There's always a brace of jars fermenting in the kitchen. In addition to the perennial sourdough starter, there are plenty of things to eat and drink in various stages of readiness.
With spring and summer coming, part of the excitement is all the new seasonal vegetables available for fermenting!
We've just started playing with kefir grains. Above is a jar of water kefir, and next to it two jars of milk kefir at a young and more mature stage. A couple of gallons of kombucha never goes astray.
Atop the fridge in the cooler months there is usually something looking for warmth. Garlicky lacto-fermented daikon radish at the front, and a couple of jars of sauerkraut. Those kefir jars on the right might have moved...
Sharing the heat mat with the chilli and tomato seeds are a couple of experimental brews. A smokey kombucha in the small jar, and one with lemon balm on the right. That's jun in the background.
The new addition is a spicy cauliflower ferment on the left. And the current stalwart on the right is a hot sauce that's been brewing for about 4 months. It has a bunch of summer fruits, and some carolina reapers and regular red chillies. That should get cooked and bottled shortly, just in time for the new season chillies to get planted.
Good to see someone with so many brews on the go. I only have milk kefir brewing at the moment. But in the past have done water kefir, kombucha, and caspian sea yoghurt. Though I must admit we usually buy our sauerkraut. There is a local brand we can buy from the health food store.
The milk kefir is voracious! I've had good results using it in smoothies, and as a replacement for yoghurt in a curry and in place of buttermilk in pancakes...any ideas will be much appreciated :)
I drank a lot of kombucha last summer, and kept finding I didn't have jars to ferment anything else....so production is ramping up this year.
Caspian sea yoghurt sounds enchanting, I'm off to look it up.
We usually use in smoothies. But I also use it in my grain free Cashew bread - I posted the pumpkin version of that bread a few days ago, but often I use kefir not pumpkin. Caspian sea yoghurt is lovely, but I killed my last lot after using it successfully for years, and haven't been able to replace it
Thank you! I think they are delicious!
Great article, looking forward to trying some of your ideas! Have been toying with creating a sourdough starter for a while now, I believe my late Grandmother had some which is still being used and would love to continue that tradition.