I have a pretty large crock that I use for fermenting, it was a gift from my father. Actually, it was a hand-me-down from my father, because he bought it and then made a huge smelly mess. He didn’t keep the water barrier filled, so it spoiled, and he put it in the garage without cleaning it, and my mother put her foot down. SO, it came to me!
That means, I don’t have pretty pictures of things in jars, but it does allow me to make enough to send jars to my folks. Tomorrow is three weeks on a ferment of onions and garlic with tumeric. (Edit: And mustard, cumin and dill seeds.) I was planning on letting it go four weeks, but I just snitched a taste, and it’s pretty great already. And bright yellow!
Yep… it smelled up the whole house when he finally did clean it. My mother is the most easy-going person, generally, but she was stern on this. I was visiting when he said he’d give it to me, she said that he needed to clean it first so I didn’t have to drive for 1500 miles with a bad smell. On the plus-side, it did clean up perfectly, though I did buy new stones since those are porous.
Fresh. I used about three pieces the size of my thumb, peeled and cut into matchsticks. I’m thinking they will need to come out before eating, but I’ll see. They might be edible, or else perhaps for a dressing or sauce?
Have people experimented with grilling and eating the scobi like a steak or a big flat mushroom? I’ve found some varied opinions on eating it, not many recipes or reflections on how it tastes cooked.
Come on over and take a taste! I have spicy rounds and garlicky sammich-length slices. And the onions are deelishus, too.
Thumbs way up for the picking spice blend I posted about earlier. It’s got just the right amounts of everything. None of the flavors overwhelm the others, and there’s just a hint of heat from red pepper flakes.
Ohhhh! Ahhhhh! If I ever take the time to construct another mash tun (and I will, dammit), that’ll be part of the process!
Totes magotes. In the past, I filled each bottle with the correct amount of sugar, and while I was fairly accurate on average, the standouts were really standout-ish (no explosions, but plenty of geysers). Batch-priming is the way to fly.
At the end of the video, he mentions that it’s about 9% the way he’s making it. His write-up says 6-7% after adding a bit of extra water.
I’ve only done bread-related fermenting so far but I’ve been meaning to make mead and beer. The makkoli looks extra interesting because mead and beer are both long term commitments. This version looks better though. Or, at the very least, less like it was made in a bachelor pad.
I crawled out of bed early and picked up two head of green cabbage, a fresh container of iodine free salt (which I always have around but more for general using than for fermenting so I didn’t have that much left), about three serrano peppers, and two biggish jars (don’t ask me the size ). I think I have everything else I need already.
Except time and energy. Already pushing it with the laundry, house chores, etc. I need to get done today.
I’m lucky the cabbage I bought was so fresh because it’s taken a week to get the energy to work on this again. I’ve got one cabbage shredded and sitting in the salt I tossed in. Waiting to see if I can fit it all in one quart jar before moving onto the next one.
The specific youtube video I’m working off suggests letting the sauerkraut sit for up to an hour before doing the major massaging so I’m doing laundry, re-re-re-reading Harry Potter, and trying to motivate myself to eat. The only thing I want to eat right now is my celery and, thanks to sauerkraut, I’m fresh out of clean cutting boards.
Less stressful than the way I usually spend my Sundays, somehow. No one ever bothered to tell me how good cabbage smells.
ETA: Because no fair talking about the sauerkraut without providing at least one progress picture.
). I think I have everything else I need already.
