Rotten Rotters, and Blogging Blogger Reading About Rotten Rot

Well, reading and blogging about fermentation anyway. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m slowly getting information pages, more graphics, and some book reviews on that navigation bar above my banner. Right now I’m happiest about the fact that I did my first interview. A tiny little mini-interview, but an interview all the same.

This still being a brand-spanking new hobby blog with only a handful of traffic, I didn’t want to bother him overly much, but my review of The Art of Fermentation includes a snippet from the voice actor Sean Crisden. I became curious about what kind of effect the experience of performing the book had upon him, and he was kind enough to reply. This encourages me, I might start trying to do interviews more often.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the fermentation thing is doing it’s bubbly, tasty, tangy thing. I’ve been playing around and learning quite a bit.

I’ve learned that I don’t like dosas. This is a sad thing for me to say, our diet is lentil and rice based pretty much. I would have liked to have found a new way to prepare them, and it’s very seldom that I say I don’t like something.

I learned that I love fresh cabbages and beets. This was a shock. I thought I disliked them. Turns out that I just don’t like canned beets, or my grandma’s overcooked cabbage (don’t worry, she can’t figure out the internet past Facebook, my secret’s safe here). If I hadn’t been playing around with kraut and kvass, I never would have realized how tasty they are.

I also learned that I don’t just like raw cabbage, I like love lust sauerkraut. I knew I liked it, but naturally fermented… well I’m going to need more things to make it in. What I thought would last a month lasted only a little more than a week. My first batch was in a gallon jar with a smaller jar inside of it holding down a trimmed plastic coffee can lid. Normally I hate plastic. I do what I can to avoid it, but I’m not above reusing it if it’s already in my home. I’ll do anything I can to avoid throwing it away. My hatred has a lot more to do with the environment than health (but I definitely won’t reuse plastics labeled #1).

Which is why I shocked myself when I bought my new toy.

In my defense, as a reusable object it’s built to last and at least isn’t disposable. BPA, lead, and DEHP free, comes in several sizes, and the inner lid keeps your vegges under the brine perfectly. So I caved and bought plastic to ferment in.

 

I mean, look at that. That’s kraut with grated carrots, I just salted and mixed it up, then put it in the box. After a few minutes, I pressed down on the inner lid and the brine came up with no massaging. I closed the airhole on the lid and now it’s in an anaerobic environment that is doing a lot better job of keeping vegges down below the brine than my hand cut lid did.

Now here’s the deal, my jar setup that I had ended up with kraut that was kind of rubbery and squeaky to eat. I massaged it a lot to get the brine out, I’m hoping that with less massaging and this box, and a thinner cut, I’ll end up with a better texture. Personally the taste more than made up for the texture for me, but I know I need to fix that before I try serving it to anyone else, or to get any chance at all of getting it into my son’s belly where I want it.

I’ve heard that pushing the veges under the brine is anaerobic, but a true anaerobic environment will get a better texture. So, I’m giving it a shot. I’m on a limited budget (in fact I had to give up coffee for the month to afford this) and this was a less expensive option than some of the airlock lids. I’ll compare the result of this batch to my jar experience and decide from that if I will invest in more of these boxes or look at other options. No matter what, this was a lot easier to get everything under the brine. Seems easy to reach in and taste as well, and easy to store compared to a jar with an airlock on it, I can stack these.

I’ll see though. If the result isn’t that much better than my jar setup, that won’t justify expense and environmental costs in my eyes. It would have to be something I know I’d be thrilled with my whole life if I’m going to buy another. I won’t regret this one though, I’m happy with it I just don’t know if I want to keep buying more.

In the meantime, my jar is going to make some pretty little beet kvass for me :).

 

I put the beet greens in with my kvass, because this woman did, and she looks like she’s having fun. Possibly way too much fun. Anyway, she seemed to enjoy her results and I didn’t have to figure out what to do with the greens. Also, carrot stars because now my counter is all pretty. It makes me smile when I walk by. That’s ginger on top of the carrots, leftover from ginger ale making below.

I admit, I’m also curious. I’ve seen pics by bloggers with pretty little pickle jars, but not too many of the finished product get posted. I know pickles get cloudy and full of sediment, things change color and the whole jar looks like a vegetable graveyard full of pickle zombies. I kind of want to see what happens to this. I’m envisioning a monochromatic landscape, with lighter stars, looking like a watercolor where they only had a tube of magenta.

In a couple of days I’ll probably run the vegges through the juicer, I’ve been wondering what I’ll do with the pulp. I might throw some marinara in it and call it pasta sauce. I guess I’ll taste it and see.

Speaking of my juicer, it turns out that carrot and apple juice tastes very nice when a ginger bug is added to it. Even my son liked it and he hates carrots (I’m so hoping he’ll like the kvass). That pulp went into pancake batter and it was yummy.

Oh yes, my ginger bug jug has a new toy as well.

Now I can make the adult-only version of ginger ale with more confidence. This jug has some honey in it, but it’s otherwise only ginger with no other flavors. I’ve discovered that if I simmer my ginger root twice when making wort for ginger ale, what’s left is still worth dehydrating and saving with some decrease in spice but still worth powdering to flavor things. Or maybe keeping fresh in the refrigerator and adding to certain meals or soups (or that star kvass next to it).

This is very good news for me, as it means I use less ginger in my ginger ale and I manage to have something left over to cook and bake with, ginger is rather costly to me and I’d like it to last as long as possible.

What do you do with your leftovers? Like here I’m looking at what to do with kvass juicer pulp and spent ginger. I’ve heard of using beets from kvass in soup, but I’d love to hear more suggestions. If you have a recipe that’s suited toward using up all of the vegetable in various stages in any kind of ferment, avoiding waste or maximizing nutrition, do share.