A Guide to Lacto Fermentation

Fermented Salsa is a big favorite here

From traditional german-style cucumber pickles to hot sauce, preserving summer garden harvests so you can enjoy them all winter long is far easier than most people think, you just need some non-iodized salt, filtered water, a kitchen scale, and some time. Before refrigerators and freezers were a thing, folks preserved their food through fermentation which not only extends summer flavors long into the winter, the fermentation process offers all kinds of health benefits to those who eat them as well.

Fermentation and Gut Health

If we want to get nerdy about gut health, fermented foods are an incredible way to heal our bodies from the inside out. You can think of it like a pre-digestion digestion, the fermentation process has already started breaking the foods down and releasing the nutrients in your food, so when you eat them, your body has to do less work and can put the nutrients to better use. Gut health is a trendy topic right now for good reason, it’s linked to SO many chronic health issues, skin and sleep issues, and just general health. The lacto-fermentation process introduces all kinds of healthy probiotics into your foods, and getting into fermentation saw a huge improvement in my lifelong struggle with eczema, adult acne, and improved my energy throughout the day as well.

Change your ferment flavor to compliment whatever “genre” of food you’re cooking by adding spices

Fermented Foods from Every Region

Patting the air pockets out of my peppers- fermented hot sauce is the single easiest thing to ferment.

Another thing I really love about fermented foods is that it’s a built-in garnish or side dish ready to add to any main dish and give it a little something extra (and I’ll say it’s an extra kitchen-pro-feeling flex that definitely impresses my guests), and when we’re talking about pickling and fermenting, let’s not limit ourselves to dill and garlic as spices, you can add all kinds of spices, herbs, aromatics and other flavors to your fermented foods to fit them into any regional cuisine. The process for making saurkraut is the same as that of kimchi, and adding curry instead of Korean peppers gives you an amazing fermented side/garnish for Thai. Indian, and Japanese dishes. I love to ferment salsa for my favorite Mexican dishes, ferment tomatoes for my Italian sauces, okra for Middle-Eastern themed meals, the list could go on and on.

Aerobic Vs Anarobic Environments

If you remember my video “What’s Wrong With My Garden” we talked about why we want the soil in our gardens to be Aerobic. Aerobic means 'with air' and refers to the availability of oxygen. We want lots of air on our plants’ roots so they can breathe and be protected from rot and disease that is caused by a lack of oxygen. Aerobic environments promote the breakdown of materials in the soil to make nutrients that are accessible to plant roots (compost THRIVES with lots of oxygen, that’s why we stir, or turn our compost piles often). Anaerobic, on the other hand, means 'without air.' When we are fermenting foods, we want to keep them from rotting and growing mold, and we do that by making sure the ferment has no access to air. Our three greatest weapons against rot and mold in the fermentation process are Salt, Water, and temperature. If we have the proper ratio of salt and filtered water for our ferments, if we keep whatever we are fermenting submerged under the water, and if we keep the ferments between 60-75 degrees Fahrenheit, the foods below the surface will be prevented from rot and molding, and will remain safe to eat. Why filtered water? Chlorine and flouride and other additives cities add to their water supplies to keep them clean will also tend to kill the good bacterias that grow in the fermentation process.

Ditch expensive pickle weights, you can use ziplock bags filled with water to keep your veggies submerged.

How do I create my own lacto fermented foods?

You can ferment basically any fruit or veggie. Wash/peel your vegetables (you want to use clean veggies and clean fermentation vessels so you don’t accidentally introduce bad bacteria). Chop your veggies or leave them whole, add spices and aromatics (onions, garlic, ginger, lemongrass) to taste, fill your jar 3/4 full, then top it off with filtered water. Weigh your jar with water and veggies. Multiply that weight by .025, this will give you the weight of the salt you want to add to your ferment. For the same reason we use filtered water, we use non-iodized salt, because the iodine added to salt might kill the good bacterias we need for our ferment. Pour the water off the top into a new jar on your kitchen scale, zero the scale, and start adding salt until you’ve added .025 of your ferment weight’s worth of salt. Add a lid to the jar of water and salt, shake it vigorously to combine the water and salt, and then pour the mixture back over your veggies in the original jar. Add a pickle weight to keep the veggies submerged below the water’s surface, or, if you don’t have a pickle weight, fill a ziplock bag 3/4 full with water, seal it, and press it into the top of the veggie jar so it holds the veggies below the water’s surface, a cheap and easy replacement. Set your ferment in a cool, dry place out of the sun, ideally somewhere that remains 60-75 degrees. Keep the veggies fully submerged, and stir/check for mold/taste every day or two.

Multiply your ferment weight by .025 to get the proper salt ratio for your ferment.

Here Comes the FUNK

Fermentation happens in about 3 days, but as long as you keep your conditions right, you can keep your ferments going indefinitely. They’ll start noticeably changing flavor and creating their own little yeast bubbles and effervescence after about a week. As you practice fermentation, you can develop your taste and decide where in the fermentation process you like the flavor best. One thing to watch out for is black mold. In the lacto fermentation process, a cloudy white “yeast” will start to develop within the liquid and may form a film on top, and that is good. Anything furry, or black mold on top is not. Black mold is almost always caused by something creeping above the surface of the water and getting exposed to air, so always double and triple check to make sure your pickle weights (or ziplocks with water in some cases) are working to hold everything below the water’s surface. If I find mold, I generally toss the whole jar, because it’s just not worth it to risk it.