I'm very grateful Hubster puts up with all my science experiments. There are jars spread throughout my kitchen, pantry, cupboards, and laundry room all containing various living things. I've been catching, growing, and maintaining living microorganisms. I'm fascinated with the bacterias, yeasts, molds, etc that are in our environment. Our culture has become obsessed with excessive cleanliness and dead food. We want to kill 99.9% of germs everywhere and we want our food and drinks pasteurized and sterilized. Considering over 3 lbs of the matter in our gut is live bacteria, I feel it is important to maintain a healthy gut by loading up on probiotics.
I've really fallen in love with live foods and drinks. I try to have something fermented and/or cultured every day. That sounds like a lot, but I'm betting most of you eat yogurt and/or cheese on a daily basis, and those are cultured. See? It's not THAT weird!
I currently have no less than 5 ferments going and I sometimes have 7 or more. I'm even fermenting the chicken's food! They go nuts for it and it stretches their feed out. I get double the feed for free by fermenting it.
The cultures I have going right now are:
kombucha (3 gallons a week!)
sauerkraut (it turned out delicious!)
sourdough starter (made from the yeast dregs of my kombucha)
apple cider vinegar
chicken feed (don't worry; it's in the laundry room, not the kitchen)
In my fridge I also have kimchi (Trader Joe's has the best I've ever had, and that's saying something considering I grew up next to a Korean family who made their own! We had to be careful when playing in the yard to not step where the kimchi was buried) and doenjang (it's delicious in soup!). I did water kefir for quite a while, but my grains got stinky and never really recovered. I liked it, but not enough to justify using 1/4 c sugar a day to keep the culture going and having a quart of water kefir to drink daily. I prefer kombucha. I also make yogurt about every other week (post to come!).
What do you have growing in your kitchen?
I've really fallen in love with live foods and drinks. I try to have something fermented and/or cultured every day. That sounds like a lot, but I'm betting most of you eat yogurt and/or cheese on a daily basis, and those are cultured. See? It's not THAT weird!
I currently have no less than 5 ferments going and I sometimes have 7 or more. I'm even fermenting the chicken's food! They go nuts for it and it stretches their feed out. I get double the feed for free by fermenting it.
The cultures I have going right now are:
kombucha (3 gallons a week!)
sauerkraut (it turned out delicious!)
sourdough starter (made from the yeast dregs of my kombucha)
apple cider vinegar
chicken feed (don't worry; it's in the laundry room, not the kitchen)
In my fridge I also have kimchi (Trader Joe's has the best I've ever had, and that's saying something considering I grew up next to a Korean family who made their own! We had to be careful when playing in the yard to not step where the kimchi was buried) and doenjang (it's delicious in soup!). I did water kefir for quite a while, but my grains got stinky and never really recovered. I liked it, but not enough to justify using 1/4 c sugar a day to keep the culture going and having a quart of water kefir to drink daily. I prefer kombucha. I also make yogurt about every other week (post to come!).
What do you have growing in your kitchen?
I had some extra, delicious, apple cider from An Amish farm near me and it started to turn sour. Instead of dumping it out, it's been sitting in my cupboard for over a month turning into gorgeous, raw, apple cider vinegar. Look at all those lovely yeasty-beasties doing their thing all settled at the bottom!
On the far left is my sourdough starter. It bubbles like crazy when I feed it! I now keep it in the fridge and take out only 2 tsp at a time a couple days before I want to bake. It's been a much better system and the starter requires much less attention.
Sometimes it's a little too active after a feeding... Note to self, use a larger jar next time!
My water kefir, before my grains got stinky.
Next batch I'm going to have to brew 3 gallons. Kombucha doesn't last long in my house! Hubster and Bug both love it and I drink about 2 cups a day. I actually prefer it to coffee in the morning.
It's a good idea to keep a jar of finished kombucha to grow scobys in. This "scoby hotel" serves as a back up in case of mold in your brew and it's great fro growing scobies to give to friends. Once a month or so, I pull 2 cups out of this jar to use as starter and replace it with 2 cups of just finished kombucha. The kombucha in this jar turns very tart, almost like vinegar, and it needs to be fed with younger kombucha every so often so the scobys have sugar to eat. I actually have plans in the works for a scoby farm. More on that in a future post. ;)
Fermenting chicken feed is SOOOOOOOO easy.
Day 1: put 1 cup of dry feed in a jar, add 2 cups of water, stir.
Day 2: stir.
Day 3: stir and feed, liquid and all, to chickens.
I keep a 3 jar rotation so I have a jar to feed them every day. I was experimenting with different amounts of feed when I took this picture. The jar on the left is 1 cup feed and 2 cups water after 3 days. The middle jar is 1.5 cups feed and 3 cups water after 2 days. The jar on the right is 1.5 cups feed and 2.5 cups water after 1 day. Look how much the feed swells in just 1 day! The feed bubbles like champagne when stirred and it has a slightly pickled smell. Some people strain out the feed and use the liquid to start a new batch, but my hens go crazy over the feed, liquid and all. They drink less regular water and eat way less dry feed (I keep that available at all times) when they get their fermented feed. They also stink less and their feathers are super shiny. Fermented feed is easier to digest because the bacteria partially break it down. More nutrients are available as well thanks to the fermentation process. My favorite aspect is that I can get 2 cups of feed from 1 cup of feed by just adding water. Yay for reducing feeding costs while increasing nutrition!
Day 1: put 1 cup of dry feed in a jar, add 2 cups of water, stir.
Day 2: stir.
Day 3: stir and feed, liquid and all, to chickens.
I keep a 3 jar rotation so I have a jar to feed them every day. I was experimenting with different amounts of feed when I took this picture. The jar on the left is 1 cup feed and 2 cups water after 3 days. The middle jar is 1.5 cups feed and 3 cups water after 2 days. The jar on the right is 1.5 cups feed and 2.5 cups water after 1 day. Look how much the feed swells in just 1 day! The feed bubbles like champagne when stirred and it has a slightly pickled smell. Some people strain out the feed and use the liquid to start a new batch, but my hens go crazy over the feed, liquid and all. They drink less regular water and eat way less dry feed (I keep that available at all times) when they get their fermented feed. They also stink less and their feathers are super shiny. Fermented feed is easier to digest because the bacteria partially break it down. More nutrients are available as well thanks to the fermentation process. My favorite aspect is that I can get 2 cups of feed from 1 cup of feed by just adding water. Yay for reducing feeding costs while increasing nutrition!