My First Ferment

I've been thinking about fermenting for a good few months now.

Why?

Well, first, I love the taste of fermented foods. I am also super curious about the probiotic power of them and how they can enrich the gut microbiome - a topic which I will expand on more in the future.

Finally, shop-bought ‘live’ fermented foods [i.e. the refrigerated kind] are pretty pricey!

I had a lot of reasons to give it a go, but I have also been massively procrastinating with the how to’s!

So….

I decided to set myself a deadline - my birthday!

This was last week, and I am happy to report, on the day in question, I made my first ferment - a very basic sauerkraut recipe of cabbage, carrot, ginger and pink Himalayan salt.

I did treat myself to a couple of £3 Kilner jars, but the rest was DIY'd from what I had to hand, using cabbage leaves & shot glasses as weights and experimenting with the existing Kilner jar lid & a more breathable baking paper version.

Conclusions

The taste and texture were bang on!

I think 5 days was too short a wait time and I would like to try a longer ferment [7-14 days] to see if I can culture a richer mix of microbes.

I am also curious to buy a pH meter to get better insights. A good ferment should have a PH of below 4.5 apparently.

I am in the process of monitoring the effects on my digestive system, so will keep you posted when I’ve road tested things for a few more days :)

I am very much a novice at the start of this journey, so all tips and suggestions are hugely welcome!

The method I used was from a wonderful lady on YouTube, click the button below to see the video where she breaks the process down in more detail: