fermented foods

[tiddles]

Re: fermented foods

so I posted "recommend a good Korean restaurant in Orlando" on FB and my friend who owns a salon and is easy on the eyes responded:

yeah that's what you want. look out for:

some kind of shredded dried squid thing candied in honey
hard black beans with some sesame sauce thing
some kind of leaf with red pepper sauce, maybe grape leaves?
yeolmu kimchi is pretty decent too

[Jenks]

Re: fermented foods

dude - you make your own kombucha? I'm a little afraid to try it simply because I've read so many warnings about messing it up and having it turn toxic.

how do you make it and flavor it? how long did it take you to perfect it? how's yours taste? If I could get some batches going I'd be stoked, I love that shit. Have you tried including chia seeds? I want a lacto fermented hot pepper ffs!

It's super easy to make once you grow your own mother. People sell mothers on craigslist all the time, but i think it's fun to grown your own. Every new batch of Kombucha grows an additional mother so it's kind of a cool thing to pass mothers along to friends as you go through batches. Selling them kinda ruins the vibe of the whole thing imo. I've never had a toxic batch, and honestly don't even think it's possible unless you're a dumbs. If you're too afraid to experiment and try something outside your comfort zone you're never going to have any fun at all.

How to make it is a google search away. It's basically just water, sugar, black tea and time. Perfecting flavoring is another story- some work, some don't, but that's just a trial and error process based on your tastes. We use our Omega juicer to extract juice from ginger, citrus, strawberries, etc. Favorite combos so far have been just plain strawberry, and citrus ginger. I'm sure you drink the GT brand kombucha- we just use those as guides for flavor ideas. Less is definitely more in this case, as I actually like the funky flavor of plain kombucha, so I don't want to dilute the taste too much with fruit, which also adds sugar. The bottling process is no big deal either, you just have to be sanitary and take care in the amount of sugars you're adding to each bottle else you'll have bottle bombs.

Lacto fermented peppers- same deal, easy peasy. With anything fermented, the most difficult part of the process is waiting. Let those microbes do their thing.

[Garrick]

Re: fermented foods

florida, is your objective to have something that tastes good or does fermented food have added benefits over unfermented? (i know kombucha is good for you... love the tea)

[Jenks]

Re: fermented foods

florida, is your objective to have something that tastes good or does fermented food have added benefits over unfermented? (i know kombucha is good for you... love the tea)

Fermented food tastes good. Aside from that, you should eat some on a regular basis because gut health is important to the overall health of your body, most importantly, your belly and digestive tract. You can achieve a healthy belly by taking a daily probiotic, or eating a little live culture yogurt on an empty stomach, but since fermented food tastes awesome, it's another way to introduce healthy microbiota to your digestive tract.

[floridaorange]

Re: fermented foods

^this @garrick

I want the microbe health benefits and I'd like to stop taking probiotics, which I have read can cause brain fog, although I don't think I experience that, I would rather get those little bugs in my gut more naturally.

And I am no stranger to experimenting with foods and life, so it's not a problem, I just didn't want to get super sick, but if you say it's not that big a deal, then that's great. I'm going to get on it. I have green tea, but will buy some black tea shortly.

Thanks J - I also enjoy the taste of regular Kombucha. My favorite flavor is the Black Cherry with Chia seeds and this one: