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Hi Adam, as you probably can see below, you've happened to cover a serious polish topic, fermented cucumbers is basically grandmas candy here xd But it also happens for a reason, there is no comparison between bought jar and the traditional one made home for the 100th time from stuff from your own garden. If you'd like to try good ol' "kiszoniak" please dm me, my granny would be more than happy to send you a jar. Do uszłyszenia!
Here in Poland we're doing it all year long. Grandma just weighs down the solid stuff with a tiny plate that fits inside the jar (we've got large jars), then another plate on top to cover the opening and I've never seen a spoiled sour pickle on my life. Oh and we also add whole horseradish root and mustard seeds to them, sometimes a tiny bit of chilli. These spices really elevate the taste, especially horseradish (a thumb size or two for like a pound of cucumbers is enough)
It's important to mention Poland uses a different dill. Not a fresh, tiny plant. We use a fully matured dried dill stem along with the seed head. A day old pickle is the best. Fully fermented ones are best for soup, or on a bread with lard. This is the way.
@@monikadraws this exactly about the dill, it basically tastes a little bit more like fennel seeds or even anise if you let the dill to bloom and use the entire flower/seed heads.
I'm polish - the "half-sours" (małosolne), and lactofermented cucumber pickles (kiszone) are a normal, everyday thing for us. My parents have always a pot of "kiszone ogórki" fermenting in the kitchen. And on Christmas we make a soup from lactofermented red beets. Sauerkraut is also very common, as it is in Germany.
Baltic neighbour here, lactofermented is such a mouthful in english compared to my native tongue haha, they're really common here too. I always preferred pickled pickles though. Not sure about the half sours... I don't think we have a special name for it, think we just say freshly/lightly lactofermented pickle?
@@djVania08 yup, you should be able to buy them at Biedronka or any other store for that matter. They can also come in plastic bags instead of jars and if you go to a local market you can sometimes buy them straight from a big barrel.
You just solved an old childhood mystery for me! My family comes from Eastern Europe, mostly Belarus and Russia. I remember we would always have pickles as a side for lunch and dinner that my mom and babushka would make. In Russian, we called them "low salt" or малосольные pickles. After my family moved to Canada and tried local pickles, I noticed that the local American variety tasted quite different. Our low salt ones were not as vinegary and tasted kinda fizzy, and I always wondered why that was. When you said that not having enough salt to kill all the bacteria causes lactofermentation, that's when the last piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place.
Yeah, the fizzy part means the carbonation is still present, if you ferment fully and store fermented veg for around a week the carbonation will usually go flat and it'll also be about as sour as it will get. Kind of like how beer is carbonated but wine is not. I usually press out the carbonation when I ferment as it creates gas pockets that dry and discolor the veg.
The only difference between low-salt ones and "normal" eastern-european pickles is fermentation time, in both cases you are using around 3% of salt, but in case of low-salt you stop the fermenatation after just few days, thats why they are fizzy and less salty. If you keep them longer and wait for bacteria to naturally finish fermentation, you will end up with saltier and more sour product but that pickles can be canned/pasterized and keep safely stored for months or even years (we still have few jars from 2020 season in our cellar and those are fine). Also at least here in Poland in traditional recepies we do not use any vinegar, we rely solely on lactic acid.
@@-TheBugLord I desperately want to try a fizzy pickle lmao that sounds so good and satisfying idk why, maybe it's because I love dill pickles but also Kefir so the idea of fizzy sour things entices me
In Poland (and other Eastern/Central European countries) we have ogórki małosolne which is virtually the same thing as half-sour pickles, it translates to low-salt cucumbers though. Super fresh and yummy stuff, the taste of spring and summer!
Exactly! Sometimes people take them out after two or three days and eat them. Even when I do a fully finished version, it takes me a week to one and a half (when it is warm in summer) and Adam has to wait for weeks? Maybe for winter, but when it is warm it goes very quickly.
As several people mentioned below 'half sours' are pretty popular in Poland. They used to be avaiable seasonally, i think now you can get them all year. They used to be sold straight from a barrel. All piekles are common sidedishes to vodka and are pretty omnipresent.
@@Chris-ut6eq I don't. I like the taste. But it's popular and I think it was even compulsory in bars during communism times (you couldnt order just vodka, so people ordered the cheapest sidedish there was, which was a pickled cucumber)
@@Chris-ut6eq a pickle with a drink keeps ya hydrated and has electrolytes. It was a staple of my liquor days, I'd either do a few shots and munch a pickle and keep some water nearby for legit hydration or I'd do a pickle back chaser with the brine. Usually allows for a heavy night of drinking with minimal hangover effects, tastes good too. Granted it's not a cure all, but does work quite well when done in the right amounts. Water intake plays a bigger part I'd say, but the salts do also help you retain water.
Another info to add to the Polish love for fermented cucumbers: the brine is drinkable! It is super tasty, it is a natural isotonic, it is packed with great stuff (vitamin C, and all these great lacto bacteria that is good for your gut), and it is one of the best things to drink when you are hungover.
I'm Indian, and pickles (Achaar) are a staple with almost every meal. There's too many types, ones in vinegar & brine, some that are spicy in a chilli paste base, oily varieties, sweet sour spicy jams... and there's tons of varieties, lemon, mango, tamrind, carrots, cucumber, chilli, garlic, raddish, beets, all seasoned and spiced for a very flavorful condiment to have with rice & a side dish. :) I recommend trying them if you run into them in the international aisle.
Hey Adam, could you do some research about kefir and kombucha? They supposedly have a lot of lactic acid too - and kefir’s lacto-bacillum is said to withstand gastric digestion to colonize the gut. I’ve been trying both out of curiosity and I’d love to hear your take on those.
A video on that would be interesting too, being that I'm getting tested due to their trace alcohol contents. I have noticed my gut health has gone downhill in the last year since I had to quit.
@Vladimir Novitski We have a lot of kefir in the Midwest Vladmir. The Smolyansky family (From Soviet Kyiv) researched for years and started their company in 1986. I get it just about everywhere from big box Walmart to the local stores and gas stations. Just as good as I've had in Europe. Lots of Polish here as well, a good thin savory pierogi can be found on tables all around during the Christmas holidays and polish delis year 'round, darned close to my cousin's pelmeni.
@Vladimir Novitski I've never in my life seen a baked pierogi, does sound interesting and probably delicious though. All are boiled , most are pan fried in butter to finish. The dough is usually thicker but some, like my cousin's , are thinner. Not taking your comment too seriously, just pointing out America for the most part has a lot of cuisine from Eastern Europe as our population is heavily from there. Despite what you hear and see on TV.
@Vladimir Novitski When all of this crap is over I'd love to come and spend a few weeks with you as my guide! Your food and culture would be amazing to me. We have a great many festivals celebrating cultures from all over the world, takes a bit of driving but most weekends there is one or two in the summer months (Pierogi Fest in late July is a must!). Definitely not as historical for a lot of it, but very enjoyable and great people to meet and learn from. Thanks very much Vladmir, I appreciate the exchange.
@Vladimir Novitski I used to travel a few times a year for my employer, was lucky to have started in the 70's before the widespread turmoil in the Middle East. S America in the 80's. Many Asian countries in the 90's and 2000's that were former adversaries to the US. I'd always try to find a local worker that enjoyed and was proud of their heritage to spend time with during downtimes. Did the same for them if they came to the States. I really enjoyed learning about the cultures through them and the foods they enjoyed. Never did the touristy things if I could avoid it, exception of the natural and historic sites they were proud of. Everyone at that time was always respectful of the differences we all had and just enjoyed being people and sharing. I'm from the Great Lakes region of North America, the people I've hosted and I always enjoyed the visits. The ones from the Middle East and Asia got to experience the good parts of multicultural America, something not found in their home regions. I don't do any social media Vladmir, so I guess we'll have to leave it at that. Hope the best to you and your family.
In Poland where pickles and saurkraut are absolutely essential foods, we simply have different words for pickled with vinegar (kwaszone) vs pickled by fermentation (kiszone).
That is not true. "Kwaszone" is the same thing as "kiszone" and "kwaszone" used to be the OG term for lactofermented food ( it is still used in some parts of Poland and it is also a stanard term in food industry). Pickles made using vinegar are usually referred to as "marynowane" or "konserwowe".
Lacto fermentation was my new quarantine hobby in 2020! Here's my vote for you taking a deeper dive. Also, consider "dilly beans" which is basically using a dill pickle recipe, but using green beans instead of cucumbers. They fit in a jar much better.
Damn. I missed out on this whole quarantine hobby thing, for I was busy writing my PhD thesis. Now I have a kind of FOMO, for if there won't be another pandemic in my lifetime, I won't get the chance having a quarantine hobby... I know a guy who used quarantine to learn all he could about quantum mechanics. All I did was becoming unnervingly nerdy about coffee. (Greetings to Mr. James Hoffmann.)
Given her pronunciation of Sauerkraut and some Rs I'd have said she's German - but then what does it matter. Her English is certainly better than mine 😀
I'm from Poland and currently live in Germany. It's really surprising to hear that people often don't know that fermentation of pickles and other vegetables is a thing at all. Even German sauerkraut is more often pickled (in some sort of vinegar-sugery water mixture) than fermented, which is an absolute crime against your taste buds.
When I studied in eastern Germany, my local Edeka even barrels of various fermented foods from which you could portion yourself. You might want to look for something like this :)
what I always found funny is that odd pickle craving every Polish person I know experienced at some point in their lives. No matter whether they like pickles or not, there's always that one time a Pole needs that sour lactic fix. And there's actually some logic to that. My gradma always told me it's the sign of your guts needing some microbiota refreshment. I usually get that craving about three times a year and polish shops are actually well-equipped for that, cause a bottled pickle/sourkraut juice is an actual refrigerated drink you can buy here. And oh boy, when your body needs it, absolutely nothing is more refreshing.
Its also that the bacteria are partially digesting the veg in a way your gut doesn't normally do. This converts some nutrients which could be the cause of said craving. Vitamin C from fermented veg is a real thing and cooking that VC destroys it, so there are a few ways we are losing out on nutrients.
In my family (Polish family) we do canned lacto-fermented cucumbers. We sterilize jars, push cucumbers in with horseradish, mustardseeds, garlic and sometimes oak or grape leaves and other stuff, then we fill jars with ~60C 2,5% brine. It kills surface bacteria and softens cucumbers. We store them in basement for at least 2 months before eating. They're good for couple of years. We also make semifermented cucumbers - half fermented as you said - in open clay pot(only in season though). They're done after around 2 days. Salty, fresh, crunchy and delicious. Oooh... We drink leftover "juice" from the jars as well. Legends say it's a life saver when it comes to hangovers ;)
I’m Korean and grew up eating Kimchi, but have also heard it increases risk of stomach cancer. Would love to see a video on this superfood or carcinogen!
Kimchi could be salty, so the saltness might be the leading cause of stomach cancer? The same thing is said about Japanese cuisine, which tends to be salty.
Higher risk of gastric cancer in certain east Asian populations has to do with underlying genetic factors. This video lays it out nice and succinctly: th-cam.com/video/xy--51Jw6T8/w-d-xo.html
I took a "food facts and fads" class at PSU. What I learned there is how many "traditional foods" came about as a practical means of keeping food from spoiling as long as possible after harvest.
@@jujutrini8412 well to an extent, most mass production food facilities don't exactly credit the ancient methods they've refined with technology. Not to mention, them keeping the lid on the fact you can do it at home doesn't inspire their target customers to do so. Makes their pre-made product seem appealing due to convenience.
@@100GTAGUY I am probably older than you and have older parents and therefore knew my grandparents who were alive long before all this processed food came on the market. Also not from American culture so I probably look at food in a different way to you guys. I grew up around canning, pickling, smoking, and even more food preservation methods so when I see something in the supermarket I know how easy/hard it is to do x,y,z and make my purchasing choice accordingly. Sometimes I go for the time saving purchase but sometimes I go for the cheap homemade do it yourself method. I hadn’t grasped how different the mindset of young people in countries like America is.
I've been seeing SO much recent research about fermented foods and the gut microbiome recently, and I've been really wondering what it would take to do this, since store-bought fermented foods tend to be premium products and (as she mentioned) the quantities for daily consumption are formidable. This video is super useful, informative and timely.
Look into sador katz videos and books, he really explains much of it very well. His dill pickle recipe is fantastic and perfect in flavour and textures.
@@Apricotblossom5555 Seconding this suggestion. My wife has The Art of Fermentation and it has transformed our diets. It's incredibly easy, prevents a ton of food waste, and it's just good for you.
The biggest thing is getting over the initial hurdle of taking that first bite. I think the best thing to remember is that there are only about 6 serious cases of food borne illness per year from fermentation in the US, and a vast majority are people improperly fermenting fish in Alaska. As long as it's at least 2.5% salt and submerged you'll be fine. I started making my own pickles a couple months ago and I've loved it. I'm actually working on getting a Chinese pickle going, that's super fun to look into.
These are my favorite pickles!!! My wife's dad ferment them in a glass jars. Plastic jar cap allows exessive CO2 and water escape. After ~2 weeks they are ready. And you can store them 1 year safely. After a year they tends to change taste.
If you are going to do this I recommend not only the weights but a jar airlock. They are dummy simple to use and rather cheap allowing you to tightly close your jar as they prevent an airtight seal. With those two things and a glass jar and this is as easy as getting the right ratio. Just make sure your brine goes over the weights as well.
Thank you Dr Carla Schwan for sharing your knowledge. I have gotten into pickling but never really had the confidence. The added vinegar is new to me. Great useful video Adam.
I'm studying cellular biology / microbiology right now. It is really interesting to hear about stories where it is all those little guys, the bacteria that I have gotten to know in this course, where they play the lead role! That graph really felt familiar and that is a good sign since often study material seems so abstract or pointless but nope - We of course have the good bacteria to thank for all our delicious pickles! Yum yum
Hello! Great episode! Again here from Poland (I have seen some other comments below - cześć!). We (as Polish people but also all nations east of France I suppose) do not necessarily pickle our food in vinegar. We let them ferment on their own. I recently started that myself after eating delicious cucumbers and cabbage from my grandma and parents. There is a process (sterilize your jars in boiling water) and when all is right (old-timers have it into art) it is magnificent! Picked vegetables always taste like...well vinegar! Fermented stuff is a completely different taste! Fermented cucumbers are a staple with fish! Sour cabbage we add to pierogi's, and we make bigos (a cabbage and meat and wine ragout with smoked meats and plums). I suppose with some food you need to grow up with. But for half of Europe fermented vegetables, are as wild and crazy as hot dogs for Americans! I dare you to try it! :)
@@mellie4174 Ingredients: 2 kg of small ground cucumbers 2 small heads of garlic a large bunch of dill with canopies a piece of horseradish root and leaves - 10 cm 2 liters of boiling water 4 flat tablespoons of rock salt you can also give: horseradish leaves, green oak leaves and leaves of blackcurrant, vine or cherry You can safely fit two kilograms of small ground cucumbers in four liter jars. Of course, if you plan to pickle more cucumbers, you can double or triple the amount of all ingredients. The cucumbers should be fresh. The ideal will be those that have not yet fallen off the flowers from the tips. Both ends should be firm and the cucumbers firm and without discoloration or damage. Avoid overgrown cucumbers that are large. These wider cucumbers already have large seeds and will be empty inside and soft after pickling, so we avoid them. Cucumbers, two smaller or medium heads of garlic, a piece of horseradish root, a large bunch of dill with flower umbels and rock salt are the basis for preparing pickled cucumbers. It is worth noting that silage also pretends to be using iodized salt. However, it is rock salt that has the most valuable minerals and trace elements. Tip: To make cucumbers for the winter tough and firm, add horseradish root to the jars. You can also additionally add horseradish leaves, green oak leaves and leaves of blackcurrant, vine or cherry. The recipe comes from here (aniagotuje.pl/przepis/ogorki-kiszone) and just translated part of it. Good luck and enjoy! Here is a difference between ground cucumbers and greenhouse ones (www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-cucumbers/)
Adam, I've been making my own yogurt since the start of the pandemic. I would love to see you tackle the intricacies of yogurt making. I prefer less sour, and I have been working to perfect the timing of the cook for that.
I'm not Adam, but I've been making yogurt for the past 15 years; I just bring the milk to just-under it's boiling point, let it cool until it won't kill bacteria, then throw in a few spoons of old yogurt and leave it in a warm oven until it solidifies.
Have you tried different species? Personally I like Amasi/Amasai/Maas (these are all the same yoghurt). Is also a yoghurt that can be made on room temperature (how convenient!)
I did lacto-fermented cucumbers this year. In my country Poland it's a culinary tradition of making sour pickles. We have something called pickle season in early July, when literally nothing is happening, even in politics, beacuse everybody is busy making pickles. And the recipe that I used goes something like this. For 1kg of ground cucumbers, use 5l of boiled water and salt it with 3 full soup spoons of salt and let it cool down. Keep cucumbers in cold water for an hour so they will keep their crisp while fermenting. Then I put cucumbers in big jars together with 2-3 large cloves of garlic (maybe more if smaller), few slices of horseradish root and dill flowers. Try to left as few free spaces between cucumbers as possible, favorably fill them with dill leaves. Pour salted water in, and tightly screw the lid on. Keep it in a shaded place in room temperature for a few days until you see the fermentation process starting, then move the jars to the cooler place (like a basement).
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 Correct! And often media try to fill the summer void with low-quality info and therefore the expression "pickle season" (sezon ogórkowy) is usually used to describe an extensive media coverage of really not that interesting topic.
Bulgarian here the go to ratio my grandma told me and I've found in very very old cook books is 30-40g salt per liter of water , this is for cabbage and cucumbers but I'm pretty sure it will work on everything , 30 to 40 based on how salty you want the end product , did a couple of batches of cucumbers for the first time and they were great , really hard to find fermented stuff in the store so it was some nice nostalgia tasting these again.
I have been making my own kimchi and other Korean pickles for decades, but for several years the hobby fell by the wayside. Then during the pandemic I developed pre diabetes And I resumed making almost all my own meals! Making fermented pickles and other time intensive recipes. And they do change how your body works. I can proudly say I now no longer need drugs to balance my blood sugar, and while other dietary changes and exercise have helped, I have no doubt the home made pickling without Vinegar has been transformative.
Japanese pickle presses have a spring loaded "piston" than is a tad smaller than its container. After the veg is placed in said container, the lid is clamped down and a knob on the top of the lid allows the "piston" to be extended further down. The "piston" is attached to the end of the shaft with a ball joint, allowing the bottom of the "piston" to accommodate some unevenness of the veg. The lids are vented to allow bubbledge to escape. ✌😁
If I may suggest try to find a barrel for fermenting cabbage. In Poland we have special ceramic barrels with rim, that you pour water into and then cover with the special lid, that is submerged in that water. It creates a air-tight seal and you don't need to worry about air getting into, since CO2 will push out oxygen (kinda like those things for making wine that stick out of cork but much bigger :D). Also when making sauerkraut (kiszona kapusta, to not give all credit to our German neighbors ;)) my family usually adds the cabbage with dill in layers, stepping on each layer in that barrel to squeeze out most of the water from the cabbage, that water is then discarded. Also cabbage should be shredded rather finely. And after few week sauerkraut is ready, now we don't even bother to transfer it into jars or anything, just top up water in that barrels rim, to not let oxygen in and it lasts whole year easily. As for pickled cucumbers, we have special jars for fermenting them too, the ones with a sprint on top and rubber gasket that goes between the top and jar proper. Basically foolproof, just stick all ingredients in, cover with enough water and add enough salt, close the lid and in few weeks pickles are ready. And yeah, as someone said, smaller ones tastes best and everyone eats them first :D. There's very popular soup in Poland made from pickled cucumbers, zupa ogórkowa, very good and apparently healthy. There's also soup made from juices from boiling sauerkraut, called kwaśnica, very popular where I'm from.
Still, most people in Poland don't bother with special jars. You can use anything - from any glass or ceramic jar or even plastic basket and just weight everything with something pressing down a plate to preparing them in plastic bottles (it helps to use the tiny cucumbers for pickling for that).
There are plastic lids for fermentation, that keep air out and let the CO2 escape. I watch a youtube channel Steffi kocht ein (this is German, Steffi is canning), and I think they offer also subtitles. The channel quickly became very popular. They also have a company (since the early 2000s), which means they can order special glasses or lids from the industry - they just have to order a few hundredthousand. - Anyway: the fermentation lid works for any regular large (or at least medium sized) glass with a wide openening. This is more practical than having a barrel standing around. The large glasses can be used year round (for storage, vinegar making, etc.) There is no barrel or special ceramic pot standing around.
@@Ellestra the large clay pot with the water rim is traditional in Austria and Germany. They are still sold a big one is around 70 Euro, so it must be an important feature. To be sure - glasses with metall lids were not available back in the day. if the sour liquid has contact with a metall lid the later will rust, so that would be my objection. If handled carefully (not moved around) the rust (and whatever corrodes from the metall) should not get into the food, and the lids can be replaced for the next fermentation. (the shop I mentioned sells lids for replacement and they can be combined with glasses from industrially canned food, there are certain common sizes and types. But I think they only deliver with in the EU, and maybe not even into all the member states. They supply to households as well as small business. It is also likely that in the past the lids would have been too expensive to be thrown away, even when such things could be produced. It likely was cheaper (on the long rung) and easier to produce the clay pots with the rim. The other option was the barrel made from wood and weights to submerge fermented food - mostly sauerkraut.
@@franziskani Standard glass jars with metal lids work fine for fermentation. In fact that how sour cucumbers and even sauerkraut are usually sold. And that what you would use at home if you were preparing them for long term storage (you can pressure seal them - just like vinegar based ones). But it is not advisable to use metal containers.
That's how my wife makes her insanely good kraut. Cabbage + salt + a little vinegar (1 TBsp per head) + garlic (2 cloves per head) + time (6 weeks) Mix together and dump it all into a big earthenware crock, then cover with just enough filtered water to cover the mixture. Weigh it all down with a sanitized stoneware plate that's about the same size as the crock opening, and put a clean heavy stone on the plate. Once a week skim whatever excess liquid and gunk that forms. After 6 weeks you have kraut, skim one last time then remove the kraut from the crock and place in jars and refrigerate or pickle, whichever you prefer.
Also, 120 grams or kimchi seems a lot, but 120 grams of sauerkraut is very doable. In poland we often eat way more at once, as a side dish during dinner. If you spice it properly it can be just as interesting of a flavour as kimchi. My favourite thing is probably cumin seeds, but not everyone likes them.
Do you eat it warm or cold, also please share some of your spice recipes. I love sauerkraut but my husband doesn't like it as much and I'd like to make it so that he falls in love with it like i have
I like to use a weight to hold the pickles below the brine, and use an airlock to let gas out while keeping any outside air from getting into the ferment. That combo has always worked great for me, for pickled cucumbers, saurkraut, and kimchi.
In Poland lactobacteria fermentation is present in every cellar, kitchen and on every table, ogórki kiszone (lactopickled cucumbers) kapusta kiszona (lactopickled cabbage), tomatoes, beetroots, cucurbits and every possible freshly picked berry vegetables. Good breded cutlet with mash and pickled cucumber still is very common option for dinner.
In Romania we don't pickle anything with fresh dill, instead we use the seeding flower heads of the dill plant, in dry form, they sell them at the stores and in the markets but some grow their own, I would definitely recommend it to anyone that wants to pickle some stuff this year, it's a much nicer flavor profile than from the green leaves, but you could also do both.
I love these science videos, Adam! I love watching your videos because I get to bridge my knowledge of biology and chemistry with the kitchen and not feel like I'm slacking off on my schoolwork. I enjoy the interviews and am impressed by the work you put into these educational videos.
I *LITERALLY* just finished fermenting those same dill pickles from that recipe! I'm going to taste them and hopefully can some of them this weekend. What a weird coincidence. I love how, after about 2 or 3 days, you start to see the cloudiness of the LAB starting to spread, it makes you feel so glad to see it.
dude, there is ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER channel like yours. The infos you bring us, demystifiying tons over tons of cooking myths is unbelievable, not even counting the flawless presentation of every single video you make. This is the best channel about food to ever exist, and I thank you tremendously for that!
Ukraine is here 🇺🇦 as well as Polish people, we do this salt veggies starting from October. It’s really delicious and healthy, in addition it’s quite tasty. 👌🏻
I've started using a thin layer of oil on top of my pickles around the weight to prevent the mold; it creates a nice anaerobic environment but also lets air through (you still need weights unless it's a thick oil layer)
Been fermenting my own stuff for many years, the biggest thing is definitely the container as that greatly determines how safe it is and the kind of steps you might have to take to keep things safe. Some things to note is that Kimchi is often eaten during the fermentation process, with the leftover batch going full sour and long-term stored. The fizz is a key sign that the kimchi hasn't gone full sour. Maybe I'm just not accustom to it? I always full sour my ferments, maybe there's more "gut flora" when eaten partially active. From my own tastes and that of most others I've shared some with we end up preferring the more sour.
A really great way to lactoferment, I find, is vacuum sealing. I learned how to lactoferment from the Noma Guide to Fermentation and I really recommend fermenting stone fruit like nectarines or plums. Absolutely phenomenal.
Proper Dill pickles are; cucumber, Dill flower (not that herby part, a fragrant, rooty Dill flower and stem), horseradish root, garlic and optionaly very game changing, some leaves, fresh oak, red Berry leaf.. Amazing stuff. What a difference this combo makes.
You could also test pickling with leaven. It's a thing in Hungarian (+probably neighbouring) cuisine. You basically put the pickles in a jar (cut off both ends and in perpendicular from both ends just not cutting it in 4) with some garlic, dill on top & bottom, true leavened bread, (just a slice is enough for starter,) water mixed roughly 1 spoon of salt per liter to fill it up, including the slice. Then put it traditionally in the sun, or anywhere warm for 2-3 days. Don't forget to refill the water. It should have a strong taste, almost reminiscent of carbonic acid in strength and not be soft.
Well, this was timely. I'm about to have a hot pepper harvest and was looking into lacto-fermentation for hot sauce. Since I'm not generally a fan of any fermented foods, I'm understandably anxious. This was really awesome and helpful, going over some of my concerns quite nicely and helping direct my purchases for fermenting lids/weights. Thanks. :)
@@nsbioy Pretty much. :) Most cheeses I like and non-Greek yogurts, so the dairy ferments are generally tasty. Bread can be sketchy for me and I react poorly to all alcohol (flush reaction). And I just don't dig the taste of most anything pickled. Was hoping I'd grow out of it as I got older. Pickles would be a cheap and healthy snack, lol.
My grandma fermented cabbage in a special barrel, which helped with speedy fermentation. It was never washed, only scrubbed between uses. It was able to store cabbage for whole winter and spring at room temperature.
Something I do that wasn't mentioned here is that I always have sauerkraut fermenting because, in my now 7 years of making it, had only one batch go bad...ever. This makes my success rate with it well above 99%. Other veggies are a bit trickier than cabbage...especially carrots (probably because of their higher sugar content). So...what I do is use a bit of good sauerkraut liquid as an additive to basically all of my other lactoferments, which both seems to kickstart them, and improve their success rate. Carrots are really the toughest of all...I have probably a 5% failure rate on carrot ferments, though the most common issue is just wild yeast that creates a bitter floral flavor that really doesn't mesh well with the pickle acid flavor. The rub here is that fermented shredded carrot makes for one of the finest relishes you can ever add to rice-based dishes.
Thank you for this. It's a decent introduction, much better than what I had to start, except for Sandor Katz's book. My best tip: low pH paper. If the pH drops, you know it's proper. It eliminates guessing. There is no other indicator for a good pickle, except for a watchful eye and your recipe.
Hey Adam! You probably hear this a lot, but you really helped me be less scared and overwhelmed about getting in the kitchen. You were the one to help me understand some of the absolute most basic things, and a lot of more advanced things too. Cooking is fun for me, and I wouldn’t have found that out if it wasn’t for you. Thanks Adam
In Hungary we actually put bread on top of the dill pickles. Salty water, dill, pack in the cucumbers (it helps if you make a cut in them lengthwise, but don't fully cut them in half), and then a slice of bread. A plate on top to seal it from air but let the CO2 out. Of course, you can add other things like garlic or spices.
Cabbage is in season now at least here in Finland. I just set my first ever batch of sour cabbage fermenting just under a week ago. Great timing, now in mid-autumn there is still time to prepare home food stores for winter.
One ingredient my dad and I use for our pickles is oak leaves rather than tea or lime, but if you don't have any of those if I'm not mistaken you can just increase the bay leaves and mustards a bit to get them a bit crispier.
Adam, you are amazing. Thank you for upping my kitchen game, and allowing me to try so many new things I probably would've never tried making... nor eating in the case of pickles.
I've copied my grandma's recipe and it made some amazing pickles. They are just done in a jar. I still cleaned and then sterilized everything by heating in an oven, because if you're gonna go through the effort to make them then you want the fewest casualties possible, haha. Screw the lid down but not too tight. Then it acts as a half-arsed one-way valve for CO2 (and you definitely smell it). Also now that I think of it, we put the dill at the bottom and then jammed enough cucumbers to bind everything in place so it doesn't float. The "recipe" part is the horse radish plant's leaf. Gives it a little zing and I think does the same thing as the tea leaves.
I don't think my grandmother weighs her lactofermented dish salt either and they usually turn out fine. Though she's the first one to not let you use a jar if it isn't perfect in taste or smell xd
Tea leaves, yeah... I've done some experiments with different tannin sources and black tea didn't really end up working all that great. Maybe there's just too little tannin in there. By the way, I used way more than you did. What worked great for me was creating an infusion from oak leaves. Two medium sized leaves per one pickling jar (roughly 1 litre or 1 quart) were enough to keep the cucumbers crunchy for a year. Measure out the water you need (plus maybe a bit extra to compensate for evaporation), add the leaves and boil for 15 minutes. The infusion is pink, but the colour goes away in the jar after a while. As for salt content - no, 5% isn't "inedibly salty", really, though this is of course a bit subjective. Plus, the elevated salt content is another factor slowing down the pectin breakdown process. Commercial dill pickles are way saltier. I don't know for sure, but I guesstimate an 8% brine. This is indeed too salty for me though. Also, a few people mentioned the half sour gherkins, which would literally translate from Polish as "low salt gherkins". This "low salt" thing is most probably there in the name because this is the pickle variety that uses a brine with a lower salt concentration - the 2-2.5% you indicate as safe and tasty. Fun fact for ya. Enzymes don't break down chlorophyll - this is inaccurate. Acid reacts with chlorophyll, replacing its magnesium atom with hydrogen and thus creating phaeophytin, which gives the olive green colour.
I'm literally in my lab, glove on, in front of a clean bench hand deep in Lactobacillus acetotolerans and still clicking on this video thinking "yeah, I might need to know that".
Lactofermented red cabbage is my favourite, so easy no extra ingredients, except the salt & brine to cover (little water comes out) a week in a jar in the cupboard &it's edible, longer to taste if you want it sourer, looks great unlike green that goes a bit yellowy and sad looking
Great video! would love to learn more about meat lacto-fermentation. One of my favorites is a Thai pork sausage called Naem! (which is often consumed raw as well as cooked)
thanks for the vinegar tip. i have no trouble making sauerkraut or lacto fermented eggplants or turnips. other veggies i find much more challenging, and perhaps changing salt ratio could help. sauerkraut without caraway seeds, lacks certain flavours. a nice soup of european origin is zurek, with lacto-fermented rye flour, potatoes and pork sausage, and garlic. it's a strongly tasting and smelling fermented dish...but still very tasty. fermenting weights are very expensive, but much better than alternatives. i use silicone jar seals for the fermentation stage, which act as one way valves and much easier than those valve things.
Fridge pickles, though, are not fermented (since refrigeration more or less stops fermentation). Fridge pickles are normally the vinegar type of pickling he describes, not fermentation.
You have to be careful with peppercorns and other seasonings, because that can float to the top and grow mold, even if the larger vegetables are weighed down.
Thank you, Adam. I've been fermenting for a year, and I really needed that lecture. People have started asking me questions that I should be able to answer. Now I can.
Thanks Adam for reminding me how to calculate a proper brine ratio for lacto-fermentation. Unfortunately, I've started all of my hot sauce ferments last night and used volume (5%) instead of weight... Let's hope for the best!
i usually go with a 4.5 - 5% brine, no problems so far, just make sure your ferment doesn't have any exposed solids on the top, keep everything submerged
Anyone really interested in ferments like that should pick up the noma's guide to fermentation. An excellent book that covers many ferments like lactic acid fermentations and the many creative applications of your fermentation projects.
I've been making sauerkraut for more than 20 years. My recipe is a half tablespoon of salt per pound of shredded cabbage. I use Fido wire bale canning jars and glass weights. The Fido jars are great because they automatically vent any pressure. The springiness of the wire bale mechanism makes the lid act like a check valve, allowing the CO2 to vent while preventing air from entering the jar. As the kraut ferments, the CO2 purges any air (oxygen) from the jar, and the resulting unopened jars have a long shelf life.
A big stick of horseradish is great flavor for dill pickles. Also, it's traditional to use a tannic grape leaf, or an oak leaf to keep the pickles crisp.
As an aside, bread made with aged dough (naturally fermented in the fridge for a few days) lasts up to 2 weeks in the fridge because of its acidity. Absolutely yummy, too.
Having two 10 liter containers, one with cucumbers and one with carrots, cauliflower and cabbage. It is awesome. We typically do 40g salt per liter of water.
i did a vacuum fermentation i saw on the chilly chump chanell this year. i used peppers me and a friend of mine grew, added some garlick to it, and 2% salt by weight. vacuum sealed it and left in in the cupboard for a couple of weeks. you could see the bag inflate when co2 was produced and after 3-4 weeks when i opened it it smelled simmilar to tabasco, so using your nose is a crucial part in figuring out weather it's a good ferment or not. i added some thime and distilled vinegar to dilute the sauce, and off to the fridge it went. it has a nice tabasco like flavor with more spiciness since we had some very spicy chillys. it's not that complicated of a process, it's more of a wash what you're going to ferment, add salt, seal, and wait
In Vietnam we also have lacto-fermented food, it's basically sauerkraut, but instead of the normal cabbage, we use choy sum. Choy sum is like, the bitter cabbage if you will. Taste like wasabi if you only let it fermented for a few days.
Part of my family is from a town famous for its lacto-fermented pickles, so we always make plenty during summer and eat them the rest of the year. We usually use simple jars, and instead of weighing them down we just fill them to the brim andd place a couple crushed aspirin pills on top, seems to help with fungus trying to grow on top
Wow, I thought I eat a lot of kimchi but 120g daily is still beyond my reach :D Interesting video - many people ferment cucumbers in Poland, but I don't think they trim the ends very often (though I've definitely seen this a few times). The strangest thing is you chose really humonguous cucumbers :) Normally you pick the smallest you can find - not exactly cornichons but close ;)
Does anyone have the American conversion for that? Sorry, but I was born into a place that refuses to use the world standard, so anything weighed in grams just looks small to me. :/
If one's making those half-fermented cucumbers only with salt, without brine, it's good to cut the ends so salt and spices penetrate them more easily. Other than that I too have never seen trimmed sour cucumbers.
This is the video I’ve been waiting for, I’ve been ferementing for the last year and reading a lot about it, but there is always something new from Mr. Ragusea. Doing scorpion peppers and strawberry’s currently.
Years ago I came across Sandor Katz (look him up, he's a nutty fermenation guy) and I felt that adding pickled cucumbers to my repertoire of homemade foodstuffs (wine, tomatoes, caponata, various fruit jams) would be a no brainer. I read up on it and made a batch with cukes I bought on a farm on Long Island. They came out amazing and I gave some away to friends. The next year I made them again and it may have been a little hotter that week or I let them go too long and they basically disintegrated into foul smelling green mush. It was obvious they were bad so I threw them away. Moral of the story is that people today are sooooo afraid of germs that they will not even consider attempting these preservation techniques that may have literally made us the humans that we are today. If it looks really mushy and smells awful, don't eat it. Most of the time you'll be fine.
A good tip is after a week or slightly more(depending on temp ofc) basically when you see bacteria colonies forming on the top , flush the jar with fresh brine to wash out all the formations on the top and then put your jar in the fridge for it to last long , this will prevent it from going into mush.
We lacto ferment our own Louisiana style hot sauces at home in glass containers with loose fitting plastic lids to prevent container failures. We wash, sterilize and sanitize everything with Starsan. We "jump" start the lacto with a previously made 2 week fermentation of RIPE RED BELL PEPPER. This provides a high concentration of L. Planterium and prevents anomalies of commercially available "starters" . 2.5 to 3% kosher salt, bottled clean water. Everything ferments a month. Then its taken out and processed to remove skins and seeds if desired. Apple cider vinegar, check ph, add a little liquid smoke and Jack Daniels TN whiskey. Allow to age in fridge. Done. Works for even green (unripe) jalapenos too. The key is fresh ripe peppers! Shelf and table stable just like Tabasco, tastes better though. Learned the basics from Chillichump YT channel and never looked back
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You are doing it wrong ;P. Greetings from Poland
Hi Adam, as you probably can see below, you've happened to cover a serious polish topic, fermented cucumbers is basically grandmas candy here xd But it also happens for a reason, there is no comparison between bought jar and the traditional one made home for the 100th time from stuff from your own garden. If you'd like to try good ol' "kiszoniak" please dm me, my granny would be more than happy to send you a jar. Do uszłyszenia!
Is salt free lacto fermentation possible at home. This needs to be found out
BOOBA
Idk if fermented food is actually beneficial if the bacteria just die in the gut acid
I don't know.
Very cool, fatfish
Very honest.
Thanks man
I do.
Why?
Here in Poland we're doing it all year long. Grandma just weighs down the solid stuff with a tiny plate that fits inside the jar (we've got large jars), then another plate on top to cover the opening and I've never seen a spoiled sour pickle on my life. Oh and we also add whole horseradish root and mustard seeds to them, sometimes a tiny bit of chilli. These spices really elevate the taste, especially horseradish (a thumb size or two for like a pound of cucumbers is enough)
It's important to mention Poland uses a different dill. Not a fresh, tiny plant. We use a fully matured dried dill stem along with the seed head.
A day old pickle is the best. Fully fermented ones are best for soup, or on a bread with lard. This is the way.
@@monikadraws this exactly about the dill, it basically tastes a little bit more like fennel seeds or even anise if you let the dill to bloom and use the entire flower/seed heads.
Mustard seeds are also great pickled on their own. They're like little spiced vegetal caviar. Make for a nice topping on other stuff.
i like whole peppercorns, dill and garlic, comes out wicked awesome.
did lil yachty bring the wock?
I'm polish - the "half-sours" (małosolne), and lactofermented cucumber pickles (kiszone) are a normal, everyday thing for us. My parents have always a pot of "kiszone ogórki" fermenting in the kitchen. And on Christmas we make a soup from lactofermented red beets. Sauerkraut is also very common, as it is in Germany.
Baltic neighbour here, lactofermented is such a mouthful in english compared to my native tongue haha, they're really common here too. I always preferred pickled pickles though. Not sure about the half sours... I don't think we have a special name for it, think we just say freshly/lightly lactofermented pickle?
Can you buy it in Biedronka or something like that? or when would you go? I'm from Czech, live on the border though. sometimes shop in Poland.
@@djVania08 yup, you should be able to buy them at Biedronka or any other store for that matter. They can also come in plastic bags instead of jars and if you go to a local market you can sometimes buy them straight from a big barrel.
@@djVania08 Yes, Biedronka sells małosolne in a small plastic bucket and Lidl has them in a bag.
@@superbuzia malosolne it is :D
You just solved an old childhood mystery for me! My family comes from Eastern Europe, mostly Belarus and Russia. I remember we would always have pickles as a side for lunch and dinner that my mom and babushka would make. In Russian, we called them "low salt" or малосольные pickles. After my family moved to Canada and tried local pickles, I noticed that the local American variety tasted quite different. Our low salt ones were not as vinegary and tasted kinda fizzy, and I always wondered why that was. When you said that not having enough salt to kill all the bacteria causes lactofermentation, that's when the last piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place.
Yeah, the fizzy part means the carbonation is still present, if you ferment fully and store fermented veg for around a week the carbonation will usually go flat and it'll also be about as sour as it will get. Kind of like how beer is carbonated but wine is not. I usually press out the carbonation when I ferment as it creates gas pockets that dry and discolor the veg.
So cool thanks for your story!
@@PerfectDeath4 I personally love fizzy lacto-fermented pickles
The only difference between low-salt ones and "normal" eastern-european pickles is fermentation time, in both cases you are using around 3% of salt, but in case of low-salt you stop the fermenatation after just few days, thats why they are fizzy and less salty. If you keep them longer and wait for bacteria to naturally finish fermentation, you will end up with saltier and more sour product but that pickles can be canned/pasterized and keep safely stored for months or even years (we still have few jars from 2020 season in our cellar and those are fine). Also at least here in Poland in traditional recepies we do not use any vinegar, we rely solely on lactic acid.
@@-TheBugLord I desperately want to try a fizzy pickle lmao that sounds so good and satisfying idk why, maybe it's because I love dill pickles but also Kefir so the idea of fizzy sour things entices me
In Poland (and other Eastern/Central European countries) we have ogórki małosolne which is virtually the same thing as half-sour pickles, it translates to low-salt cucumbers though. Super fresh and yummy stuff, the taste of spring and summer!
im not a big fan of your profile picture
Exactly! Sometimes people take them out after two or three days and eat them. Even when I do a fully finished version, it takes me a week to one and a half (when it is warm in summer) and Adam has to wait for weeks? Maybe for winter, but when it is warm it goes very quickly.
That makes a looot of sense since there was a huge influx of polish Jews to New York
Ogórki małosolne
dokładnie tak :)
As several people mentioned below 'half sours' are pretty popular in Poland. They used to be avaiable seasonally, i think now you can get them all year. They used to be sold straight from a barrel.
All piekles are common sidedishes to vodka and are pretty omnipresent.
Wait! I'm supposed to have sidedishes with my vodka?! :)
@@Chris-ut6eq Makes it more fun :)
@@Chris-ut6eq I don't. I like the taste. But it's popular and I think it was even compulsory in bars during communism times (you couldnt order just vodka, so people ordered the cheapest sidedish there was, which was a pickled cucumber)
@@Chris-ut6eq a pickle with a drink keeps ya hydrated and has electrolytes. It was a staple of my liquor days, I'd either do a few shots and munch a pickle and keep some water nearby for legit hydration or I'd do a pickle back chaser with the brine.
Usually allows for a heavy night of drinking with minimal hangover effects, tastes good too. Granted it's not a cure all, but does work quite well when done in the right amounts.
Water intake plays a bigger part I'd say, but the salts do also help you retain water.
@@jeanvonestling7408 that’s interesting
Another info to add to the Polish love for fermented cucumbers: the brine is drinkable! It is super tasty, it is a natural isotonic, it is packed with great stuff (vitamin C, and all these great lacto bacteria that is good for your gut), and it is one of the best things to drink when you are hungover.
Makes for a good soup base too!
Its also really good for helping with muscle cramps.
fermented cabbage brine is delicious too
I made a drink based on the brine - 2 parts of the brine and 1 part of absinthe ;) Everyone else looks shocked when I describe it but I liked it :)
@@LeoMidori Its an anti-hangover elixir
I'm Indian, and pickles (Achaar) are a staple with almost every meal. There's too many types, ones in vinegar & brine, some that are spicy in a chilli paste base, oily varieties, sweet sour spicy jams... and there's tons of varieties, lemon, mango, tamrind, carrots, cucumber, chilli, garlic, raddish, beets, all seasoned and spiced for a very flavorful condiment to have with rice & a side dish. :) I recommend trying them if you run into them in the international aisle.
pickles in India are not generally brime fermented though, in India we basically use oil and spices to ferment the pickles which is a bit different :)
Hey Adam, could you do some research about kefir and kombucha? They supposedly have a lot of lactic acid too - and kefir’s lacto-bacillum is said to withstand gastric digestion to colonize the gut. I’ve been trying both out of curiosity and I’d love to hear your take on those.
A video on that would be interesting too, being that I'm getting tested
due to their trace alcohol contents. I have noticed my gut health has gone downhill in the last year since I had to quit.
@Vladimir Novitski We have a lot of kefir in the Midwest Vladmir. The Smolyansky family (From Soviet Kyiv) researched for years and started their company in 1986. I get it just about everywhere from big box Walmart to the local stores and gas stations. Just as good as I've had in Europe. Lots of Polish here as well, a good thin savory pierogi can be found on tables all around during the Christmas holidays and polish delis year 'round, darned close to my cousin's pelmeni.
@Vladimir Novitski I've never in my life seen a baked pierogi, does sound interesting and probably delicious though. All are boiled , most are pan fried in butter to finish. The dough is usually thicker but some, like my cousin's , are thinner.
Not taking your comment too seriously, just pointing out America for the most part has a lot of cuisine from Eastern Europe as our population is heavily from there. Despite what you hear and see on TV.
@Vladimir Novitski When all of this crap is over I'd love to come and spend a few weeks with you as my guide! Your food and culture would be amazing to me.
We have a great many festivals celebrating cultures from all over the world, takes a bit of driving but most weekends there is one or two in the summer months (Pierogi Fest in late July is a must!). Definitely not as historical for a lot of it, but very enjoyable and great people to meet and learn from.
Thanks very much Vladmir, I appreciate the exchange.
@Vladimir Novitski I used to travel a few times a year for my employer, was lucky to have started in the 70's before the widespread turmoil in the Middle East. S America in the 80's. Many Asian countries in the 90's and 2000's that were former adversaries to the US. I'd always try to find a local worker that enjoyed and was proud of their heritage to spend time with during downtimes. Did the same for them if they came to the States. I really enjoyed learning about the cultures through them and the foods they enjoyed. Never did the touristy things if I could avoid it, exception of the natural and historic sites they were proud of. Everyone at that time was always respectful of the differences we all had and just enjoyed being people and sharing. I'm from the Great Lakes region of North America, the people I've hosted and I always enjoyed the visits. The ones from the Middle East and Asia got to experience the good parts of multicultural America, something not found in their home regions.
I don't do any social media Vladmir, so I guess we'll have to leave it at that. Hope the best to you and your family.
In Poland where pickles and saurkraut are absolutely essential foods, we simply have different words for pickled with vinegar (kwaszone) vs pickled by fermentation (kiszone).
That is not true. "Kwaszone" is the same thing as "kiszone" and "kwaszone" used to be the OG term for lactofermented food ( it is still used in some parts of Poland and it is also a stanard term in food industry). Pickles made using vinegar are usually referred to as "marynowane" or "konserwowe".
@@kamillis7283 fair enough
@@kamillis7283 Same thing in Belarus actually, we use the same words for these different processes:)
Lacto fermentation was my new quarantine hobby in 2020! Here's my vote for you taking a deeper dive. Also, consider "dilly beans" which is basically using a dill pickle recipe, but using green beans instead of cucumbers. They fit in a jar much better.
I have 3 jars on the go right now. can I also suggest asparagus with garlic & black pepper, probably my all time favourite ferment.
Damn. I missed out on this whole quarantine hobby thing, for I was busy writing my PhD thesis. Now I have a kind of FOMO, for if there won't be another pandemic in my lifetime, I won't get the chance having a quarantine hobby...
I know a guy who used quarantine to learn all he could about quantum mechanics. All I did was becoming unnervingly nerdy about coffee. (Greetings to Mr. James Hoffmann.)
@@lonestarr1490 Give yourself an infectious disease and then you’ll have the perfect excuse to quarantine!
Almost didn't notice Dr. Schwan was Brazilian (the way she said salmonella gave it away!). How cool she's in this. Thank you Dr. Schwan!
Given her pronunciation of Sauerkraut and some Rs I'd have said she's German - but then what does it matter. Her English is certainly better than mine 😀
I'm from Poland and currently live in Germany. It's really surprising to hear that people often don't know that fermentation of pickles and other vegetables is a thing at all. Even German sauerkraut is more often pickled (in some sort of vinegar-sugery water mixture) than fermented, which is an absolute crime against your taste buds.
When I studied in eastern Germany, my local Edeka even barrels of various fermented foods from which you could portion yourself. You might want to look for something like this :)
what I always found funny is that odd pickle craving every Polish person I know experienced at some point in their lives. No matter whether they like pickles or not, there's always that one time a Pole needs that sour lactic fix. And there's actually some logic to that. My gradma always told me it's the sign of your guts needing some microbiota refreshment. I usually get that craving about three times a year and polish shops are actually well-equipped for that, cause a bottled pickle/sourkraut juice is an actual refrigerated drink you can buy here. And oh boy, when your body needs it, absolutely nothing is more refreshing.
As an American who loves to just drink kraut or pickle juice straight, it’s so great to hear that’s a legit thing in other countries
@@josephengel8263 well who knows. Meaby your family emigrated to US in early XX century and u might just have some central European geens inside you
Yeah, pickle juice was great to kickstart your guts when on hang-over. (Juszka - like my grandpa called it)
Its also that the bacteria are partially digesting the veg in a way your gut doesn't normally do. This converts some nutrients which could be the cause of said craving. Vitamin C from fermented veg is a real thing and cooking that VC destroys it, so there are a few ways we are losing out on nutrients.
In my family (Polish family) we do canned lacto-fermented cucumbers. We sterilize jars, push cucumbers in with horseradish, mustardseeds, garlic and sometimes oak or grape leaves and other stuff, then we fill jars with ~60C 2,5% brine. It kills surface bacteria and softens cucumbers. We store them in basement for at least 2 months before eating. They're good for couple of years. We also make semifermented cucumbers - half fermented as you said - in open clay pot(only in season though). They're done after around 2 days. Salty, fresh, crunchy and delicious. Oooh... We drink leftover "juice" from the jars as well. Legends say it's a life saver when it comes to hangovers ;)
2 or 5%?
@@DeltaAssaultGaming 2.5%, some places use commas as decimal points
I’m Korean and grew up eating Kimchi, but have also heard it increases risk of stomach cancer. Would love to see a video on this superfood or carcinogen!
Kimchi could be salty, so the saltness might be the leading cause of stomach cancer? The same thing is said about Japanese cuisine, which tends to be salty.
@@tykep1009 There is very little sodium foods before we add it. I had to cut back, but before I did about 95% of the sodium I eat was added sodium.
Higher risk of gastric cancer in certain east Asian populations has to do with underlying genetic factors. This video lays it out nice and succinctly: th-cam.com/video/xy--51Jw6T8/w-d-xo.html
I thought the main risk of stomach cancer to Koreans was the amount of charred meats/soju we consume?
@@Nintentheheartless I guess a lot of BBQ will do that to you
I took a "food facts and fads" class at PSU. What I learned there is how many "traditional foods" came about as a practical means of keeping food from spoiling as long as possible after harvest.
And how many were a yolo moment out of hunger. Thinking especially of certain cheeses and all of the the ways the Chinese ferment soybeans and rice.
Isn’t that obvious?
@@jujutrini8412 well to an extent, most mass production food facilities don't exactly credit the ancient methods they've refined with technology. Not to mention, them keeping the lid on the fact you can do it at home doesn't inspire their target customers to do so. Makes their pre-made product seem appealing due to convenience.
@@100GTAGUY I am probably older than you and have older parents and therefore knew my grandparents who were alive long before all this processed food came on the market. Also not from American culture so I probably look at food in a different way to you guys. I grew up around canning, pickling, smoking, and even more food preservation methods so when I see something in the supermarket I know how easy/hard it is to do x,y,z and make my purchasing choice accordingly. Sometimes I go for the time saving purchase but sometimes I go for the cheap homemade do it yourself method. I hadn’t grasped how different the mindset of young people in countries like America is.
I've been seeing SO much recent research about fermented foods and the gut microbiome recently, and I've been really wondering what it would take to do this, since store-bought fermented foods tend to be premium products and (as she mentioned) the quantities for daily consumption are formidable. This video is super useful, informative and timely.
Look into sador katz videos and books, he really explains much of it very well. His dill pickle recipe is fantastic and perfect in flavour and textures.
@@Apricotblossom5555 Seconding this suggestion. My wife has The Art of Fermentation and it has transformed our diets. It's incredibly easy, prevents a ton of food waste, and it's just good for you.
Most "fermented" products at the store aren't fermented.
The biggest thing is getting over the initial hurdle of taking that first bite. I think the best thing to remember is that there are only about 6 serious cases of food borne illness per year from fermentation in the US, and a vast majority are people improperly fermenting fish in Alaska. As long as it's at least 2.5% salt and submerged you'll be fine. I started making my own pickles a couple months ago and I've loved it. I'm actually working on getting a Chinese pickle going, that's super fun to look into.
I've been doing kimchi at home in a large kilner jar. The markup on store bought stuff is insane
These are my favorite pickles!!!
My wife's dad ferment them in a glass jars. Plastic jar cap allows exessive CO2 and water escape. After ~2 weeks they are ready. And you can store them 1 year safely. After a year they tends to change taste.
If you are going to do this I recommend not only the weights but a jar airlock. They are dummy simple to use and rather cheap allowing you to tightly close your jar as they prevent an airtight seal. With those two things and a glass jar and this is as easy as getting the right ratio. Just make sure your brine goes over the weights as well.
Thank you Dr Carla Schwan for sharing your knowledge.
I have gotten into pickling but never really had the confidence. The added vinegar is new to me.
Great useful video Adam.
I'm studying cellular biology / microbiology right now. It is really interesting to hear about stories where it is all those little guys, the bacteria that I have gotten to know in this course, where they play the lead role! That graph really felt familiar and that is a good sign since often study material seems so abstract or pointless but nope - We of course have the good bacteria to thank for all our delicious pickles! Yum yum
Dr Carla Schwan seems to be a great teacher - the graph and explaination were both very informative and easy to understand.
Hello! Great episode! Again here from Poland (I have seen some other comments below - cześć!). We (as Polish people but also all nations east of France I suppose) do not necessarily pickle our food in vinegar. We let them ferment on their own. I recently started that myself after eating delicious cucumbers and cabbage from my grandma and parents. There is a process (sterilize your jars in boiling water) and when all is right (old-timers have it into art) it is magnificent! Picked vegetables always taste like...well vinegar! Fermented stuff is a completely different taste! Fermented cucumbers are a staple with fish! Sour cabbage we add to pierogi's, and we make bigos (a cabbage and meat and wine ragout with smoked meats and plums). I suppose with some food you need to grow up with. But for half of Europe fermented vegetables, are as wild and crazy as hot dogs for Americans! I dare you to try it! :)
That sounds delicious! Care to share a recipe?
@@mellie4174 Ingredients:
2 kg of small ground cucumbers
2 small heads of garlic
a large bunch of dill with canopies
a piece of horseradish root and leaves - 10 cm
2 liters of boiling water
4 flat tablespoons of rock salt
you can also give: horseradish leaves, green oak leaves and leaves of blackcurrant, vine or cherry
You can safely fit two kilograms of small ground cucumbers in four liter jars. Of course, if you plan to pickle more cucumbers, you can double or triple the amount of all ingredients. The cucumbers should be fresh. The ideal will be those that have not yet fallen off the flowers from the tips. Both ends should be firm and the cucumbers firm and without discoloration or damage. Avoid overgrown cucumbers that are large. These wider cucumbers already have large seeds and will be empty inside and soft after pickling, so we avoid them.
Cucumbers, two smaller or medium heads of garlic, a piece of horseradish root, a large bunch of dill with flower umbels and rock salt are the basis for preparing pickled cucumbers. It is worth noting that silage also pretends to be using iodized salt. However, it is rock salt that has the most valuable minerals and trace elements.
Tip: To make cucumbers for the winter tough and firm, add horseradish root to the jars. You can also additionally add horseradish leaves, green oak leaves and leaves of blackcurrant, vine or cherry.
The recipe comes from here (aniagotuje.pl/przepis/ogorki-kiszone) and just translated part of it. Good luck and enjoy!
Here is a difference between ground cucumbers and greenhouse ones (www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-cucumbers/)
Adam, I've been making my own yogurt since the start of the pandemic. I would love to see you tackle the intricacies of yogurt making. I prefer less sour, and I have been working to perfect the timing of the cook for that.
I'm not Adam, but I've been making yogurt for the past 15 years; I just bring the milk to just-under it's boiling point, let it cool until it won't kill bacteria, then throw in a few spoons of old yogurt and leave it in a warm oven until it solidifies.
Have you tried different species? Personally I like Amasi/Amasai/Maas (these are all the same yoghurt). Is also a yoghurt that can be made on room temperature (how convenient!)
I did lacto-fermented cucumbers this year. In my country Poland it's a culinary tradition of making sour pickles. We have something called pickle season in early July, when literally nothing is happening, even in politics, beacuse everybody is busy making pickles.
And the recipe that I used goes something like this. For 1kg of ground cucumbers, use 5l of boiled water and salt it with 3 full soup spoons of salt and let it cool down. Keep cucumbers in cold water for an hour so they will keep their crisp while fermenting. Then I put cucumbers in big jars together with 2-3 large cloves of garlic (maybe more if smaller), few slices of horseradish root and dill flowers. Try to left as few free spaces between cucumbers as possible, favorably fill them with dill leaves. Pour salted water in, and tightly screw the lid on. Keep it in a shaded place in room temperature for a few days until you see the fermentation process starting, then move the jars to the cooler place (like a basement).
So, pickle season is a Polish expression meaning a period when nothing interesting is happening?
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 Correct! And often media try to fill the summer void with low-quality info and therefore the expression "pickle season" (sezon ogórkowy) is usually used to describe an extensive media coverage of really not that interesting topic.
@@bartoszmackiewicz1666 So, this phrase is common with Hungarian "cucumber season" (uborkaszezon). Interesting.
Are you sure you are supposed to seal the lids tightly?
Bulgarian here the go to ratio my grandma told me and I've found in very very old cook books is 30-40g salt per liter of water , this is for cabbage and cucumbers but I'm pretty sure it will work on everything , 30 to 40 based on how salty you want the end product , did a couple of batches of cucumbers for the first time and they were great , really hard to find fermented stuff in the store so it was some nice nostalgia tasting these again.
I have been making my own kimchi and other Korean pickles for decades, but for several years the hobby fell by the wayside. Then during the pandemic I developed pre diabetes And I resumed making almost all my own meals! Making fermented pickles and other time intensive recipes. And they do change how your body works. I can proudly say I now no longer need drugs to balance my blood sugar, and while other dietary changes and exercise have helped, I have no doubt the home made pickling without Vinegar has been transformative.
Japanese pickle presses have a spring loaded "piston" than is a tad smaller than its container. After the veg is placed in said container, the lid is clamped down and a knob on the top of the lid allows the "piston" to be extended further down. The "piston" is attached to the end of the shaft with a ball joint, allowing the bottom of the "piston" to accommodate some unevenness of the veg. The lids are vented to allow bubbledge to escape. ✌😁
That sounds like a really cool design!
If I may suggest try to find a barrel for fermenting cabbage. In Poland we have special ceramic barrels with rim, that you pour water into and then cover with the special lid, that is submerged in that water. It creates a air-tight seal and you don't need to worry about air getting into, since CO2 will push out oxygen (kinda like those things for making wine that stick out of cork but much bigger :D). Also when making sauerkraut (kiszona kapusta, to not give all credit to our German neighbors ;)) my family usually adds the cabbage with dill in layers, stepping on each layer in that barrel to squeeze out most of the water from the cabbage, that water is then discarded. Also cabbage should be shredded rather finely. And after few week sauerkraut is ready, now we don't even bother to transfer it into jars or anything, just top up water in that barrels rim, to not let oxygen in and it lasts whole year easily.
As for pickled cucumbers, we have special jars for fermenting them too, the ones with a sprint on top and rubber gasket that goes between the top and jar proper. Basically foolproof, just stick all ingredients in, cover with enough water and add enough salt, close the lid and in few weeks pickles are ready. And yeah, as someone said, smaller ones tastes best and everyone eats them first :D. There's very popular soup in Poland made from pickled cucumbers, zupa ogórkowa, very good and apparently healthy.
There's also soup made from juices from boiling sauerkraut, called kwaśnica, very popular where I'm from.
Just fyi, in the US we call such barrels “crocks” :)
Still, most people in Poland don't bother with special jars. You can use anything - from any glass or ceramic jar or even plastic basket and just weight everything with something pressing down a plate to preparing them in plastic bottles (it helps to use the tiny cucumbers for pickling for that).
There are plastic lids for fermentation, that keep air out and let the CO2 escape. I watch a youtube channel Steffi kocht ein (this is German, Steffi is canning), and I think they offer also subtitles. The channel quickly became very popular. They also have a company (since the early 2000s), which means they can order special glasses or lids from the industry - they just have to order a few hundredthousand. - Anyway: the fermentation lid works for any regular large (or at least medium sized) glass with a wide openening. This is more practical than having a barrel standing around. The large glasses can be used year round (for storage, vinegar making, etc.) There is no barrel or special ceramic pot standing around.
@@Ellestra the large clay pot with the water rim is traditional in Austria and Germany. They are still sold a big one is around 70 Euro, so it must be an important feature. To be sure - glasses with metall lids were not available back in the day.
if the sour liquid has contact with a metall lid the later will rust, so that would be my objection. If handled carefully (not moved around) the rust (and whatever corrodes from the metall) should not get into the food, and the lids can be replaced for the next fermentation. (the shop I mentioned sells lids for replacement and they can be combined with glasses from industrially canned food, there are certain common sizes and types. But I think they only deliver with in the EU, and maybe not even into all the member states. They supply to households as well as small business.
It is also likely that in the past the lids would have been too expensive to be thrown away, even when such things could be produced.
It likely was cheaper (on the long rung) and easier to produce the clay pots with the rim. The other option was the barrel made from wood and weights to submerge fermented food - mostly sauerkraut.
@@franziskani Standard glass jars with metal lids work fine for fermentation. In fact that how sour cucumbers and even sauerkraut are usually sold. And that what you would use at home if you were preparing them for long term storage (you can pressure seal them - just like vinegar based ones). But it is not advisable to use metal containers.
That's how my wife makes her insanely good kraut.
Cabbage + salt + a little vinegar (1 TBsp per head) + garlic (2 cloves per head) + time (6 weeks)
Mix together and dump it all into a big earthenware crock, then cover with just enough filtered water to cover the mixture. Weigh it all down with a sanitized stoneware plate that's about the same size as the crock opening, and put a clean heavy stone on the plate. Once a week skim whatever excess liquid and gunk that forms. After 6 weeks you have kraut, skim one last time then remove the kraut from the crock and place in jars and refrigerate or pickle, whichever you prefer.
Was literally just studying fermentation reactions for my test tomorrow, this is amazing timing.
Also, 120 grams or kimchi seems a lot, but 120 grams of sauerkraut is very doable. In poland we often eat way more at once, as a side dish during dinner. If you spice it properly it can be just as interesting of a flavour as kimchi. My favourite thing is probably cumin seeds, but not everyone likes them.
Do you eat it warm or cold, also please share some of your spice recipes. I love sauerkraut but my husband doesn't like it as much and I'd like to make it so that he falls in love with it like i have
But it is usually cooked right? Then the bacteria got killed though.
I like to use a weight to hold the pickles below the brine, and use an airlock to let gas out while keeping any outside air from getting into the ferment. That combo has always worked great for me, for pickled cucumbers, saurkraut, and kimchi.
Love when you explain how the first/ancient people would have done something, always keep doing that please.
In Poland lactobacteria fermentation is present in every cellar, kitchen and on every table, ogórki kiszone (lactopickled cucumbers) kapusta kiszona (lactopickled cabbage), tomatoes, beetroots, cucurbits and every possible freshly picked berry vegetables. Good breded cutlet with mash and pickled cucumber still is very common option for dinner.
In Romania we don't pickle anything with fresh dill, instead we use the seeding flower heads of the dill plant, in dry form, they sell them at the stores and in the markets but some grow their own,
I would definitely recommend it to anyone that wants to pickle some stuff this year, it's a much nicer flavor profile than from the green leaves, but you could also do both.
I love these science videos, Adam! I love watching your videos because I get to bridge my knowledge of biology and chemistry with the kitchen and not feel like I'm slacking off on my schoolwork. I enjoy the interviews and am impressed by the work you put into these educational videos.
I *LITERALLY* just finished fermenting those same dill pickles from that recipe! I'm going to taste them and hopefully can some of them this weekend. What a weird coincidence. I love how, after about 2 or 3 days, you start to see the cloudiness of the LAB starting to spread, it makes you feel so glad to see it.
A correction for those wanting to make their own, the dill flavor in pickles is from dill seed, not the leaves. I too have made this mistake before.
man I've been loving your videos, I'm binging your channel these days, such great content, thanks for that
dude, there is ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER channel like yours. The infos you bring us, demystifiying tons over tons of cooking myths is unbelievable, not even counting the flawless presentation of every single video you make. This is the best channel about food to ever exist, and I thank you tremendously for that!
Most 3d printed parts are made of lactic acid too, it's really good stuff. PLA, is just poly lactic acid, and it's what most 3d printers use.
they are delicious
Ukraine is here 🇺🇦 as well as Polish people, we do this salt veggies starting from October. It’s really delicious and healthy, in addition it’s quite tasty. 👌🏻
I've started using a thin layer of oil on top of my pickles around the weight to prevent the mold; it creates a nice anaerobic environment but also lets air through (you still need weights unless it's a thick oil layer)
great idea!
We make a lot of spiced preserve pickles with no water like kimchi and add oil instead. A thick layer of oil on top is mandatory.
Been fermenting my own stuff for many years, the biggest thing is definitely the container as that greatly determines how safe it is and the kind of steps you might have to take to keep things safe.
Some things to note is that Kimchi is often eaten during the fermentation process, with the leftover batch going full sour and long-term stored. The fizz is a key sign that the kimchi hasn't gone full sour.
Maybe I'm just not accustom to it? I always full sour my ferments, maybe there's more "gut flora" when eaten partially active. From my own tastes and that of most others I've shared some with we end up preferring the more sour.
My Polish father has been making low salt cabbage for decades. Never had a problem. It's weighed down by a river stone. Works perfectly.
A really great way to lactoferment, I find, is vacuum sealing. I learned how to lactoferment from the Noma Guide to Fermentation and I really recommend fermenting stone fruit like nectarines or plums. Absolutely phenomenal.
Ripe or unripe fruit?
Proper Dill pickles are; cucumber, Dill flower (not that herby part, a fragrant, rooty Dill flower and stem), horseradish root, garlic and optionaly very game changing, some leaves, fresh oak, red Berry leaf.. Amazing stuff. What a difference this combo makes.
fresh oak as in bark?
@@picgmr1575 lol, some leaves
You could also test pickling with leaven. It's a thing in Hungarian (+probably neighbouring) cuisine. You basically put the pickles in a jar (cut off both ends and in perpendicular from both ends just not cutting it in 4) with some garlic, dill on top & bottom, true leavened bread, (just a slice is enough for starter,) water mixed roughly 1 spoon of salt per liter to fill it up, including the slice. Then put it traditionally in the sun, or anywhere warm for 2-3 days. Don't forget to refill the water. It should have a strong taste, almost reminiscent of carbonic acid in strength and not be soft.
Well, this was timely. I'm about to have a hot pepper harvest and was looking into lacto-fermentation for hot sauce. Since I'm not generally a fan of any fermented foods, I'm understandably anxious. This was really awesome and helpful, going over some of my concerns quite nicely and helping direct my purchases for fermenting lids/weights. Thanks. :)
I do peppers all the time. And I love pickling tomatoes, as well.
so no bread, cheese, wine, or beer for you? :) Or yogurt?
@@nsbioy Pretty much. :) Most cheeses I like and non-Greek yogurts, so the dairy ferments are generally tasty. Bread can be sketchy for me and I react poorly to all alcohol (flush reaction). And I just don't dig the taste of most anything pickled. Was hoping I'd grow out of it as I got older. Pickles would be a cheap and healthy snack, lol.
My grandma fermented cabbage in a special barrel, which helped with speedy fermentation. It was never washed, only scrubbed between uses. It was able to store cabbage for whole winter and spring at room temperature.
Something I do that wasn't mentioned here is that I always have sauerkraut fermenting because, in my now 7 years of making it, had only one batch go bad...ever. This makes my success rate with it well above 99%. Other veggies are a bit trickier than cabbage...especially carrots (probably because of their higher sugar content). So...what I do is use a bit of good sauerkraut liquid as an additive to basically all of my other lactoferments, which both seems to kickstart them, and improve their success rate. Carrots are really the toughest of all...I have probably a 5% failure rate on carrot ferments, though the most common issue is just wild yeast that creates a bitter floral flavor that really doesn't mesh well with the pickle acid flavor. The rub here is that fermented shredded carrot makes for one of the finest relishes you can ever add to rice-based dishes.
Thank you for this. It's a decent introduction, much better than what I had to start, except for Sandor Katz's book. My best tip: low pH paper. If the pH drops, you know it's proper. It eliminates guessing. There is no other indicator for a good pickle, except for a watchful eye and your recipe.
Hey Adam! You probably hear this a lot, but you really helped me be less scared and overwhelmed about getting in the kitchen. You were the one to help me understand some of the absolute most basic things, and a lot of more advanced things too. Cooking is fun for me, and I wouldn’t have found that out if it wasn’t for you. Thanks Adam
In Hungary we actually put bread on top of the dill pickles. Salty water, dill, pack in the cucumbers (it helps if you make a cut in them lengthwise, but don't fully cut them in half), and then a slice of bread. A plate on top to seal it from air but let the CO2 out. Of course, you can add other things like garlic or spices.
Cabbage is in season now at least here in Finland. I just set my first ever batch of sour cabbage fermenting just under a week ago. Great timing, now in mid-autumn there is still time to prepare home food stores for winter.
'How do you pickle safely?'
a good question with more than one good answer
One ingredient my dad and I use for our pickles is oak leaves rather than tea or lime, but if you don't have any of those if I'm not mistaken you can just increase the bay leaves and mustards a bit to get them a bit crispier.
Love to see the actual scientists on this channel (and so many women too! ♥️), it works really well with Adam's narration.
Adam, you are amazing. Thank you for upping my kitchen game, and allowing me to try so many new things I probably would've never tried making... nor eating in the case of pickles.
I've copied my grandma's recipe and it made some amazing pickles. They are just done in a jar. I still cleaned and then sterilized everything by heating in an oven, because if you're gonna go through the effort to make them then you want the fewest casualties possible, haha. Screw the lid down but not too tight. Then it acts as a half-arsed one-way valve for CO2 (and you definitely smell it). Also now that I think of it, we put the dill at the bottom and then jammed enough cucumbers to bind everything in place so it doesn't float. The "recipe" part is the horse radish plant's leaf. Gives it a little zing and I think does the same thing as the tea leaves.
To be honest, I’ve always just put in a guesstimate amount of salt, and in my many years of pickling, has always worked just fine
I don't think my grandmother weighs her lactofermented dish salt either and they usually turn out fine. Though she's the first one to not let you use a jar if it isn't perfect in taste or smell xd
Tea leaves, yeah... I've done some experiments with different tannin sources and black tea didn't really end up working all that great. Maybe there's just too little tannin in there. By the way, I used way more than you did. What worked great for me was creating an infusion from oak leaves. Two medium sized leaves per one pickling jar (roughly 1 litre or 1 quart) were enough to keep the cucumbers crunchy for a year. Measure out the water you need (plus maybe a bit extra to compensate for evaporation), add the leaves and boil for 15 minutes. The infusion is pink, but the colour goes away in the jar after a while.
As for salt content - no, 5% isn't "inedibly salty", really, though this is of course a bit subjective. Plus, the elevated salt content is another factor slowing down the pectin breakdown process. Commercial dill pickles are way saltier. I don't know for sure, but I guesstimate an 8% brine. This is indeed too salty for me though.
Also, a few people mentioned the half sour gherkins, which would literally translate from Polish as "low salt gherkins". This "low salt" thing is most probably there in the name because this is the pickle variety that uses a brine with a lower salt concentration - the 2-2.5% you indicate as safe and tasty. Fun fact for ya.
Enzymes don't break down chlorophyll - this is inaccurate. Acid reacts with chlorophyll, replacing its magnesium atom with hydrogen and thus creating phaeophytin, which gives the olive green colour.
I'm literally in my lab, glove on, in front of a clean bench hand deep in Lactobacillus acetotolerans and still clicking on this video thinking "yeah, I might need to know that".
😂😂😂✨
Lactofermented red cabbage is my favourite, so easy no extra ingredients, except the salt & brine to cover (little water comes out) a week in a jar in the cupboard &it's edible, longer to taste if you want it sourer, looks great unlike green that goes a bit yellowy and sad looking
Great video! would love to learn more about meat lacto-fermentation. One of my favorites is a Thai pork sausage called Naem! (which is often consumed raw as well as cooked)
thanks for the vinegar tip. i have no trouble making sauerkraut or lacto fermented eggplants or turnips. other veggies i find much more challenging, and perhaps changing salt ratio could help.
sauerkraut without caraway seeds, lacks certain flavours.
a nice soup of european origin is zurek, with lacto-fermented rye flour, potatoes and pork sausage, and garlic. it's a strongly tasting and smelling fermented dish...but still very tasty.
fermenting weights are very expensive, but much better than alternatives. i use silicone jar seals for the fermentation stage, which act as one way valves and much easier than those valve things.
I made my first batch of fridge pickles recently! Love Adam's recipes - Super tasty!
Fridge pickles, though, are not fermented (since refrigeration more or less stops fermentation). Fridge pickles are normally the vinegar type of pickling he describes, not fermentation.
@@michaelham2366 I think the OP knows that, which is why they added the modifier "fridge."
It’s amazing how timely your videos are Adam. Thank you
You have to be careful with peppercorns and other seasonings, because that can float to the top and grow mold, even if the larger vegetables are weighed down.
Thank you, Adam. I've been fermenting for a year, and I really needed that lecture. People have started asking me questions that I should be able to answer. Now I can.
Thanks Adam for reminding me how to calculate a proper brine ratio for lacto-fermentation. Unfortunately, I've started all of my hot sauce ferments last night and used volume (5%) instead of weight... Let's hope for the best!
i usually go with a 4.5 - 5% brine, no problems so far, just make sure your ferment doesn't have any exposed solids on the top, keep everything submerged
Anyone really interested in ferments like that should pick up the noma's guide to fermentation. An excellent book that covers many ferments like lactic acid fermentations and the many creative applications of your fermentation projects.
I've never tried it, but I have heard that oak leaves can also keep pickles crisp with their tannins
Grape leaves too. Also bay leaves. Green tea is recommended over black tea because black tea discolors the food.
I learned this from my grandma and it always was like a kind of magic to me.
Lacto-Fermentation - When you end up with pickles
Lack-o-fermentation - When you end up with moldy cucumbers
I've been making sauerkraut for more than 20 years. My recipe is a half tablespoon of salt per pound of shredded cabbage. I use Fido wire bale canning jars and glass weights. The Fido jars are great because they automatically vent any pressure. The springiness of the wire bale mechanism makes the lid act like a check valve, allowing the CO2 to vent while preventing air from entering the jar. As the kraut ferments, the CO2 purges any air (oxygen) from the jar, and the resulting unopened jars have a long shelf life.
A big stick of horseradish is great flavor for dill pickles.
Also, it's traditional to use a tannic grape leaf, or an oak leaf to keep the pickles crisp.
As an aside, bread made with aged dough (naturally fermented in the fridge for a few days) lasts up to 2 weeks in the fridge because of its acidity. Absolutely yummy, too.
Having two 10 liter containers, one with cucumbers and one with carrots, cauliflower and cabbage. It is awesome. We typically do 40g salt per liter of water.
My favorite homemade wild ferment is carrot Spears with garlic and chili or with lime peel and Ginger. Starting some this week.
Literally just learned all about fermentation in biology today. Great timing as always. Not the first time this happened either.
i did a vacuum fermentation i saw on the chilly chump chanell this year. i used peppers me and a friend of mine grew, added some garlick to it, and 2% salt by weight. vacuum sealed it and left in in the cupboard for a couple of weeks. you could see the bag inflate when co2 was produced and after 3-4 weeks when i opened it it smelled simmilar to tabasco, so using your nose is a crucial part in figuring out weather it's a good ferment or not. i added some thime and distilled vinegar to dilute the sauce, and off to the fridge it went. it has a nice tabasco like flavor with more spiciness since we had some very spicy chillys. it's not that complicated of a process, it's more of a wash what you're going to ferment, add salt, seal, and wait
the way you intertwined the interview with your commentary is truly amazing
I love your videos. No bs intro, just straight to the national institute of pickling.
Did not expect to watch adam shower today
In Vietnam we also have lacto-fermented food, it's basically sauerkraut, but instead of the normal cabbage, we use choy sum. Choy sum is like, the bitter cabbage if you will. Taste like wasabi if you only let it fermented for a few days.
Part of my family is from a town famous for its lacto-fermented pickles, so we always make plenty during summer and eat them the rest of the year. We usually use simple jars, and instead of weighing them down we just fill them to the brim andd place a couple crushed aspirin pills on top, seems to help with fungus trying to grow on top
oh thank god i thought you were gonna use milk
Truly a beautiful symbiotic partnership. Thanks little bacteria bros!
Wow, I thought I eat a lot of kimchi but 120g daily is still beyond my reach :D
Interesting video - many people ferment cucumbers in Poland, but I don't think they trim the ends very often (though I've definitely seen this a few times). The strangest thing is you chose really humonguous cucumbers :) Normally you pick the smallest you can find - not exactly cornichons but close ;)
Does anyone have the American conversion for that?
Sorry, but I was born into a place that refuses to use the world standard, so anything weighed in grams just looks small to me. :/
If one's making those half-fermented cucumbers only with salt, without brine, it's good to cut the ends so salt and spices penetrate them more easily. Other than that I too have never seen trimmed sour cucumbers.
@@UBvtuber about 1/4 pound
This is the video I’ve been waiting for, I’ve been ferementing for the last year and reading a lot about it, but there is always something new from Mr. Ragusea. Doing scorpion peppers and strawberry’s currently.
I can’t lie… I saw “lacto” and thought this was about to be a video about pickle milk
Adam Ragusea: *discusses pickling and how it works*
Ordinary Sausage: *puts pickles in a dehydrator*
Years ago I came across Sandor Katz (look him up, he's a nutty fermenation guy) and I felt that adding pickled cucumbers to my repertoire of homemade foodstuffs (wine, tomatoes, caponata, various fruit jams) would be a no brainer. I read up on it and made a batch with cukes I bought on a farm on Long Island. They came out amazing and I gave some away to friends. The next year I made them again and it may have been a little hotter that week or I let them go too long and they basically disintegrated into foul smelling green mush. It was obvious they were bad so I threw them away.
Moral of the story is that people today are sooooo afraid of germs that they will not even consider attempting these preservation techniques that may have literally made us the humans that we are today. If it looks really mushy and smells awful, don't eat it. Most of the time you'll be fine.
A good tip is after a week or slightly more(depending on temp ofc) basically when you see bacteria colonies forming on the top , flush the jar with fresh brine to wash out all the formations on the top and then put your jar in the fridge for it to last long , this will prevent it from going into mush.
Thanks for stopping by, Adam! Come back any time!
We lacto ferment our own Louisiana style hot sauces at home in glass containers with loose fitting plastic lids to prevent container failures. We wash, sterilize and sanitize everything with Starsan. We "jump" start the lacto with a previously made 2 week fermentation of RIPE RED BELL PEPPER. This provides a high concentration of L. Planterium and prevents anomalies of commercially available "starters" . 2.5 to 3% kosher salt, bottled clean water. Everything ferments a month. Then its taken out and processed to remove skins and seeds if desired. Apple cider vinegar, check ph, add a little liquid smoke and Jack Daniels TN whiskey. Allow to age in fridge. Done. Works for even green (unripe) jalapenos too. The key is fresh ripe peppers! Shelf and table stable just like Tabasco, tastes better though. Learned the basics from Chillichump YT channel and never looked back
Did I just watch Adam Ragusea take a shower in a pickle video?
And it's most viwed part of vid
Very well done, I really enjoy the science imparted by Dr. Schwan. I love educational videos like this.