In which I form a monster so hideous that even I turn from him in disgust

[Crumb]

[lisarea]

I made a pretty good batch o' spicy fermented pickles after a couple failures. (One got moldy, one was too squishy and salty.)

Now, I have a big batch o' sauerkraut going, and I just started some giardiniera, which already looks pretty good, but we'll see.

Also, I need more jars, some airlock lids, and more shelves or other storage/working space. Maybe a dedicated fermentation crock, even, for my birthday or something.

And I kind of think I could use a second refrigerator.

[lisarea]

My latest batch of ginger ale got done in less than a day. I went to check it like 18 hours after I'd started it, and it blew up like a school project volcano. It's really good, too. I make sody pop, you guys!

PLUS my sourdoughs have been a bit lifeless lately, so I did a little tweaking and they also got all lively. I got a loaf that looks almost like a bowling ball, it poofed up so good.

Also, the sauerkraut is "ready" as soon as someone drinks enough of the ginger ale to make room in the fridge for it, made a new batch of cultured butter, got pickles figured out so I can now make them reliably, and have a small batch of hot sauce fermenting as of just now.

I'm starting to feel like a witch again. I am friends with the ambient cooties.

[BrotherMan]

Ah HA. I am totally blaming you. I'm assuming I didn't tihnk of it all on my own. Apparently, you somehow hacked me in my in real IRL life. I've been adding a ginger reduction to my store boughted green tea. It's quite delicious.

[Qingdai]

I should look at cultured butter. I keep getting sent whole milk in my farm to table order. We don't drink milk, but we do use a lot of butter.

[lisarea]

You need a lot of fat for butter, so I don't think even whole milk would work. I use heavy whipping-style cream.

You could make yogurt/labneh or an acid-based cheese, though, where you just heat up the milk and add vinegar or lemon juice (plus salt--always plus salt). I have a pretty good ricotta style recipe (technically, ricotta is made from whey, but the whole milk version is really really good), or paneer or some other fresh, farmer style cheese like queso fresco or cream cheese.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

pic.twitter.com/W8a8cj47Cj

— soulPhoodie (@soulphoodie) September 10, 2020

[BrotherMan]

Hey yo. You gonna fry that balogne or is that just for onlyfans.

[lisarea]

A while back, I got mad that the red wine vinegar from the store was all so weak and sad, so I did this, and it is not only a hundred times better than the store bought stuff, but also way cheaper and ridiculously easy to do.

I am not a wine guy, so I just used something basic that I think is drinkable and sort of the flavor profile I wanted, and also that they had at the corner liquor store. I think Yellowtail shiraz or something, about a liter, with a cup of raw apple cider vinegar. I secured some cheesecloth on the bottletop, put it in the cupboard,and waited until it tasted right. And it is the best vinegar I've had in a long time, maybe ever.

I think this one took like a month to get how I wanted it, but we keep the house pretty cold. It'd probably only take a couple weeks or so at normal temperatures.

So I wanted to tell you guys about it. I have been fermenting and culturing lots of things and am pretty happy with most of them, but this might be the quickest and easiest so far, especially for the payoff.

If you use wine vinegars, you should try it.

[JoeP]

Ooh. I should try that.

[lisarea]

I woke up this morning to find Matlock on the floor in front of the dishwasher with a flashlight looking very grim and serious. He said there was a horrible smell inside.

I decided to be brave and smell it myself. I asked him if it was like a sour smell. He said yeah, sour and rotten, like a mouse died in there or something.

So I took out the lid from the fermentation crock and asked him if that was it. He confirmed that it was.

It is kimchi. An especially good batch, I will have you know.

[Sock Puppet]

There's a reason they traditionally bury that stuff outside to ferment. And I say that as a fan of kimchi.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

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[lisarea]

For some reason, Matlock doesn't seem very enthusiastic about the kimchi fermented eggs I started last night.

[lisarea]

I started a ginger bug a week or so ago, but it got kahm yeast, so I had to toss it and I'll start over tomorrow or something and remember to use more sugar. (Kahm yeast isn't dangerous, but it makes things taste funny, and I don't want it in my sody pops.)

I also started a batch o' lacto fermented pickles, but Ari split pickles off into a whole new thing so I guess I can't talk about it here.

Oh, and I am just noticing how old this thread is and I may not have told everyone yet, but Gladys, my sourdough starter, passed away a little over a year ago I think it was. I do have some that I dried and froze, so I might try to revive her that way, but not yet. I made a really good poolish bread the other day that has enough of that sourdough character to tide us over until I am ready.

[Ari]

So I hear this is the thread for creating new probiotic lifeforms!

I finally got around to getting a 1.3 gallon E-Jen Kimchi box and have several jars of pickles already going, so instead of pickles for its first go, I'm reading about making Sauerkraut/Kimchi.

The E-jen is sturdy, I could see ending up with a couple more.

[Ari]

Mmm tasty sour cabbage farts!
Breaking the inner seal fills the apartment with sour stink for a good half hour.

25 days in and I've realized I did make a small mistake, after salting the cabbage I added more liquid but used the 9g to 240g brine mix, which when combined with more salt is rather salty, not inedible, just don't need to add salt to anything I'm using it on. Otherwise it's way too tasty for something that I stick in the cupboard and forget about for weeks on end.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Ari

Mmm tasty sour cabbage farts!
Breaking the inner seal fills the apartment with sour stink for a good half hour.

Breaking the inner seal is the new euphemism for farts. "Jesus, who broke their inner seal?"

[Qingdai]

My grapes were super weird and splitting after a year of climate induced variable weather, I gave some to a friend to make sourdough and apparently it was chuck full of yeast!

I now have a sourdough stater named after me. It's a brief legacy, but i'll take it.

Last year I planted scicillian lacinto Kale and canned 5 lbs of pickled kale, it's still growing. I bet I can get another 5 lbs.

Also I made "wine" from my funky ass grapes, which I'll probably turn into vinegar.