Home Fermentation - Kombucha, Kefir, Kimchi, Sourdough, Yoghurt, etc

[Brahma]

I've been making lightly fermented red onions and chillis for ages. Think it was Brad leone that got me into it. Fermented hot sauce is nice too.

I like the slightly pickled flavor that comes through but the taste is so much better than when you just dump everything into vinegar.

heard somebody say you can make homemade yoghurt using storebought stuff as a starter in the malck you're gonna use; has anybody tried that specifically?

Yeah it's easy as fuck. Definitely recommend trying it. I make mine in a slow cooker but you can make it in a pot, dutch oven, whatever.

You can freeze some leftover and reliably use that as a starter the next time if you're not going to be making a fresh batch every day or so.


It doesn't seem to work great in small amounts, I pretty much minimum do 2L+ each time but I don't eat that much yoghurt so I do it when I'm going to make yoghurt cake or frozen yoghurt etc

I started with priyas recipe from BA

https://www.tastecooking.com/recipes/dads-yogurt/

You can literally make half-decent hard apple wine with

Been meaning to try cider. I've done beer from a kit so have a big tub and airlock somewhere. I drink lager/pilsner but there's a bunch of shit I'm not willing to get into to make good homebrew lager apparently.

I'm likely going to start baking my own bread fairly soon and honestly I'm going to bake sourdough because it's impossible to find a decent loaf of it anywhere here. Gonna go look for a good starter kit and these motherfuckers with their bland-ass soft-crust "sourdough" can fuck right off, shit's insulting

Pretty easy to start your own sourdough. There's a bit of woo involved that if you use local yeast from your own self-made starter it's good for allergies etc rather than some thing oit of a packet.

You just mix equal parts flour and water and leave it in a jar with a cloth over it. Add a bit more over the course of a week and you'll be baking by the end of it. The natural yeasts in the air inoculate the mixture.

 

[XYZpdq]

I'd like to try making my own kraut but I've heard in Florida you just grow mold instead.

 

[OrionBalls]

I'd like to try making my own kraut but I've heard in Florida you just grow mold instead.

Is there no cool and dry place to store your kraut? You can do it in the fridge, too. It takes a bit longer. E- keep it in the warmest part of your fridge. The top shelf should do nicely. Never store in the door.
E- Also, some of that mold is natural a natural part to kraut. If it's white, it's just scum, and it both helps to protect the kraut, and can be removed. Unless that stuff turns black, you should be good.

 

[ExsanguinateHorizon]

Still going strong, and harvesting a pint of it erryday along with kimchi, occasional sauerkraut, and sourdough. Usually I just eat the excess grains or dump them in smoothies.

I'm having trouble getting rid of the yeastiness and am letting them hibernate to stop wasting so much milk. Tried a lot of things short of rinsing the grains, but the fermenting always comes out thin and boozy too. Not sure what I'm doing wrong

 

[Leonard Helplessness]

I've made both beer and cider and compared to beer, I find cider to be appallingly easy when it comes to making a batch of amazing fucking shit.

If you really want to go all out, you want to get stuff that's as fresh and unprocessed as possible. All storebought apple juices and apple ciders are pasteurized, and a frustratingly high proportion have preservatives which won't allow yeast to take hold at all. Ideally you want your apple juice to come straight from the orchard, unpasteurized. It'll be opaque, but the magic happens when you take home your massive 5-gallon fermenting jug (make sure you get stuff that won't let any oxygen through) and add pectic enzyme, which will turn the cider clear as glass over the course of a couple days. You'll want to add some other stuff too to kill all the natural organisms: Campden tablets will do that for you, and then they evaporate out. After that's done and you add yeast and yeast nutrient, you get to fuckin' wait, checking on the jug every day or so until you're sure fermentation has taken off and the airlock is bubbling away.

Once it's done fermenting after some weeks, you can either still that shit (using preservatives to kill all the yeast and then degassing it to remove all the CO2) or you can turn it into sparkling cider, for which you're going to want to put it in thick bottles that hold pressure and cap them yourself. You'll want to give the yeast some sugar to wake it back up, too, so it'll ferment a bit more in the bottles -- enough to pressurize them and carbonate the cider, but not enough to blow the damn bottles up.

Result, though, is just fucking godly.

 

[Afinepickle]

Yeah, gotta echo what other folks here have said on the booze front. Cider and Applewine are the easiest to do and do well. Also the easiest to get creative with when it comes to blending in other fruit juices or spice combinations because damn near everything works with apples. Every year my buddies all come by to devour the yearly spiced Applewine I make.

I also do mead which is only slightly more difficult but the real issue with making good mead is that good honey is fucking expensive so that's something I only do occasionally.

Beer is definitely the most cost effective but it's also the most work so I only like to do it when I can get a brew-day together with friends to divvy up the labor. It is nice to brew some of the more traditional styles of ale that you don't see very often though.

 

[Tim Curry]

Looking into some home brewing and distillation. Any good recommendations for buying bulk Wheat Malt?

 

[salvuserit]

in regards to beer, midwest supplies has great kits for 1 and 5 gallon home brews. The most expensive piece thing I had to buy to use a kit is a tank of propane for the boil. The "hardest" part of the brewing process is collecting enough bottles for 5 gallons of beer.

 

[Everything]

So I've recently got into Kombucha to lay off drinking beer .I decided to start brewing to save money and because I can't find what I like to drink at a reasonable price.
{quick run down of the process}

I started with a gallon jar that I quickly out grew.

I'm currently looking into getting a 5 gallon container to brew continuously . I'm still trying to figure it out how to get the flavour right, same for carbonation. I either get too much and end up with kombucha on the ceiling , or barely one bubble comes to the surface

. After using a bunch of artificial sweeteners like the big brewers do I think I prefer to use regular sugar tbh . I've also started fermenting other things like kvass of all kinds ( bread , beet, berry )
the longer you toast the bread the darker the drink will be , I accidentally burnt the one on the left lol

Also making jun which is the same as kombucha but instead of sugar and black tea its honey and green tea , its alright needs to be mixed in with other things it just tastes like sour honey to be honest.

I do other things like honey garlic, wines, and vinegar, so I'll keep this thread updated from time to time.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

March is usually a good time to get green cabbage in the US because of St. Patty's. It should go down to $0.3x/lb, sometimes $0.2x/lb. I can make all the ghetto kimchi or sauerkraut I desire. I have some new waterless airlock mason jar lids I got as a gift, so I'll be trying those out.

 

[The Blue Morpho]

I want to make kvass again this summer. Hardest part was creating the starter.

 

[Everything]

I want to make kvass again this summer. Hardest part was creating the starter.

feels took me a bit to figure out , first I added to much salt , or did something stupid keeping me from getting the perfect kvass, Out of bread , berries , and beets kvass I think I prefer the latter , its mild flavour takes to other ingredients well . also look at this fizzy carbonation.

I don't use starters most of the time , mostly because I forget , but if I remember I throw some raw kombucha in there. maybe it "helps". hard to say ssince I don't do it consistently.

 

[M(e)ad Man]

Simple mead guide, requiring little tools and no experience at all. This is my personal take after a decade of experimenting with it, I am in no way a professional nor is this supposed to be a Bible.

You need a cool place not exposed to sunlight, temperature needs to be around 15 to 20C (60-68F). Higher temps will result in slightly faster fermentation, but slightly worse product.
It will take 2-3 months at most to ferment.

"Tools" required:
A sealable fermenting vessel (glass jug, glass bottles, preferably not plastic)
A bubbler and an appropriate seal for the fermenting vessel (measure the inner diameter of the vessel you are using a get one accordingly)
Balloons (not kidding)
Glass bottles (for the bottling part)
Optional: food thermometer

Ingredients required:
Honey (no shit), it's best if you use two different kinds of honey, using only one kind will result in a flat tasting mead. Prefer raw honey to "processed" honey.
Bottled water (no shit, again). I discourage using tap water.
Yeast. Without yeast you won't make any mead. I heavily suggest using Mangrove Jack M05. Different kinds of yeast will result in slightly different taste, but most importantly alcohol content.

The recipe, assuming a 5L glass jug:
For ~4.5L*:
2.6L of water
2.1kg of honey, of which 1.4kg is gonna be your main honey, and 0.7kg is gonna be your "accent" honey. You can fuck around with the ratio if you want, but this is what I like. As an example, your main honey could be generic wildflower honey, and your accent honey can be chestnut honey. Experiment and see what works.
A third** of the yeast packet (if using M05).

*Your container has to have some empty space left, so don't fill it to the brim. If you completely fill your container, when it starts fermenting it will spill out of your bubbler and you can throw the whole batch away. Also, 2.6L is to roughly account for evaporation losses and the yeast water you'll add later.
**Adding more or less yeast affects fermentation speed. Adding roughly a third to 5L is probably overkill, but this is how I do it.

The process:
Sterilize your fermenting vessel and your bubbler. You can use hot water, or you can dilute some bleach (be sure to rinse it multiple times).

Revitalize your yeast. Get a bit more than half a glass of water (200ml if you want to be fancy). Add the yeast to it. Add half a teaspoon of sugar and mix.

Measure your honey and water and add them to the biggest pot you have. Apply heat to the pot. Your goal is to kill any wild yeast present in the honey. To do so, keep the mixture at 80C/176F for 5 minutes. DO NOT LET THE MIXTURE REACH ABOVE 80C OR 176F. Going above can degrade the honey. If you have a food thermometer you can use it, otherwise eyeball it, but absolutely do not let it boil.

Once you sterilized your water/honey mixture, you need to let it cool to ambient temp.
Once cooled, add the mixture into your fermentation vessel. Add the revitalized yeast, shake the fermentation vessel so that the liquid can get oxygenated.
Now, put the seal in your fermentation vessel, add water to your bubbler and put it in the seal.
Put it in a dark corner and forget about it for a while.

What to expect:
After a day you should start to see some movement and slow bubbling. This means the yeast is starting to process the sugar in the honey into ethanol, and producing CO2 as a byproduct.
After a couple days the bubbling should be more vigorous and the liquid may become cloudy.
When the bubbling dies down and the cloudiness settles, you will notice some solid residue at the bottom of your vessel. This is "scum". You want the least of this as possible. You probably won't die if you drink mead with some scum in it (at least I didn't die from it), but it's better if you don't carry it over.

When you are 100% sure the fermentation has stopped (no bubbling, no cloudiness) put your vessel into a fridge. This is to make the scum solidify a bit, so it's harder for it to carry over. If you cannot put it into a fridge, leave it for some more days.
Remove the bubbler and seal from the vessel, get your glass bottles and CAREFULLY pour your mead into the bottles. Avoid splashing and avoid carrying over the scum. The bottles should be filled properly without leaving space for oxygen. If you manage to not splash the mead, congrats, your final result may also be slightly fizzy, otherwise you will have a flat mead.
If you are left with some mead with a lot of scum at the end, you can put it in its own bottle or throw it away entirely. Throwing it away is a waste of product, but no way I am drinking that shit.

However, the mead may still be very slowly fermenting/releasing gas and if you cap the bottles they may explode from the accumulated gas. Put a balloon around the cap of the bottle. This allows the gas to be released and oxygen to not get in, like a bubbler. You can also buy bubblers and seals for your glass bottles, but I deem it an unnecessary expense.
You can tell that the mead is still active if the balloon inflates, if it does, release the air from the balloon until it stops inflating, at which point you can cap the bottle and let it sit for a couple months at least.
I recommend letting it sit for at least 3 months, the longer the better.
If there is a small layer of scum at the bottom of the bottles, I promise you probably won't die from it.

That's it.

 

[MunsterCheeseJr]

Something that I tried recently. The white part of the rind on normal watermelons that most people don't eat. Well asians will cook that up in stir fries. But you can also pickle them. I gave it a swing.

They are not good enough that you will smash through a jar of them like pickles. But they are good enough to have one or two as a garnish, or tossed in with your salad.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

I have my own sourdough starter but I can never seem to make anything worth eating with it. I recently bought a proper scale though so I'm thinking I'm just not measuring things out good. I'm hoping the scale sets me on the right path for making a properly rising dough.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

If I brew alcohol again I want to go lower tech. For something fizzy like beer I would also consider carbonating it with a tank instead of bottle conditioning and all that jazz.

The next time I make yogurt, I want to filter it to make it thicker. I haven't done this out of laziness and the need to come up with a good set up using a strainer, cheese cloth, etc. suspended in a container in the fridge.

 

[Cirrhosis_of_Liver]

I think I enjoy feeding my sourdough starter more than I enjoy eating bread.

Like an off the grid tamogotchi.

 

[I mean I'm just saying]

Building off of my meta-thread post, here's a primer for my kefir hobby:

My special interest is kefir, which I've been making consistently for a few years now. It's a lot like yogurt but thinner, and importantly is much more full of yeast and bacteria which can easily ferment regular supermarket milk at room temp without any pre-boil or heating like with yogurt.

I've got a heavily edited down video of my process:

1. Combine roughly 3 cups of milk and a teaspoon-ish (it changes depending on a few factors) of kefir grains into each quart jar you're using. Let set in an area around 65 degrees F, though I've pulled off temps from 55 to 85. A basement is ideal to minimize extremes and keep timing more consistent. The ferment is done after around 24 hours, ideally as soon as you can see a minimal amount of whey separating on the bottom. I'd say the texture of regular drinkable kefir is at its best when caught just before all but some bubbles of separation have formed. The jars in the video are a bit over-fermented, but they've survived worse quite a few times.
2. Open finished primary ferment jar, then stir up the contents. Slowly pour the contents into a strainer set over a bowl, gently swirling the strainer during and after the pour until only the cauliflower-looking grains remain in the strainer. This swirl is probably the most uncommon innovation I've seen, but it makes things so much faster compared to the usual spatula scraping method.
3. Optionally, set aside the finished kefir to ferment further without the grains, known as a second ferment. Flavorings like citrus peels or fruit can be added, but I usually don't add anything. Second-fermented kefir can be put into the fridge generally within 4 to 8 hours to halt further fermentation and separation.

My daily ritual is actually 2, 3, 1, since I deal with yesterday's ferment and prepare the next in one contiguous ~20 minute session.

If you prefer something like Greek yogurt over a drink, you can strain the kefir through a cheesecloth like I do:

The result can be used in place of Greek yogurt in nearly all recipes. Straining like this yields a more consistent texture, whereas normal drinkable kefir varies a lot depending on how the ferment goes. The plastic contraption serves the same purpose as a strainer over a bowl, but sits much better in the fridge; it works without the cheesecloth, but the cheesecloth makes the process so much easier, is cheap, and even can be washed and reused. I most commonly mix in some fruit jam with a spoon for something quick, or go at it with the stick blender whisk for a more airy and homogeneous texture.

The liquid separating from straining, whey, is full of yeast and bacteria which can kickstart other ferments like a quick sourdough, a kombucha-like soda, and the alcoholic blaand. I've done all of these ferments with limited but significant success, with better results on the drink side. I also drink whey straight because I'm a freak I end up with so much whey that I need any excuse to use it up. Whey is very light drink which inherits most of regular kefir's tartness, and can build up carbonation when sealed in a fermentation-safe bottle, usually flip-top.

There's a lot of upsides that make this specific ferment ideal for sustainability compared to similar ferments:

• Milk is cheap and kefir is expensive. Transforming 20 minutes of work $1.30 of supermarket milk into two quarts kefir which can cost $9.00 at the supermarket for an inferior shelf-stable version or $20 from hippies on a farm is a pretty good financial return for this type of hobby, and can get even better with creative use of byproducts.
• Kefir grains multiply over time pretty quickly just by being used, so you can scale up or down with more or less jars pretty smoothly. You can order kefir grains on Amazon for like $15 pretty cheaply to get started or restart if you screw up.
• You can make frozen or dried grain back-ups as insurance.
• The process uses no external consumable resources other than time and minimal space. No boiling or warming required unlike yogurt.
• Fermentation can be "paused" in the fridge for up to a few weeks if necessary. I don't do this often, but the grains are noticeably slower and weaker for a week or so when returning to room temp. I haven't seen the possible damage of doing this very often.
• Kefir grains are shockingly resilient. I've personally had mine get smashed to little bits to the point where I thought they'd never recover, but they actually reformed after a week of continuing the process on a hope and a prayer.
• Kefir works very well with flavors and mix-ins like fruit jams, lemon curd, and sugar. This on top of using kefir in the many recipes that use yogurt let the results of this hobby never get boring.

I absolutely recommend making kefir as a hobby to anybody who's remotely interested, it's easier than you think and opens up a lot of fun possibilities.

Also, give me your best recipes which use yogurt.

 

[Dingus Egg]

Simple mead guide, requiring little tools and no experience at all. This is my personal take after a decade of experimenting with it, I am in no way a professional nor is this supposed to be a Bible.

The good thing about mead is that its super fucking simple and if you properly sanitize everything its just fire and forget. I usually do 5 gallon batches of beer, cider, or mead. Beer is absolutely the most time intensive brewing process of the three especially when you do non-extract brews, but when it turns out well I find it to be the most rewarding.

I personally hate bottling so I've invested in a chest freezer that a friend had previously modified into a 4 keg 4 tap setup and now when the product is finished there's just the simple process of siphoning the liquid into a 6gal keg and setting it to start carbonating. I think I've probably invested ~$1,200 into the brewing setup so far, including the freezer, brewing equipment, grain mill, fermenters, kegs, etc... Luckily the brewing community is very recycling friendly. I think when I was starting out I had 3-4 friends who had previously been interested in homebrew stuff and donated their fermenters and such, or sold them for cheap.

One thing that I would highly recommend is investing in 7gal plastic fermonsters. Thin neck glass carboys are fucking annoying to clean and I've heard horror stories of people cutting up their arms and shit when they break. That's just my personal preference though.

It's a very rewarding hobby if you like getting drunk. Nothing beats cold beer on tap that you made yourself or with friends.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

The plastic contraption serves the same purpose as a strainer over a bowl, but sits much better in the fridge; it works without the cheesecloth, but the cheesecloth makes the process so much easier, is cheap, and even can be washed and reused.

I've made gallons of yogurt in the Instant Pot but I never got around to finding the right container and contraption set up to strain in the fridge. That looks exactly like what I would want, very cool.