Cooking with @fat-elvis - Lacto-fermentation

Whats up food lovers

Today I started a couple batches of fermentation. This is because I got an Amazon order in. These glass pickle pebbles and these colourful wide mouth mason jar anaerobic fermentation lids. Everything, jars, lids, glass pickle pebbles, hands knife... Everything got sanitized with Star-San no rinse beer kit sanitizer. That's where those little bubbles are from.

So I chopped up some sweet baby bell peppers for fermented hot sauce.

Why sweet peppers you ask? Because of these firey bastards.

Man I love habanero peppers. 15 habaneros went into this pint jar. So there will be plenty of heat.

So this type of fermentation needs a brine. And my rule for brining is 2 tablespoons of pickling or non-iodized salt per quart of filtered water. Add veggies to a jar, cover with brine, and ferment until delicious. The main thing is to keep the veggies under the brine, that's where that glass pickle pebble comes in. After fermenting for a couple of weeks, I'll puree this in the magic bullet blender and keep it in the fridge, to slow down the fermentation process.

Next up is Sauerkraut. Classic fermented Bavarian goodness.

Chop green cabbage in half and cut out the core.

Chop up

Now sprinkle pickling salt on it, about 2 tablespoons, no magic number, we taste it after we smash it and if it's too salty, We just add some filtered water. And we massage the cabbage with the salt, with our hands, until it gets a bit mushy and the water starts coming out of the cabbage.

So we leave that for about 1/2 hour, and then pack the cabbage into jars. Top the jars and put them away, under the sink for a few weeks. Easy.

Oh and for years, I've been fermenting without these fancy things. You can use a freezer ziplock full of water instead of the glass pebbles, and instead of the airlock lids, you can simply loosen the regular lids once a day to "burp" the jar, or leave the lid slightly loosened.

Anyway, health starts in the gut, and gut health starts with Lacto-fermentation. So get fermenting, and guess what, that's where flavour comes from.