My first year of fermentation
About 1 year ago I started exploring the world of fermentation. I went to a restaurant in Milan where every dish contains some kind of unusually fermented food and I got very intrigued. Then I wanted to dig deeper into it and I bought a book from Sandor Ellix Katz, The Art of Fermentation. I got even more curious, so I started making all the recipes in the book.
I started ambitiously by trying at least one kind of fermentation every weekend, following the chapters of the book. So I started with lacto-fermentation of seasonal vegetables, it was the end of summer so my first experiments were plums, prickly pears, then radish carrots, and sauerkraut of course. The first trials were quite experimental-ish, following the natural fermentation approach promoted by Sandor made me stay on the wild side, leaving the jars open. I definitely got some mold, but this helped me understand how to deal with that and how to avoid it.
A bunch of fermenting stuff.
Then I tried some beverages like kvass and mead. They fascinated me a lot, in different ways.
Kvass is not just a very nice homemade alternative to industrial sodas but also a cultural icon in many countries of Eastern Europe, an area where fermentation practices have been maintained more widely in daily life compared to the rest of Europe.
Rye bread turning into kvass.
Mead is fascinating because of how easy it is to make. It is based on honey and yeast fermentation. As you may know, honey is not prone to fermentation and the reason is water activity. It has such a high sugar concentration (between 15.5% and 18.6% of water) that microbes are not able to spread in it, while it is enough to increase water percentage by a few digits to make it a perfect environment for alcoholic fermentation. Apparently, bees know what they are doing and keep the right amount of water to keep it stable. The other factor that makes it so easy to make is that raw honey is naturally rich in yeast, because bees, like other insects, do not spread only pollen, but also a wide variety of yeasts. This is why I tried it as one of my first experiments. There are many great recipes over the internet, however, I made it with a few ingredients that I had at home: black tea, mauve flowers and orange juice. The result was good, a sort of young must, quite sweet, with low alcohol. With finer brewing techniques and inoculated yeasts, though it is possible to obtain something more refined, with a higher alcohol percentage, better carbonation, and deeper taste and flavors.
First mead experiment.
Then I started to play around with SCOBYs and they are quite fascinating as well. The acronym stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast and just this was enough to get crazy about them. That means that in a SCOBY you can find different kinds of bacteria and yeasts that are interdependent on the other, one group eats what another group produces. Like in kombucha, where yeasts produce alcohol that is simultaneously transformed into acetic acid by bacteria. What is even more surprising is that these heterogeneous compounds of microbes in some cases create a solid macro structure to remain cohesive. These are solid fermentation starters that become some kind of pets: they need to be taken care of, to be fed periodically or they may die. My experiments (or my SCOBYs) are kombucha, kefir (now I switched to yogurt at least for summer), and sourdough (though is usually my partner the one who does the baking, so all the credits should go to her).
My kombucha, SCOBY and bottled.
Another fun experience I tried was foraging. I first read of fermenting foraged greens in the Noma book and I liked the idea. But I had to be in the right spot at the right time since wild fruits or flowers usually get ready for short periods. Since I live in Milan and I don’t know well the surrounding area I preferred to wait to be in my homeland in Friuli. Finally, in Spring the right combination of factors happened and I managed to be there when Ramson was ready for picking. However I wasn’t aiming at leaves, but at flowers instead. I managed to collect almost a kilogram of it, which may sound easy, but it took me almost 2 hours. The final result was really nice and it was definitely the product that I gave away to friend and family the most since it was original and the taste was also quite interesting.
Lacto-fermented ramson blossoms.
These sum up most of my experiments so far. This post is a sort of recap of the previous episodes and an easy way to start posting. I hope that somebody will be intrigued by the topic and don’t be afraid of getting in touch. I would be very glad to get some feedback on which topics to develop further and how to improve the format.
