fermentation – Planet B Gardens

garlic scapes

When rocambole or other hardneck garlic varieties start the flowering process, they shoot up a central stalk with a bud. If you want a good-sized bulb of garlic to form rather than the energy of the plant going into producing a flower, you need to harvest that stalk once it starts to curl around. The harvested part is called a “scape,” and it’s delicious. The scape has a mild green garlic flavor, and is great chopped fresh in salads, sauteed in butter, tossed into pasta and stir-fries. Some people like the buds fried in tempura batter like a squash blossom. You can also pickle the scapes if you’d like to

July 9, 2017

2017 garden started

Forecast is for a warm and mostly sunny week, so moved some of the more hardy plant starts outside. Started these summer squash seeds a month ago. Mammoth Red cabbage got started mid-March. Also planted Waltham 29 broccoli, Chioggia beets, Kabocha winter squash, Graffiti Purple cauliflower, tomatillos, and sugar snap pea starts. I’ll direct seed carrots, lettuce varieties, Swiss chard, spinach, and sunflowers later today. It’s still a little risky here in the northwest to plant chili and tomato starts outside — that will be a mid-June project. The garden looks so empty this early in the season. It’ll be a jungle by July, though, assuming all grows well. Garlic planted last fall is

May 22, 2017

yeast from scratch

Cultivating wild yeast to leaven bread is something I’ve been wanting to try since I learned it was possible. I should have done it much sooner. My bread game is changed. The process creates a sourdough starter that will last as long as I keep feeding it. Creating the initial starter takes around 14 days before it’s ready to use for baking bread. I started with local hard red wheat berries that I ground into a course flour. I mixed equal parts of the whole wheat flour with pineapple juice — 60 grams each by weight. I kept it in my proofer set to 70F, and followed the remaining sourdough starter-making videos here. After a

March 26, 2017

fermented garlic cloves

Fermented garlic cloves are supposed to taste like a cross between roasted and raw garlic. I decided to give it a try. Beside adding flavor to dishes, fermented garlic contains all the benefits of raw garlic (antioxidants, phytonutrients, minerals, vitamins, allicin — which reportedly lowers “bad” cholesterol — among others) while also containing healthy probiotics from the fermentation process. I peeled dozens of cloves from whole garlic heads I got from one of our local organic farms. That was the hardest — or at least most time-consuming — part. The rest is easy. Sterilize 1.5 pint wide-mouth mason jars, and the same number of 1/2 pint 1/4 pint (4 oz.) mason

August 23, 2016

sauerkraut 2nd try

Last time I made sauerkraut in 2014 I covered the jar with a cloth to let it ferment. One of the dicey parts of this method is it can allow in wild spores from the air as it’s fermenting. Sometimes those create mold on top of the mix and add their own flavors. That might be a good thing, or it might make the kraut taste a little funky. It’s still fine to eat. I didn’t care for the flavor last time, though. This year I’m taking a more controlled approach. I’m starting with freshly harvested cabbage from my garden this round. I shredded the cabbage thinly like I did before, and

August 23, 2016

diy fermentation setup

Fermenting vegetables are a great way to preserve extra harvest through the winter, with lots of healthy probiotics, vitamins, and minerals. I don’t have huge quantities of any one vegetable right now, so want to be able to preserve small amounts. From what I’ve read, fermenting in mason jars using an airlock is a great small-batch option. When I checked into buying airlock mason jar fermentation lids, though, they averaged $10 per lid — which would quickly add up given the number of batches I’d like to ferment. I figured I could make them myself much less expensively. I started with six lids to see how it would go. I bought 6

August 22, 2016

homemade apple cider

What to do with small, blemished apples not pretty enough for pies or eating whole? I’m making apple cider. If you have a juicer, this is super simple. Wash the apples. Quarter the apples and throw them into the juicer — skins, cores, stems and all. Run the apples through the juicer, and that’s it. The cider will last a couple weeks in the fridge. It will ferment naturally, so be aware that you could get a bit of a buzz once that process happens. It could also get a bit sour — let your taste buds be your guide for when the cider is no longer drinkable. You could

October 7, 2015

vegan “cheddar”

Learning new ways of using ingredients interests me, so I picked up a book on making artisan vegan cheeses. I usually prefer beans, nuts, vegetables and fruits over dairy and meat as a dietary staple, though I’m down with a healthy wild or small-farm raised turkey or tasty free-range elk steak. Vegan “cheddar” needs a new name. It’s a tasty product on its own. A great cheddar made from milk is its own thing, as is its vegan homage. The key to making a vegan cheddar is a sour starter the author of the cookbook I used calls “rejuvelac.” Rejuvelac is based in fermented grains, similar to what you would use in beer making. That gives

May 3, 2015

cheese storage update

Five weeks ago I decided to experiment with unrefrigerated cheese storage. I painted blocks of store bought cheddar and jack w/red cheese wax, tied them with butcher’s twine, and hung them to store in my shop/garage area. The shop stays reasonably cool even though we’ve had days in the 90s. Tonight I cut open one of the blocks of jack. There was a tiny dry spot where the twine had cut into the wax enough to let a bit of moisture out. Other than that, the cheese experiment is a success at five weeks unrefrigerated storage. The cheese smelled right — a smidge sharper than the very mild store bought jack I

October 23, 2014

red sauerkraut

Sauerkraut in white plastic bins next to NYC dirty water hot dogs was my only experience with the cabbage condiment until I was well into my 20s. It was a grayish-white, limp, slightly sourish mush to put on top of the dog — dosed with a serious helping of bright yellow mustard to give it some umph. It wasn’t until I had a proper bratwurst dinner with friends from Germany that I finally tasted what fresh sauerkraut could bring to the palate. Crisp, bright, and with a perfect balance of salt and sour. I had to make some of my own. Sauerkraut is simply made of shredded cabbage fermented in salt. That

October 5, 2014