ooh, 33lbs that's a lot of kraut, will last you till next fall Those pictures look fabulous, the one with the stone and lots of brine is my fave, super nice stones, lots of brine, everything nicely submerged, means job well done!!

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by akgardengirl

I used a similar tool to pound the cabbage...a turned rolling pin. It worked good with the crock set up on a stool so I didn't have to bend over too far. Almost 3 weeks now so I will try out the taste soon.
Sue

Sue I was going to buy a wooden softball bat but I looked on line and almost fell over.
They want over a hundred dollars for a darn ball bat.
So scrap wood it was.

Originally Posted by Karrr_Luda

Ooh, 33lbs that's a lot of kraut, will last you till next fall Those pictures look fabulous, the one with the stone and lots of brine is my fave, super nice stones, lots of brine, everything nicely submerged, means job well done!!

I was worried about having to add water I didn't want to.
Somehow I felt it would dilute the good organisms.
I only wanted to use the water the cabbage had in it so I took my time to let the water come out.

The handles are where you want to stop at and it dawned on me why when I went to put the weights in.
If you over fill you cant get the weights in because you have to go longways first and then flatten them out.

Worth

[Karrr_Luda]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I was worried about having to add water I didn't want to.
Somehow I felt it would dilute the good organisms.
I only wanted to use the water the cabbage had in it so I took my time to let the water come out.

The handles are where you want to stop at and it dawned on me why when I went to put the weights in.
If you over fill you cant get the weights in because you have to go longways first and then flatten them out.

Worth

You are right, cabage juice and water give you very different results. But you have enough liquid, everything covered so no need adding water. It looks beautiful!

My grandmother made this kraut and bean soup with sour cream and she used a different technique to ferment cabage for the soup specifically. She just used salty brine, or sometimes a piece of sourdough bread on top to make it. Fermented it for a week. The result is very different tasting cabage, but perfect for this soup. She removed bread, cooked all of it with the liquid, adding water if too sour, adding beans and cooking some more, then adding sour cream(mixed with the broth from the soup to make it more liquid, possibly adding a spoonfull of flour to the sour cream - not nessessary) stirred, slow boiled for a minute or two. All done, my fave soup from childhood, I make it once in a blue... Called "Habart káposzta leves" in Hungarian.

[Worth1]

Lyuda for some reason I cant quote today.

Thanks for the compliments.
So are you Hungarian?
I am assuming you may be around artists of all types could you not find one that makes and glazes pottery?
It would be a simple task to turn one of these out on a potters wheel bake and glaze it.
But yet a 5 liter one isn't that expensive.
One thing I read on line several times is the smaller quart fermenting contraptions have a higher rate of failure/spoilage.
I suspected this before I read it and is why I got the 15 liter one.

Krockatoa which is what I have decided to name my fermenting crock started burping last night and has continued to burp all day today and is getting faster.
It is burping about every two minutes.
The temperature in my house is right at 70 degrees.
So far the carrots are just sitting there doing nothing.
Never had anything sit around the house and burp before it is pretty cool.

Worth

[sdambr]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Lyuda for some reason I cant quote today.


Krockatoa which is what I have decided to name my fermenting crock started burping last night and has continued to burp all day today and is getting faster.


Worth

Let's hope there are no eruptions!

[Karrr_Luda]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Lyuda for some reason I cant quote today.

Thanks for the compliments.
So are you Hungarian?
I am assuming you may be around artists of all types could you not find one that makes and glazes pottery?
It would be a simple task to turn one of these out on a potters wheel bake and glaze it.
But yet a 5 liter one isn't that expensive.
One thing I read on line several times is the smaller quart fermenting contraptions have a higher rate of failure/spoilage.
I suspected this before I read it and is why I got the 15 liter one.

Krockatoa which is what I have decided to name my fermenting crock started burping last night and has continued to burp all day today and is getting faster.
It is burping about every two minutes.
The temperature in my house is right at 70 degrees.
So far the carrots are just sitting there doing nothing.
Never had anything sit around the house and burp before it is pretty cool.

Worth

Krockatoa!! Worh you are hilarious! Erupt it must now!, but not with this batch of cabbage! I don't remember my carrots bubble ever, taste them to see if they are doing anything really, maybe give them another couple of days?

Not around any pottery artists anymore, and asking people to do stuff for me is not my thing. (got a problem here!) Plus it's not a necessity, more of a luxury for me, since I can do without. I can admire and appreciate someone's beautiful crock without getting worked up about it. Maybe one day when I feel like making myself a present...cause those are the best as you probably know.

I am a mix of things, only part Hungarian from my mom's side. I do speak it.