The Guide to Lacto-Fermentation: How To Ferment Nearly Anything

today is a very special day you might ask yourself for why is is a special day it's Friday that's good that's a that's a step in the right direction it's not just any Friday not anymore Fridays bye-bye see you later it's fermentation Friday episode 1 okay so wow it's fermentation Friday it's it's the first time we're doing this this is this feels weird in extremely uncomfortable but hey let's try new things together thanks for being a part of this I love you and you are important I felt like there was nothing better than to kick off this series with lacto-fermentation it's very basic yet very complex at the same time so I have I've been pondering for a while on what I wanted to do with the series you know there's a lot subject to change for this series but in general I think this is gonna be good okay so before you get started you need to understand very briefly I promise I'll make it brief what exactly lacto-fermentation is yes I know my handwriting is bad okay I know the key word here is lacto sounds weird sounds kind of gross it's not and a lot of people are probably gonna jump to milk it's not milk it's actually referring to lactic acid more specifically lactobacillus now lactobacillus is the same well actually let me make sure I spelled this correctly and hey hey you know that that's that's a big that's a big win right there and you might be thinking Josh why are you telling us about this this is so boring this stupid bacteria yeah well guess what it's responsible for your yogurt your sourdough bread and cheese cheese guys if you like grilled cheese you can think lactobacillus unless you're using American cheese in which case you're just eating plastic so while it's responsible for all that it's also responsible for turning this into something that's preserved and full of so much more flavor you didn't even know was there to put it simply it does that by metabolizing glucose into lactic acid and that is pretty much the key factor there the best part is that it only takes about five or ten minutes of active time to do now basically all you're doing is submerging vegetables in brine but your salt percentage is going to be determined by that vegetable here are all the different vegetables that I used now you can use whatever you want but it's gonna change slightly depending on what vegetable it is so let's say you've got your vegetable or fruit but let's start with vegetables now you're gonna need to calculate your brine percentage the standard percentage you'll use for most vegetables is gonna be two percent three percent really only being reserved for things that are more prone to mold like cucumbers peppers or asparagus I used to make my Brian's by just adding a percentage of salt based on the weight of the water but since reading the Noma guide to fermentation book which is really good by the way you should go get it link in my description I found a much more consistent way of doing this instead you're gonna zero out the weight of the jar that you've chosen and yes you're gonna need a kitchen scale for this please don't don't use anything else as much more accurate we're talking about protecting yourself from botulism here so get a scale please now I recommend using at least a one quart jar or whatever appropriate size jar to fit your ferment in then fill it with the item that you want a ferment in this case I have some white asparagus here then pour in the filter water just enough to cover the vegetables it's okay if they float don't worry we'll weigh them down later then record that total weight in grams of both the item you want to ferment and the water combined then multiply that total by anything between point zero two and point zero three and you'll get the amount of salt that you need to add in that water in grams in other words if the vegetable and water away a grand total of fifteen hundred grams then you'll need 30 grams of salt to put yourself at a two percent brine once you have your recorded salt that you need weigh out that salt pour the water out of that container into the bowl add the weight of salt that you calculated and by the way I recommend using fine sea salt so it dissolves easily kosher salts just kind of annoying the dissolve stir to dissolve and pour back over your vegetables that is it see how easy that is when you do it this way because then you have the exact amount of liquid that you need there's no wasted liquid or anything like that it's just it's it's just so easy now all you need to do is make sure your vegetables stay submerged now you can do a couple different things here you can buy fermentation weights online if you want to be fancy there'll be a link below or can use small nonmetallic pinch bowls which I do all the time you can also use a small ziploc bag filled with water that does a fantastic job or if the vegetables aren't floating up too bad you can just use a little bit of plastic wrap which will adhere to the surface of the liquid sort of creating a sealed environment then just place a lid on top and very lightly closing don't close it too tight because you want gases then naturally escape and you don't want to create a tiny little bomb in your kitchen that's not good then just leave it out at room temperature for well until they taste like the way you want them to or you know if they mold them and throw them away but you know you get the point I would say anywhere between three days to two weeks depending on your tastes now I don't have any video of this but I will show a couple of images now there is one thing that can develop on the top of your ferment called calm used if you see this it is not mold now there's mold is very different mold is very fuzzy and patchy calm nice almost looks like a web it looks like this that's totally okay totally still safe but if you want to throw it away if that develops you totally can just just a little tidbit now that's it just let your things for men once they're done you can leave them in the brine and place them in your refrigerator and they'll stay good for a very very long time then just use them as you would pickles or you can blend them into a sauce or you can chop them up and add them to a salad they are so incredibly versatile now just because we're in a new series doesn't mean that I'm gonna leave you out on the most important part the b-roll [Music] alright guys and that is it so lacto-fermentation and the first episode of fermentation Fridays in the books now I hope that this little series is met with excitement I hope you guys enjoy it I'm completely open to opinions let me know what you guys are thinking about this in the direction of this or what you guys may want to see in the future what kind of Berman's do you want to see you know and also don't forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter the link is in my description but anyway if you enjoyed this video or you learned something leave a like subscribe and I will see you next week [Music]

Channel: Joshua Weissman

Views: 1,385,530

Keywords: lactofermentation, lacto fermentation, how to lacto ferment a vegetable, fermentation recipe, how to ferment carrots, lacto fermented peppers, lacto fermented dill pickles, dill pickles, joshu weissman, cooking series, youtube recipe, youtube cooking series, fermented foods, sat bawl pro, josh weissman, cooking, fermenting, fermentation friday, joshua weissman fermentation, joshua weissman fermenting, vegetables, guide to fermenting, fermenting for begginers, fermenting 101

Id: u80eGi6pTso

Length: 6min 34sec (394 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 09 2019