Kimchi And Fermented Vegetables How To And Why

What did you use to hold the cabbage under the surface of the liquid? Any sticking up tends to promote mold. For wide mouth mason jars, I use these little ceramic ramekins.

 

We make apple cider vinegar from our organic apples. It's probably the easiest thing you'll ever ferment. 5 gal bucket/food quality. Apples.. I take out the seeds but I've read you don't even have to do that. Cheese cloth to keep the fruit flies out during fermentation. A bit of yeast, if you want to speed up the process. Mason jars. And time.

ACV that hasn't been processed so much that it loses the 'mother' is sooo good for you.

Lot's of links out there that describe how to make it... but I can't seem to get any of them to copy here... so just do a search.

 

No better than ordinary vinegar. I've thoroughly debunked ACV on a number of occasions here with full citation, only to be ignored by ACV disciples, so I won't go through it again.

Nothing personal, you understand, but there's zero evidence ACV has any health benefits over normal vinegar.

Kudos for making your own though, it's way cheaper than buying it, and more fun!

ACV makes a tasty vinegrette

 

We can agree to disagree on this one, hun. No worries. Not trying to make any converts. Perhaps the health benefits that I find come from the fact that we use NO chemicals here and our apples are fresh and organic. Or it may be that you are correct and any vinegar would do the same. I have my doubts.

Who knows. All I know is that it works for me. And it's worked for everyone I've ever gifted a bottle to.

 

I've had Kimchi before from one of those Kogi trucks at a festival. It was in a burrito and although I knew it meant fermented vegetables I didn't really realize that there was anything different about my burrito. I guess it must be good!

 

mmmm kimchi. I've never tried to make it, I always buy mine from my favorite Korean restaurant. I bought it once at whole foods too but it was much more expensive and not as tasty.

 

Korean kimchi is the best! I get a nice korean kimchi at the groceries store that is awesome, but yeah, very expensive. Like almost 7 bucks a pint. I make it for mere pennys at home.

 

Well, I have a problem that I'm going to take care of today. I just was too tired early this morning.

The videos kept saying jam it in there so I did.

Now, I know that I have to take some out of the jars.

I have cabbage leaves that I reserved for the purpose of holding the contents down in the brine.

 

Also, I read that you can use baggies with water in them to weight down the vegetables before the lid goes on. That way the baggies of water conform more to the shapes of the vegetables.

My problem with that is the plastic. We've been avoiding plastic using glass jars. Who wants plastic leaching into their Kimchi?

 

Thats actually a pretty good idea. Sandwich bags are made of HDPE ( High density polyethylene) same as milk bottles, and is probably the least likely to leach into your food. Stay away from anything with styrene.

 

I thought the same about baggies. I used cabbage leaves too at first but found the top got mold on them. I've discovered using baby food jars as weights (labels washed off). I tried it in my last batch, we'll see how it does. You pour the brine into the baby food jar too. I bought the baby food jars when they were on sale, they're cheaper than any of the weights sold for the purpose.

About packing in the contents, you jam them in but should leave an inch or so from the top, it helps the gases escape.

 

Gotcha, Lucy.

I have some little pimento jars. I might put them on top of the cabbage leaves.

 

That's a good idea. If you find that it's too light with one, put two in if you can fit them in. Depends what kind of jars you're using. I would leave out the cabbage leaves though. They can pack in too much and make it hard for the gases to escape. You don't need them if you have the jar(s) as weights. You can experiment with both and see how it goes.

 

Here's some of what I've gleaned.

The plus to making your own is you know it has live bacteria in it. Often with purchased fermented food, it's been pasteurized or heated to avoid the jars exploding during shipping.

I highly recommend the airlocks. I tried a couple, skeptical about the claims, but after seeing the results, I have to support them. You don't get the scum on top, it greatly lessens the smell, and you can ferment it longer. I put mine in the cool room this summer for a slower ferment. Apparently slower and longer fermenting breeds more good bacteria. I've been fermenting mine 4 to 6 weeks. The veggies stay a lot crisper too. I bought the lids with the airlocks, but if you're handy, you can drill a hole in your lid, put in a gasket and just buy the airlock (pretty cheap) to put into the lid.

I agree about not having to sterilize. Some people confuse fermenting with canning or preserves, that's when you have to sterilize. Sounds like you watched Danny Mac's videos! I like him, but he doesn't always have the facts straight (about fermenting).

By the way, if the contents bubble into the airlock like they did for Danny, that's not a good thing. It means you overfilled the jar and the gases are having trouble escaping, finally bursting through. That's why they advise to leave an inch or so of headspace. You shouldn't have to put anything under your jars to catch runoff. They don't run with the airlocks (if not overfilled).

 

I saw Danny Mac.

I also watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evno_Eiq1MQ

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7NrK8EdVJM.

I think people who make videos and tutorials tell you to sterilize just to cover their asses.

I'll leave the cabbage leaves out.

 

You can also use pie weight or even marbles on the top to hold down the veggies. The bonus is they are easy to clean or even sterilize if you wish to.

 

marbles sound like a swell idea..

 

I may use marbles next time, Heather!

Some of the jar mouths were too small for the little jars so some are topped with jars and some are topped with cabbage leaves.

 

My friends mother makes it for all of us (including sauerkraut) and she always uses the cabbage leaves on the top to keep them submerged. She does poke holes in the leaves so that would help with the fermenting escaping and also uses the leaves that are tougher rather than waste them. Old school but it works. In the smaller jars I have seen marbles used and it works.

 

You'll have to let us know how you find the difference between the two, Aerianne.

One thing you might want to make sure of is that the marbles are lead free. That was my concern with using anything glass that I wasn't sure of. A lot of glass products contain lead. The glass fermenting discs specify they are lead free. That's what I like about the baby food jars. They are lead free as well.

That's a good idea, to punch holes in the cabbage leaves, Heat.