pia sorensen: so welcome, everyone. so today is fermentationday, fermentation week, which is one of my favoriteweeks in the semester. i also on the side teach a classon fermentation, so i love this. and we're very excited tohave tara whitsitt here. and i'm going to introduceher and leave over to her. i usually like to start withthis slide because it is such-- and the question i ask, but youalready know the answer to this, is what do these foods have in common?
but even if you knowthe answer, i think it's worth it to just pauseand look at this and see just how diverse these flavors are. i mean, everything from coffee,chocolate, wine, olives, beer, miso, yogurt-- really diversefoods, really diverse flavors. but they all come from fermentation. and soon, i think-- isee some cabbage here. soon we're going to turn cabbageinto something really flavorful. so they've all been produced with bugs.
and i usually-- anotherreason i like this lecture is because so far in thisclass, for those of you who have been comingearlier in the semester, so far we've basically cooked the egg. sometimes we joke that everyconcept that we cover in this class, you could only talk about eggs. this entire class is about eggs. and so so far, we've cooked the egg. and we've cooked other things than eggs.
we've cooked steak and ceviche,molten chocolate cake, pesto. we've whipped egg whites. and what these have in commonis that they are all ways that we mess with proteins. and proteins are basically--they're the basis of life. so here, we mess up proteins by heating. here we mess up proteinsby adding ceviche, although this actually looks cooked. here, we mess up proteins byheating the molten chocolate cake.
if we want to make sure thatpesto does not turn dark, then we want to makesure that we mess up the proteins that would turn it dark. so we would add some acid,or we would blanch the pesto before, the basil leaves before,to make sure it stays green. even when we whip egg whites,we're kind of denaturing. by physical force, we'redenaturing the proteins. so we mess with proteins. what happens when youmess with proteins?
you kill things. so this class so far hasjust been about death. it's just been about death. now we've come to thepart of the class where it's about life because now these bugs,we want to make sure they stay alive. and we want to makesure they're super happy so that they can produce allof these molecules for us. so when raise our dough,when we start our sourdough, we want to make sure that thebugs in there are super happy
and they're cranking outlots of flavor molecules and making the food delicious. so it's now about life. this is a greeting from michael, whosometimes does this introduction. you should look at this, tara. he was very excited toshow you this picture. this is yeast. he made his own yeast. tara whitsitt: lovely.
pia sorensen: lovely. no, i know. tara whitsitt: yeah. pia sorensen: beautiful. with bugs, we mean everythingfrom lactic acid bacteria to baker's yeast to fungus, whichi know some people-- you know, it's one of those wordsthat make you feel like maybe things aren't so delicious. but we like to talk straight here.
so these are the kinds ofbugs that we're talking about. and these are the kindsof enzymatic reactions that happen in the bugs that crankout all these flavor molecules and molecules that makes things savoryor acidic and makes the food preserve or, like this picture,makes us intoxicated. and basically, what all of thesebugs do is they turn long molecules, large molecules, into small molecules. so they take the long sugars, thelong proteins, the long lipids, and they turn it into ethanol,gases, aromas, flavor molecules.
they're all smaller molecules. and the reason they do this is basicallyto beat out all the other microbes. so if you were sittinghere, and you were producing all these moleculesthat smell bad and stink, then you would want to get out of here. and maybe you would even, if youwere a microbe, you would die. and so then all of you would take over. and you would-- i don't know. you would make cheese or sauerkraut.
that's the basis of how it works. this is all part of the chemicalwarfare between microbes. so by producing some of these moleculeswhich are toxic to other molecules, you're sort of making sureyour species survives, and that is ultimatelypreserving the food. ok. so just quickly, alcoholis an example of this. once you increase theethanol concentration, you can't have so many otherkinds of bugs live there.
cheese is another example. it turns out cheese rindsare these beautiful examples of biofilms of bacteria. and rachel dutton, who used tobe at harvard until recently and is now at uc san diego, sheactually used cheese as a way to study and understandmicrobial communities. so she went all other world,took little cheese samples. it was a very delicious trip. and she then sequencedall of the microbes.
and this is a map of what she found. this is the amazingdiversity of microbes she found in cheeses all over the world. fermentation is very close to rotting. if things go bad, thenyou're spoiling the food. and here is some beautifulartwork for this. i'm just going to show you this. lovely, beautiful. this is sort of the bad side.
so real quick, the way this happensis by exponential growth of bacteria. so you all know that the way life worksis that you start out with one person, and it divides andturns into two people. and the first person dies. and then they turn into twopeople each, and they die. and then it goes on like this. and this is how life works. so if you were to take this and youwould just turn it into an equation, you would get this equation.
[applause] thanks. equation of the week. we clap for equations here. yeah. so you could take thisequation, and you could turn it into this equation, which isa little more straightforward. so i like this one better. you don't have to clap again.
so you could now look at thisequation, and you could plug things in. so you could say, ok. how about i have a piece ofcheese or i have some food. and there's one salmonellabacteria on there. and then i let this thingsit out for 12 hours. how many salmonellabacteria would there be? so you would plug thisinto the equation. and you would get 7to 10 to the 10 bugs. this is 10 zeros.
it's a lot of bugs. if you did this for 7 grams ofbugs, in fact, that's a lot. if you did this for 24 hours, then youwould have 10 to the 11 grams of bugs. so lots of bugs. why does that not happen when youstart out with one salmonella bacteria? why do not-- i mean, there's got tobe one salmonella bacteria out there somewhere. why is not the earth takenover by salmonella bacteria? audience: growth conditions?
pia sorensen: growth conditions. i mean, at some point, they canonly divide as long as there's food. and as soon as they run out of food,they're not going to divide anymore. so lucky for us, usuallythey run out of food faster. so even if the thing-- you knowthat sandwich you had earlier today. even if there was onesalmonella bacteria on there, you're probably fine. you're probably not going to get sick. and if you do, this is why.
so that's all i have to say. so i'm now going to introducetara whitsitt, which we're so excited to have her visit. tara has a truck. she has a fermentation truck. i mean, do i need to say more? and i'm just gonna leave over to you. please, let's welcome tara. tara whitsitt: thank you.
well, first of all, i want to thankharvard for having me here today. the last time i was in boston, i washere with my bus, my 40-foot bus. and i have a much more lavishsituation this time around being here, which i never expected to bein boston, treated so well. so yeah, i'm reallygrateful to not be parked on a busy street injamaica plain getting very little sleep before speakingto people about the things i love. so yeah, thanks. in october 2013, i departed fromeugene, oregon, my home base,
with a 1986 internationalharvester military bus while slowly converting it to afermentation laboratory, library, and classroom. i didn't do the entireinstallation on my own. i did it with the help of manypeople throughout the united states over the course of two years. in those two years, i held 156events in 27 different states and reached over 5,000 individuals. my original goal was to completea year-long tour of the united
states called fermentation on wheels, inwhich i would work at farms in exchange for food and educationalresources and visit cities to hold free workshops onfermentation methods using locally harvested foods to give people thetools to consume foods more thoughtfully and also provide communities witha direct line to their food source. it was also to inspire peopleto get back into their kitchens. it was a challenge. a lot of friends and familythought i was kind of losing it. i was an inexperienced bus driver.
the day i bought my bus wasthe first day i drove it. i had a failed kickstarter. my bus had no plumbing orelectricity when i took off. over time, my bus has become one ofthe most innovative and interesting learning spaces, but it tooka lot of time and effort. the very gradual installationof my solar system is a good example ofthis time and effort. i began installing my solar systemwhile i was in northern california at the solar living institute.
the labor and installationof fundamental parts were offered in exchange for lettinga class demonstrate on my bus. four months later, inmississippi, i made $500 in donations, fivetimes the most i'd ever made in donations teaching fermentation. so i bought a $250 solar panel. i had no skill to installthe panel on my bus. so that was kind of anobstacle to actually getting the system working right away.
but nevertheless, i drove withmy panel on the floorboards. i was patient. when i parked and taught,i would drag the panel to the back of my bus in mybedroom and hide it, and then drag it back out when i drove again. and then a month later, incharlotte, north carolina, i met two guys that installedthe panel on the roof of my bus in exchange for sauerkraut. and this just really provedthe unprecedented generosity
of others and the constant communityof people who want to heal the world and help others. and community has becomeincreasingly important to americans over the past decade. in a country where profitover people has crept into and now defines aspectsof our culture, and we're discovering we may leave theearth in worse condition than when we came to it, we realize moreand more that the only way to repair these damagesis to work together
for bigger and better outcomes. at a workshop in philadelphia inmay, 2014, a local community gardener and youth educator expressed she feltthe need to do all of the things. it was overwhelming-- how toteach others to grow food; how to get the most out of their food,whether it be raw, cooked fermented; and then educating onthoughtful consumption. she didn't list thesedetails, but i knew exactly what she meant when she felt itwas impossible to do all of the things. and her end point was, i'm reallyglad that you're tackling this issue,
fermentation education, and that you'remaking it more accessible to people all over the nation. like, oh, good. someone's got that. and it's impossible toconstantly feel encouraged when we don't work together to tacklethese massive issues in education, food, and health. when i first entered the work world, igot a corporate job in new york city, not because i wanted to, but ididn't think i had other choices.
it had been ingrained in me to take careof myself and let the rest of the world take care of itself. but after five years,it was a slow transition leaving my consumer-driven andsmall bubble of a lifestyle, but it began with the desire for change. even if i haven't joineda physical community in making change in theworld, i was feeling synergy with the active force of humansadvocating for better food. and i began that changefirst by buying better food,
consuming more thoughtfully. and i'm not talking aboutgoing to the grocery store and looking for labels that saynon-gmo, organic, low fat, local. i'm talking more about actuallyreading the back of a package and seeing if you understand any ofthe ingredients listed on the back, or if you can pronounceall the ingredients, which i'll admit thereare a lot of ingredients i know i can't actually pronounce. or you could also justskip the grocery store
and go to the local farmersmarket and buy raw ingredients from a farmer that'sin the local vicinity. and so then my next step to fully engagein a better, more sustainable food system is to make my meals athome, to preserve my food at home. it's empowering, and thismade me feel in unison with a time passed, with theoriginal homesteaders of america. and in some ways, i feltalready for an apocalypse. and my bus has actuallysurvived two apocalypses. they each happened onhalloween, 2013 and 2014.
fellow survivors packed into thebus to admire my healthy compost pile, clean water, vintagebus-made wine, sauerkraut, and a modest exhibitof fresh vegetables. my post-apocalyptic bus lardercleared the motto "yolo-- you only live once, ferment your vegetables." so today, as a 29-year-old who hascircumnavigated the country teaching people of all ages and socioeconomiclevels in my 40-foot bus turned laboratory and classroom, filledwith glass and bubbling concoctions, i remind peoplehappiness and self-reward
doesn't come from a paycheckat the end of two weeks. the most rewarding thing wecan do is follow our dreams, no matter how terrifying they are. and my hope is that mostof our fellow dreams will align with changing the world welive in now to a world with healthier air, humans, soil, and water, to promotea community of thriving organisms on small and large scales. something some of us don'trealize or maybe take for granted is that all of these things in ourenvironment-- small and large--
depend on each other for survival. understanding my environment and thefood within it as a community project made fermentation a revelation for me. i didn't grow up with fermented foods. the only thing that may have closelyresembled something fermented from my youth was pasteurized yogurt,which is not that tasty and lacks in over half of the nutritionalcontent it once had. so why, for the past 60 years,have we chosen food devoid of life rather than the real deal?
the true value of food isn'trealized, and it desensitizes us. some of our palates don'tunderstand the real deal anymore. and luckily, in mytravels, i've now have the pleasure of tasting dozensof different yogurt cultures, each with their own distinct flavor,all in varying levels of mild to tangy, and each with their own story, too. so fermentation celebrates uniqueness. in addition to our palettesnewfound confusion to uniqueness, we've been told bacteriaisn't good for us,
even though we're composed of10 times more bacterial cells than we are of human cells. we're 90% microbe. and good food is not expensive. in an agricultural systemthat is mostly crop dusted and/or genetically modifiedand rotates only between corn, soy, and sugar beets, real food grownin healthy soil is a rarity. the stuff that's widely available,watered down, and subsidized is cheap. it's up to us to make positiveconsumer decisions that
will ultimately discourage monoculture. so i urge you to considerthe importance of diversity. and this might seem superobvious to a lot of us here. but access to goodfood and food education is still a huge strugglefor a lot of people, even for those in nearbythriving food communities. for example, the averagehousehold in princeton, new jersey makes three timesthat of the family household in trenton, new jersey, whereless than 50% of students
graduate from high school. both cities are located in the samecounty, and they're 13 miles apart. yet princeton hashistorically had access to good food and top-notch education,while trenton falls far behind. that's changing, slowly but surely. and part of that is thanksto a nonprofit called isles. isles, inc helps membersof the communities start their own cooperativegardens and teaches youth in public schoolsabout food through gardening.
this is a small fraction of the workthey do to enrich their community. i was honored to collaboratewith isles and share my bus with near 100 students in thetrenton public school system in 2014. and they've been a supervaluable partner of mine, helping reach students whomight otherwise be overlooked. isles, inc is a great example ofthe ways in which we can plant seeds in our communities to make change. we can plant theseseeds in smaller ways, too, by simply sharingand empowering techniques
at home with our family and friends. four years ago, a new friendfrom my local brooklyn farmer's market brought cabbageand salt to my apartment and showed me how to make sauerkraut. i was at awe, not because i wasespecially crazy about sauerkraut. i liked sauerkraut, but ilove meditations in food. and fermentation was still amysterious meditation to me. it was actually super easy, and itdidn't require a lot of kitchen tools. and, you know, somethingabout today's modern kitchen
is i think we feel we need thisoverwhelming amount of tools to actually make ayummy meal or especially to preserve something at home. but it wasn't immediate thatthe revelation came when i packed the sauerkraut into the jar. it was as the days passed, and iwatched the community of bacteria in my sauerkraut bubble away. it's a super collaborative meditationwhen sauerkraut begins its process and you actually watchthe gases begin to rise.
there's a color change, too. it's a very visual experience. and so at that point, sauerkraut becamethis whole new force in my universe, and a delicious one, too. so fermentation has becomemy protest to all the things that disenchant me in the food system. so that's why i have this hugemonologue on my issues with food and why it's important toreally recognize diversity as something we need more of right now.
fermentation was thenext-level step for, i feel, changing the way thatwe view food in collaboration with those who tendthe soil it lives in. we need healthy soilto get healthy plants and have rich, awesomebacteria thriving. and so i feel what better way toprotest this than to travel the country, sharing this information for free. i'm a fermentationenthusiast, a lover of food. some people call me an expert.
i wouldn't say i'm an expert. i'm an artist. accessible education is my medium. fermentation is my inspiration tool. and community is my motivation. i have been an introvertmost of my life, but i'm really glad i'venever let that keep me from standing up for what i believe in. i refuse to sit on the sidelines.
so with that, let'smake some sauerkraut. has anyone here fermented before? are people fermenting in this crowd? some people. who's fermenting vegetables? great. and who is fermenting with startercultures, such a sourdough, water kefir, kombucha? all right.
so fermentation is a simple,naturally-occurring process where there's a microbial transformationin which unique flavors are produced, super tangy flavors, especially. and what's actuallyhappening in the process is sugars are being converted intoacids, gases, and sometimes alcohol. in this process, we are workingwith lactic acid bacteria. we're making a simple sauerkraut today. there are three basic controlswhen we work in fermentation. temperature is big.
so the kind of range at which we wantto ferment in, i say 68 to 76 degrees is a really good, ideal range. of course, you can give ortake a few on either end. but the main thing to remember isthat the cooler the temperature, the slower the fermentationprocess will work. and the warmer it is, than the fasterthe fermentation process should work. so it's good to have a kind of mediumrange for fermentation to get it going. and something else about temperaturebeing a factor in that when it's cold and things slow down, this is alsoa way to hit the pause button.
so when we get towardsthe end of the lesson and talk about packing the foodaway, the way we do that is we actually put it in a refrigerated place. another control is salt. we usesalt in the fermentation process to draw water from thevegetables we're fermenting. we also use it to enhance the flavoror impact the flavor in whatever way. some people like less salt.some people like more. that's fine. but then, finally, saltis also very important
because it promotes the growth oflactic acid bacteria, also known as lactobacillus. time is another controlthat we use in fermentation. the longer you ferment for, the moredevelopment of these tangy flavors, and the shorter you ferment for,the milder your sauerkraut will be. so this is one of the beautiesof fermenting at home, is that you actually decidewhen you take the sauerkraut off of the fermenter, whichis like this ideal temperature range is the fermenter, you could say.
and yeah, some people like itafter one week, when it's mild. some like it at three weeks. then you're gettinga good, tangy flavor. i really like my sauerkrautat four to five weeks. so i like it even a little more tangy. so pickles-- when we make pickles,there are a few different ways to make pickles. and something i think a lot ofpeople are a little confused about is what is a fermented pickleversus a canned pickle?
and canning is verydifferent from fermenting. so when we can foods, we'reheat processing the food. so obviously, no life can occur whenwe heat process any of our vegetables. and in fermentation, it'sentirely the opposite. we're actually bringingmore life to the food. the idea is that you'redoubling the life, and you're enhancing it, makingit a more microbially rich food. and so when you go to the grocerystore and you see sauerkraut sitting on the shelf, that's a canned food.
it's not fermented. if a fermented food were to siton a shelf in the grocery store, it would rot. it can't sit for long in that state. it will keep fermenting. so when you go the refrigeratedsection in your grocery store, that is an actual live, fermented food. that's the real deal sauerkraut. so bacteria is everywhere.
what we're working with today, wewould refer to it as wild fermentation. we call it wildfermentation because we're relying on the bacteria that is actuallyon the cabbage rather than a bacteria that we introduce. there are times where weintroduce other organisms. we might say one of thereasons i would culture my sauerkraut-- let's say i madea really great batch of sauerkraut from scratch. and because any time youmake sauerkraut is completely
unpredictable from one batch to thenext-- conditions will never quite be the same. so let's say i make thisreally wonderful sauerkraut. and the only way i can reallyget that flavor profile again is if i transfer a little bit of thebrine from that kraut to my next kraut. so it's kind of a wayof transferring flavor profile by grabbingsome of that bacteria and bringing it over to your next batch. that's not the most typicalform of starter culture.
starter cultures are also likesourdough, kombucha, water kefir, anything that you use inthe process of inoculation. this is just anotherform of inoculation. some people like to culturetheir vegetables with whey. i'm not an especially big fan of whey. i don't have a lot of wheyhanging out regularly. so i'm not psyched toget whey into the mix. the one benefit if you use a starterculture while fermenting cabbage is it speeds up the process a bit.
but wild fermentation, usingjust the bacteria that is there, is a beautiful thing. it's really easy. you don't need anything-- salt,keep it anaerobic-- so omit oxygen-- and give it time. so people always ask howdo you know you're not getting undesirable bacteria? like, what is keeping it away? so lactobacillus is this superrobust, competitive organism.
and it's actually usedin so many of our-- it is present in so many ofour fermented foods-- cheese, yogurt, kefir especially,fermented vegetables. all of these foods are very safe. sometimes you'll get thegrowth of white or blue mold. these molds are not toxic. you can simply scrape themoff, eat what's underneath. but a really, really great story ilike to tell in regards to lactic acid bacteria is one ofnoella marcellino, who
was a nun and a doctor inmicrobiology in connecticut. and she's a cheese makerfor many, many years. and she fermented ina big, wooden barrel. and one day, the fda came to her. this was, i think, in the '80s. and they said, this is unsanitary. you have to stopfermenting in this barrel and start fermenting in stainless steel. and as a microbiologist, you canimagine she was pretty outraged.
like, yeah, this barrelhas a lot of history. it's kind of responsible for thetaste and the uniqueness of my cheese. i definitely can't switchover to a stainless steel vessel for my cheese-making process. and this barrel was,let's say, like 60 years old into the cheese-making process. so she did this really wild thing. she made two batches, one in a stainlesssteel, and the other in her barrel. and she inoculatedthem both with e. coli.
the batch in the stainlesssteel was ruined, and the batch in thewooden barrel was fine. and that was becausethe wooden barrel was lined with lactobacillesfrom years and years and years of havingcheese be fermented in it. and so that really shows the robustnessof this organism we work with. there have been no recordedcases of people getting sick from vegetable fermentation. if anything, it's not going tobe good because it's not tasty.
maybe the ingredient combinationyou used just wasn't a great one. and that's a simple partof any cooking process. so that's the same deal. so we're going to go ahead andmove forward with the hands-on. so equipment we need--a vessel is important. i like glass. i especially recommend glass if you'regetting started in fermentation. this is because of visibility. so you can actually see what'sgoing on within the jar.
if you're getting a little bit of moldaction on the top of your sauerkraut, then you know tomaintain, scrape it off. you can also use ceramic, food-gradeplastic, and stainless steel. so glass is great because, like isaid, visibility and quantities. so if you want to make just a quartor kraut, that's really easy to do. not everyone wants tohave a gallon of kraut at home, especially if they livealone and don't eat that much kraut. and then a weight is important. today, we are simply savingthe leaves of these cabbages.
and we're going to actually packthe sauerkraut down with the leaves. so we won't need a weight. a weight i recommend more ifyou have an even larger vessel, like if you had a gallon. and also, my favoriteweights are river rocks. what i do with the river rocks,i find the smoothest river rocks, and i scrub them with water, and theni boil them for 15 to 20 minutes. i found this to be thebest tool as a weight. you can also use a jar that willfit into the mouth of your jar
and fill it with water. that's a great weight, too. some people like to take a thickplastic bag, put it over the kraut, and then fill it with water, tie it up. that works quite fine, as well. and then you want something to keep dustand bugs out-- tea towel, rubber band. there are these really fancy airlocksystems that you can find today, and they're kind of likethese plastic twist-ons. and you have a little airlock.
and what airlocks do is theyallow the co2 to escape, but no oxygen can come in. so that creates lessopportunity for mold growth. it's really not necessary. if you want to try it out,you can find them easily. maybe some of you are alreadyusing airlock systems. and then salt-- i useunrefined sea salt. i just get salt from thebulk bin at my grocery store. i recommend staying away from salt thathas decaking agents or iodine, anything
that is not simply salt.and that's part of quality or using any extra type of ingredientsthat could mess with your microbes. although, i have usediodized salt. it worked. some people say it adds aflavor that is unpleasant. i didn't notice that. but there are a lot of ways to do this. but obviously, it's easy to juststick to pure, pure salt. you can also experiment with smokedsalts-- pink himalayan salt. there are these mineral-rich salts.
they work just as well, too. so does anyone have questions so far? yes? audience: [inaudible]. tara whitsitt: yeah, so saltpromotes the growth of lactobacillus. lactobacillus is specialin that it's a halophile. so it's a salt-loving organism. most bacteria, especiallythe undesirable guys that we don't wanthanging out in here, they
do not like salt, whichis what makes the salt part of this process very safe. tara whitsitt: yeah, it'slike the combination of salt and acidity keeps theundesirable organisms at bay. so we're going to chop some cabbages. we're saving theseleaves aside for later. so i always like to half mycabbages, and then quarter them. i just find this is a mucheasier way to handle them. and i'm going to go ahead and dosome chopping, too, because it's fun.
oh, there's just one knife. melissa: it's in the bag. tara whitsitt: oh. pia sorensen: if there are questionswhile you guys are chopping, i don't know if you cando-- i can't chop and answer a question at the same time. but you seem so awesome. so yes? once you have made fermented sauerkrautand you put it in the refrigerator,
will it be good forindefinitely, basically? tara whitsitt: i mean, over time, thesauerkraut will be a little less tasty. and you also need to be carefulin how you're storing it. it's best to store itunder the brine if you're storing it for very long periods. generally, it will last anywherefrom six months to a year. but some sauerkrauts lastlonger than that, even. when working with kimchi, which hasa lot of garlic and is antimicrobial, i find that garlic always slowsdown the fermentation process.
and i can keep it for much,much longer in cold storage. also, it probably hassomething to do with the fish sauce that's in the kimchi. i mean, fish sauce is kindof its own different animal in regards to fermentation. it's a year-long ferment. so that probably helps in preservation,too, with kimchi, specifically. because i can leave kimchiin a refrigerator for years. and sometimes it's just better.
i mean, it's like the most amazing,delicious ferment you'll ever have. audience: thank you. tara whitsitt: you're welcome. audience: how does thebacteria in whatever you're fermenting change day-by-day? so right when you're starting,what is that profile like? and how is that on day three versus twoweeks later versus three weeks later? i know you said lactobacillus reallybattles for the space and takes over. but what's going on in the process?
tara whitsitt: like, the ascentof lactobacillus over time? so the movement of lactobacillus,it's said that at day 28, that's where there's a kind ofexplosion of these organisms. that's where they hit a climax. so if you were to have a kind of graph,it'd be like week one, two, three. and somewhere between weekthree and four, it's like, boom. and then four, five, six. and over time, it kind of dwindles. and i mean, of course that's going tovary a lot based on temperature, too.
but that's at the range between,like, 68, 76 that i mentioned. it's around day 28,give or take a few days. but it does move up into a climax,and then it slowly kind of moves off. audience: when you driveyour bus around, how do you-- tara whitsitt: sorry? audience: when youdrive your bus around, how do you feel that the vibrationsof moving all of your cultures around affects fermentation? so some of my culturesdon't like agitation.
some of them couldn't care less. some of them like agitation. i mean, i'm fermenting anywherefrom 30 to 40 different gallons, or 40 to 50 gallons offermented foods and beverages at any given time on my bus. so that ranges from wine, beer, cider tomiso and sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha. kombucha and vinegar,i have the big problem in that-- do you want me to pass that? i have the big issuethat i can never form
a proper scoby, which is a symbioticcolony of bacteria and yeast. it's the mother, like thedisc formation that you grow and you use as the starterculture for future batches. so yeah, in my bus, whenit's constantly moving, i can never get a proper scoby, which isnot necessary for starting a new batch. but it does-- her nutritionalpresence really speeds things up. and it makes the processfaster and easier. so i definitely missedthat when i was on the bus. and then also, just thejostling around of kombucha,
given that it's an aerobic ferment. that had its challenges, too. audience: great. thank you. audience: if you were goingto make fermented pickles, would you be going about it about thesame way as you're doing the sauerkraut right now? so with sauerkraut,obviously, you can chop it. and you could have thin or thickslices, and it would all kind of
ferment at the same rate because thesurface area is roughly the same. however, let's say we'refermenting radishes or turnips. if we were going to use the processin which we're just adding salt, we would need to chop them very finelyand expose a lot of surface area. however, whole fermentedradishes are delicious. and whole fermentedcucumbers are delicious, which is one of the more commonfermented foods we enjoy. and in that case, ratherthan just putting salt on the whole vegetable-- imean, that wouldn't work.
you wouldn't be ableto actually permeate the walls of thevegetables, the cell walls. so we would make a saltwater brine. and my ratio for thesaltwater brine, i use 1.5 tablespoons per one quart of water. and then i pour over the vegetables. this is not a hard number. some people prefer twotablespoons per one quart. some prefer one tablespoon per quart.
as you practice, you'll get toknow the salinity percentage you like with your vegetables. it took me a good year to figure outthat 1.5 tablespoons was my sweet spot. so yeah. and even the cabbage we're going to workwith now, we're going to salt to taste. the rough ratio whenwe salt vegetables is one tablespoon per two to three pounds. that's one tablespoon ofsalt per two to three pounds. but i always encourage peopleto taste the sauerkraut,
the cabbage, the saltycabbage before you pack it because it's ok tohave less salt. if you don't have a palette forthe super salty, that's ok. and even with less salt,if you have enough brine to push your vegetables underneaththe brine, then you're going to be ok. and then one thing to reallystay away from is too much salt. if you have an overwhelming amountof salt-- while you're salting, you taste, and you're like,oh, that's really salty. i guess i'll just pack it.
well, you know it's going to tasteway too salty afterwards, too. so you'll want to figure out asolution for making it less salty. you can dilute it byadding more vegetables. you could also add somewater to dilute the salt. but it's always best to startwith less salt rather than more. did i answer your question? audience: hi. this is a two-part question. can you explain the differencebetween pickling and fermentation?
and then also, i don't knowif you've seen any portlandia, but there's a sketch called"you can pickle that." and they pickle allsorts of normal things, and then they start pickling,like, bowling balls and remotes and stuff like that. has there ever beenany ingredient or group of ingredients that youjust would not ferment, that just doesn't taste good fermented? well, between pickling and fermenting--so all fermented vegetables are
pickles. not all pickles are fermented. and that goes back to kind of theheat processed, pickling process. you use a vinegar solution. vinegar in itself is abyproduct of fermentation. so you do get that tangy flavor. and that's why youwould call it a pickle. pickle is kind of defined bythis tangy, unique flavor, right? but the only difference isthat that kind of pickle
has no more life involved. there are a few other differences, too. but this is the primary difference. fermented pickles are teeming with life. as far as-- i haven't seen portlandia,so i'm not sure about the sketch you mentioned. but there are definitely some thingsthat are not so great to ferment. i'll just say as someadvice to people, if you want to ferment lettuceor any other leafy greens,
it will be like a green, mushy liquid. it's really unpleasant. super starchy vegetables, the texturegets really kind of like gritty, also unpleasant. i do one ferment with amore starchy vegetable. and it's called sweet potato fly. it's actually a beverage. and i slice it up, and theni wash it for five minutes. and that's, like, toget the starchiness off.
and then in that recipe, you end uptossing the solids, the sweet potatoes. so then the starchy, starchy stuffis kind of taken out of the equation, ultimately. and it's a short ferment. but yeah, starchy foods, leafygreens don't really work that well. i haven't had trouble with much else. of course, i've had a few experimentsthat just didn't go that great. if you ferment withsuper dark greens, they have a kind of chlorophyllflavor, which is not
super pleasant to a lot of people. like, if you're doing just, like,collards and dino kale and these really dark greens, it's a flavorthat's hard for a lot of people. pia sorensen: so i havea really quick question. so melissa is doing a lot of massaging. what if i'm lazy and idon't want to do that? does it still turn out ok? sorry. tara whitsitt: no,that's a great question.
so we are actuallymassaging the vegetables because we want to get this packed intoa jar, like, asap, as soon as possible. and another option would be to saltthe vegetables, walk away for an hour, and come back to sweaty vegetables. and i do that. and then there's likethe other extreme, where people are, like, using thesepounders to pound their kraut, and it's super-- it's kind of violent. they're really getting at the cabbage.
but that's totally normalin a lot of cultures. and then in eastern europe, they makehuge barrels of sauerkraut every year. and my friends from eastern europetalk about how when they were children, they would jump into these barrels andjust jump on the kraut for a long time. and that was one of thesenostalgic things for them. so there are all kinds of waysto get the job done, yeah. and then and thenultimately there's a test. so melissa, do you wantto kind of make it rain? melissa: i can't.
it's just getting [inaudible]. tara whitsitt: so this is atest to kind of see if you're getting a brine to come forth. it looks good. and then secondly, youcan kind of take the bowl, turn it over to checkif there's a puddle. and that's kind of the next--yeah, and there's a little puddle. so that's a good sign that we'reready to pack into our jars. and by the way, this isa very simple sauerkraut.
green cabbage, salt. it's great. but if you like chili,caraway, say you want to add even some turnipsinto the mix, carrots, you can slice those up nice and fineand throw them in and ferment those with your cabbage, too. and that's one of myfavorite-- i love red cabbage with thinly slicedradishes and some chili. that's like my comfortfood-- after it's fermented. so yeah, are we ready to pack it?
are there any other questionsbefore we pack into the jars? pia sorensen: does anyone have the mic? audience: yeah. i had a question about-- have you everused a ph meter to measure acidity? is there some kind of ph thresholdfor, i guess, in this case, sauerkraut or something? tara whitsitt: the ph thresholdis-- you would know that. melissa: well, there's an ideal. i work for a commercial--a small business that
produces fermented foods commercially. so there are some ph levels. for food safety, the ph has to bebelow 4.6 because above that level is a danger zone for pathogens. i can't remember therange for lactobacillus. our vegetable production managerwould know that question. but it's, i think, in thehigh threes, i want to say. tara whitsitt: the high threes. but yeah, and that's something, if youdo you want to produce commercially,
you'll definitely-- the regulatorydudes will be like, get that ph. and it has to be 3.8, between 3.8and four point something, probably. that sounds, like, around-- melissa: sure. tara whitsitt: any other questions? pia sorensen: you're goingto stay here all night, tara. audience: follow up with the scaling up. if you wanted toproduce it commercially, let's say you came up with this greatblend of vegetables that tasted great.
and you wanted to produce it in bulk. is there a challenge withusing larger vessels? does it scale well, the fermentation? tara whitsitt: is there a challengewith using larger vessels? like if you were just to use the samerecipe and just use a bigger vessel. does that change thefermentation usually? tara whitsitt: i mean, thereare a lot of different ways to produce on large scales. i've visited a lot offacilities all over the country,
and everyone has kind of theirdifferent ways that they do it. but i mean, ultimately, if youhave enough cabbage and manpower, the right tools- i mean,obviously, you want something to be able to really get inand massage your cabbage. you usually want a big bucket. some people use hobarts. if you're familiar with thehobart, it's a baking tool. so you actually have a big bucket,and then-- it's for mixing dough. so you would put your cabbage in andyour salt in, and you would mix it up.
and then you can just pourthat into your barrel. the most common barrel incommercial fermentation right now is food-gradeplastic, 55-gallon barrel. some people use stainless steel, too. stainless steel is much more expensive. and some smaller producers use crocs. and they're realizingvery quickly that they want to get food-grade plastic barrels. so there are a lot of options.
but you have to considerhow big do you want to be? how far do you want tosupply your food to? did that answer the-- cool. audience: i'm just curious how muchof the massaging process that we're observing now is just to extractthe water and how much of it is-- are we also trying to break downsome of the cell structure or something or tenderize it in a way? or is it just aboutgetting out the water? tara whitsitt: youknow, it's really just
to extract the water, toget the brine to come forth. the difference in, say,texture that occurs from how much massaginghappens-- you know, i actually have never noticed adifference in texture. i've had some people who were,like, really crazy, like rawr! just getting in there. and it was some of thecrispiest kraut i ever had. and i was really surprised by that. i thought it would be mushy'cause he was, like, so into it.
and i was like, whoa, buddy. you're like really squeezing that kraut. so, yeah, it's kind of justto get the brine to come out. audience: and then maybe a follow up. is there any danger of things exploding? do you have to think about that? so that is why my method forkeeping dust and bugs out is the tea towel and rubber band. if you were to keepsomething on airtight,
there's the possibility of an explosion. it would take a really long time. if you're working withsomething like kombucha or water kefir, which actually producesco2 at a much more rapid rate, then you'd be in trouble. but sauerkraut, most vegetable ferments,it's a very gradual co2 buildup. so you'll rarely haveto worry about that. but you'll definitely-- if it'sairtight, you'll want to burp it. it's good to burp itat least once a week.
but this will help. audience: if you wanted to make kimchi,what would you add to that mixture? tara whitsitt: kimchi? so kimchi is it's very similarto the kraut-making process. however, you usuallyintegrate asian cabbage of some sort, usually bok choy or napacabbage, and then root vegetables, as well. onion is popular as an addition. and then you make a paste.
and that paste is ginger, garlic,chili powder, and fish sauce. this is the traditional style paste. obviously, there are a lot ofvegetarian versions of kimchi. and in that case, you cansubstitute tamari for fish sauce. or you could just omit the fish sauce. but it's mostly the pastethat makes it uniquely kimchi and the addition of root vegetables. so we packed this down. did everyone see on the screenthat it was below the brine?
should we-- oh, yeah. you can see it right there. so let's just do a little. i just want to show. i want the shot of-- it's hardwhen you have to lean it over, because then all the brinejust runs to the underside. so you can't see it. and now, can anyone see from over there? of course, you can't.
that's way too far. but anyway, these cabbage leaves arereally great for kind of-- i mean, so one thing they do is they're durable. so you can actually kind ofjust push them down in there, and they'll hold againstthe walls of the jar. and the brine will stayabove the chopped cabbage. and then, if any mold does grow, you cansimply take the moldy cabbage leaf off and compost it. and so that's one nice aspect ofusing cabbage leaves as a top layer.
i learned this from awoman in mississippi who grew up making sauerkraut in bavaria. she's bavarian. and she was like, oh, yeah. this is the method weused when we were young. and i've used it ever since. and this was, like, february, 2014. so i've been doing itlike this for a long time. and it's pretty no-fail.
if you're concerned aboutgetting any mold growth, those leaves will catch the moldbefore your sauerkraut does. and again, how long do we leave it? this is why it's greatto ferment at home. you can ferment it for a week ifthat's how long you like it at. it will be mild. you can ferment it for threeweeks, and it will be tangier. and if you like it that way, great. but it's really, reallygood practice to,
in maintaining yoursauerkraut, just once a week, take the leaves off, take a taste. if you're like, yeah, that's nice, butnot my thing, then pack it back in. let it sit longer. and then taste it the nextweek, and then the next. so it's kind of nicejust to practice getting to know your sauerkraut, its movements,and at what stage you really like it. another question i get a lot is howmuch fermented food should i eat? and that question, i mean, itreally varies from person to person.
i mean, if you've never eaten fermentedfoods, if it's really new to your diet, i really recommend that peoplejust use it as a condiment, like dress your foods with it. and it's not like you have to eatkombucha and then sauerkraut and yogurt and kefir to make surethat you're getting this whole balance of microorganisms. it's kind of like,yeah, you can mix it up. but it's not that you won't geta full probiotic diet if you omit one of those things one day.
it's totally about kind of trusting yourbody, like anyone's journey with food and becoming just aware of whatyour body likes to consume. and i eat sauerkraut,like, out of the jar, as a large side with my eggs inthe morning or with everything. kimchi, too. but i'm totally-- mybody is, like, really, super adjusted to fermented vegetables. so, yeah. that's my spiel.
i hope you all like it. pia sorensen: so how about we all clap? tara whitsitt: thanks.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar