What Are You Preserving?

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Tue Apr 07, 2020 4:33 am

Inspired by Claire's threads about pioneer-womanning I wanted to start a thread about my own such projects. My pioneer tendencies manifest 90% in the kitchen. Various ferments (sourdough, sauerkraut, kombucha), an herb drying rack, a dehydrator, and, most importantly, CANNING. All summer I gleefully plan my canning approach. I'm so excited it's spring because soon I can start canning (jam). I am getting better at it. Two years ago I set myself the task of canning all the tomatoes, salsa, pickles, and jam we need for an entire year. Last year I ACCOMPLISHED IT. I have found sources of either cheap or free tomato seconds (we know a lot of farmers) and I can 'em all through July. Last summer I canned 44 quarts--I think this summer I need to do a full 50, because it's only April but we are down to our last 5. I canned 5 jars of strawberry jam from strawberries I picked myself. I canned 9 pints of pickles and 14 pints of salsa (the salsa was actually what started this whole new part of my life, because there is NO SALSA in the State of New England; one is forced to take care of oneself in this regard). In addition to those staples I canned so many weird things too--sweet okra, beets, carrots/jalapenos, cardamom cauliflower (not good), many quarts of peaches, many pints of rhubarb sauce. I canned 7 pints of damson plums my farmer friend dumped on my porch and they are disgusting. I can asparagus too but this year I think I will do dilly beans instead. One time I canned fiddlehead ferns and they were gross.

It is so fun and interesting to see what/how much we eat over the course of the year. Like I will never make the cauliflower mistake again! But also we eat a lot more salsa than I would have ever thought!

We also make hard cider in our basement. If our finicky ancient apple tree ever makes a crop again we will press our own cider to start with! That I think will be incredibly satisfying.

Is anyone else on this preservation kick?? Moving to New England is what did it for me, it just feels right here. Gary feels the same but about the yard/permaculture/reading about native species and trying to make things healthy for birds. I wish I could get into gardening but so far I haven't really. Maybe my cucumber plan will do the trick this year.

I am frustrated because I haven't been able to master root cellaring. To be fair I haven't tried very hard, but I follow all the directions and still my potatoes start sprouting in like a month. I don't get how you do it. Any tips?

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:29 am

You know I love this!

Have you read that book, "The Good Life," by Helen & Scott Nearing? They were proto-hippies who left New York in the mid-1930s to self-sufficiently homestead in Vermont—I don't think I really knew what a root cellar was until I read that book. It's a deeply fascinating/practical account of them setting up their maple syrup-making process (which provided them enough money to buy whatever they couldn't grow) and building their house and compost piles over years and years. They were super austere vegetarians who were content eating a single uncooked turnip for lunch. You'd like it.

I want Gary's permaculture reading list!

I've never canned! I'm big on fermenting esoteric krauts and pickles mostly. It's funny how food preserving has become such a big thing recently. Up until now it's felt like cosplay—you're not really preserving food if you can just go to the store anytime and buy another cabbage or another bag of cucumbers. It takes on another dimension when you actually need to stretch food.

There's a wild food forager here in Los Angeles I follow pretty obsessively and he's inspired me to start fermenting things like wild mustard roots, which I'm doing pretty experimentally. They're too tough to actually eat but the brine they make is wildly delicious and you can make soup with it. I'm also looking at other ways to use stuff that grows around me: taking the fistfuls of sage that grow in my yard and infusing them in oil so I can make my own salve, for example, making tea blends from passionfruit leaves and poppies, or using eucalyptus bark and loquat leaves to dye textiles. I guess I'm training to be a post-society witch. Everything is useful!

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:51 am

I love this! I have moved 5 times in the last 5 years and currently live in a two-room apartment so my belongings are pretty pared down. Even the idea of owning that many jars stresses me out. I hemmed and hawed for a year before purchasing my big ol' cast iron pan. Not because of cost but because it is another thing I would need to be devoted to and take from place to place. I love it though. It was a very good investment and I would take it anywhere. Point is, I too would love to make brine soup!

I got kind of heavily into starters and kefirs and 'boochas a few houses ago, but suddenly I felt like so many creatures depended on me that I purposefully ignored them until they all died and I think the experience was a little scarring. I didn't even LIKE kefir! I ONLY used it for salad dressings!

You guys are so good for canning and collecting and making. Bravo.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 4:32 am

It's true canning (and cellaring for that matter) is very place-based. You don't necessarily need a ton of space but you do need to know that you're going to LIVE in that space for a long-ass time, lest ye have to cart 100 full quart jars around the world with you. We have a basement with two rows of narrow shelving right at the base of the stairs and I have wondered whether they were built there specifically to hold jars; at any rate, that is where I put mine. It is a warm feeling to go down there in September or October, when preserving season is done, and gloat over your rows of gleaming jars, rubbing your hands together like a scrooge mcduck. And it's honestly been surprising to me how much better my cans taste than store-bought. I recently ate store-bought canned peaches, after a whole winter of eating only my own, and couldn't even finish them. It was like a whole different entity. I don't know why!

I haven't gotten into fermenting beyond sourdough, kombucha, and kraut. And cider, I guess. I have Sandor Katz's book and have read so much about it, but everything I do either molds or tastes horrible. Three years ago I did successfully make fermented dill pickles--I even kept them crisp by getting ahold of a grape leaf, which I was proud of--but then...they just didn't taste good to me. I have this sinking feeling that I just don't like the taste of "fermented" outside of a few things like yogurt/kraut. What should I do? Nothing appeals to me more than taking weird stuff and transforming it into something else using only salt, so I am open to all advice. Maybe I need to just intellectually get into and drink the brine until it tastes good to me.

Claire your urban foraging is deeply inspiring!! How do I get into foraging? I feel like that would be the way to get myself out into the woods and hills, where I normally don't really go. is there a book that made it "click" for you, or was it a long slow burn or what? I'm sure any book one gets ought to be site-specific so maybe you can't recommend anything to me. I wanna forage! I wanna make salve.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:12 am

It isn't exactly salve, but wanna make my deodorant recipe? No foraging necessary!
Combine more or less of the following: 2 parts coconut oil, 2 parts shea butter, one part baking soda (maybe a little less?), a few drops of tea tree oil (not more!), and a few drops or sprays of a scent you like (I'm using tomato leaf lately). Mix 'em all together well. Refrigerate until solid.
The coconut oil, along with the tea tree oil, is a natural antibacterial. The shea butter gives it a more solid consistency. The baking soda absorbs some moisture and odor. I use this every day and it WORKS. When I do not use it, I stink the stink of teacher-stress. If I smell my shirts' pits after a couple of days of wearing, all I smell is tomato leaf. Real game changer.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:20 am

YES THANK YOU!!!!!!
I already use a similar deodorant (a jar you scrape into with your fingernail and rub on) that I think I got off Etsy, and it's great, but I have often thought to myself, this really ought to be basic enough to make at home. But I never felt inspired to try. You have accomplished this.

Must I leave it in the fridge in hot weather? In hot weather for example, the coconut oil in my pantry is totally liquid--will that happen to this?

How about hair conditioner? Any ideas? I use bar shampoo I get from the co-op which I feel fine about but I can't find a reliable bar conditioner supplier (e.g. no plastic bottles).

GARY-19 · Post by **GARY-19** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:06 am

yourfriendclaire wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:29 am
I want Gary's permaculture reading list!

Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway is a useful intro primer to perma-gardening if you're just getting into it. I was grateful to find something simple after getting pretty overwhelmed by everything else I was reading. Bonus is he lives in Oregon, I think, so some of the recommendations he makes that are less useful for us will be more useful for you.

I also bought just volume 2 of Edible Forest Gardens after checking both volumes out from the public library. The first volume is pretty dense but the second is a handy reference text. Most of the information in it is probably available online, but I don't like having to search for stuff.

Most of the books Chelsea Green publishes on perma-gardening/homesteading are pretty good.

astral hellion · Post by **astral hellion** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:52 am

ritchey wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:20 am How about hair conditioner? Any ideas? I use bar shampoo I get from the co-op which I feel fine about but I can't find a reliable bar conditioner supplier (e.g. no plastic bottles).

I have tried many a bar conditioner & the best one I’ve found is by a brand called Ethique. I had to order it on-line, I got a sampler with 3 shampoos & 2 conditioners and all were great. They are minimally packaged in a paper box.
I have the hair of a baby, very fine & straight & also long, so I can’t fuck around with just using vinegar or whatever.
I use bar shampoo from Lush which I like but their bar condish is no good for me, not nearly moisturizing/de tangling enough.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 9:01 am

Same boat! The only plastic bottle bathroom thing I still buy is conditioner. I tried just using a little bit of sesame oil (not the roasted kind) rubbed into towel dried hair, which is a super light oil that gets absorbed quickly and shouldn't feel too greasy. My hair is thick and curly and it worked kinda well but it felt greasy and dirty after a day or two. I caved in after only a week or two, so who knows if it would just get fine...
I will look up Ethique.

Re deodorant: Yeah, in warm weather it gets pretty soppy. The shea butter keeps it from going full on liquidy though so I just run with it. You can always pop it in the fridge if it gets weird and/or gross.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 9:11 am

ok cool. I will do the deodorant when my current batch runs out (which may be never, now that I don't go into human society anymore)

Thanks for the Ethique tip! I have incredibly thick hair suddenly, late in life (it always used to be limp, fine, and straight, and now it's this massive wild mane I have to actively get thinned out by a stylist, I do not understand what happened to my body, it's truly the most shocking physical aspect of aging I've experienced thus far). It's very coarse and I feel like I can never moisturize it enough no matter what I do (conditioner + argan oil currently)

When I had super short hair I never washed or conditioned it. Like for a decade. Now suddenly I'm thrust into the land of hair care because my hair is both long and as described above. I could chop it again but I am resisting. I'll look into Ethique! I just wish there were some basic home remedy concept for conditioner; it's so weird that there isn't! What is so special about our dang hair, that a dash of normal oil or something is so insufficient to manage it???

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 2:14 pm

This thread prompted me to order stuff for water kefir! I've been meaning to for ages and kept forgetting or putting it off.. thanks, fermenters, for reigniting this project. I'll report back when I've got something drinkable.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:39 am

I have only even done milk kefir, which was like a yeasty buttermilk nightmare that I just kept feeding and it just kept growing.
Tell me more about water kefir. I have seen it. Should I trust it? Does it have a nice taste?

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Thu Apr 09, 2020 11:10 am

I like it because I have to moderate my caffeine intake and can't always have kombucha. It's kind of seltzer-y and tastes like whatever you add to it- I'm going to do mint and berries and apple and ginger!
I buy it as a beverage at the store but it's $$ for what's essentially fermented water and flavoring.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:31 am

m o l l y wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 9:01 am Same boat! The only plastic bottle bathroom thing I still buy is conditioner. I tried just using a little bit of sesame oil (not the roasted kind) rubbed into towel dried hair, which is a super light oil that gets absorbed quickly and shouldn't feel too greasy. My hair is thick and curly and it worked kinda well but it felt greasy and dirty after a day or two. I caved in after only a week or two, so who knows if it would just get fine...

UPDATE: Have quit conditioner since this post and have only used like a quarter sized bloop of sesame oil in the palm of my hand rubbed into towel dried hair for last howevermany hair washes (3 or 4?). Feels pretty ok! I will continue and report back any surprising progress.
I also have also given my hedge a trim today and at the dinner table, I casually said to Korneel that I was glad I gave myself a hair-zub. He seemed to accept this as one of the many things Molly says that he might not speak English well enough to fully comprehend (he speaks English very well but also knows me very well). Then we continued to eat fried rice.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:40 am

Meadows, your beverage sounds like one I would absolutely love. I need fizz and fermentation in my life no less than sun and air.

Vaguely recalling my previous hippified hairdo DIYs, some oils might leave a buildup of protein on your hair, drying it out. A periodic water/ACV rinse will ease the burden on your hair shaft. I use regular (grocery store "natural") shampoo and conditioner but use ACV rinse because we have very hard water.

Can anyone tell me how to pickle my great mood? I want to make sure I can savor its crunch in the winter.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 1:39 am

meadows wrote: ↑Thu Apr 09, 2020 11:10 am I like it because I have to moderate my caffeine intake and can't always have kombucha. It's kind of seltzer-y and tastes like whatever you add to it- I'm going to do mint and berries and apple and ginger!
I buy it as a beverage at the store but it's $$ for what's essentially fermented water and flavoring.

How is your fermented water project going?

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:14 am

I can’t believe I haven’t told you all about my home-brewed elderflower champagne! Foraged elderflowers found on a residential street in Pasadena + lots of honey, a few sliced whole lemons, and water. The whole brew sits in a pot on the kitchen counter until the naturally-occurring yeasts on the flower wake up and start munching the sugar. When the whole thing starts bubbling, strain it carefully and leave it to ferment further in a sturdy growler. The gases that escape in the fermentation process are hefty so you can’t seal the bottle or it’ll explode. You can buy a special airlock but I just put a party balloon over the mouth of the bottle and deflated it daily. After about a week it’s booze and then it only gets more refined from there. Tastes like a young natural wine or a boozy kombucha. Great in a cocktail! I’m going to experiment with other flowers next—Lake & Mr Brown gave me some rose geranium I think might work.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:33 am

KEEP US ABREAST.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:44 am

yourfriendclaire wrote: ↑Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:14 am I can’t believe I haven’t told you all about my home-brewed elderflower champagne! Foraged elderflowers found on a residential street in Pasadena + lots of honey, a few sliced whole lemons, and water. The whole brew sits in a pot on the kitchen counter until the naturally-occurring yeasts on the flower wake up and start munching the sugar. When the whole thing starts bubbling, strain it carefully and leave it to ferment further in a sturdy growler. The gases that escape in the fermentation process are hefty so you can’t seal the bottle or it’ll explode. You can buy a special airlock but I just put a party balloon over the mouth of the bottle and deflate it daily. After about a week it’s booze and then it only gets more refined from there. Tastes like a young natural wine or a boozy kombucha. Great in a cocktail! I’m going to experiment with other flowers next—Lake & Mr Brown gave me some rose geranium I think might work.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:59 am

WOWOWOWOW

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 10:25 am

damn, that sounds incredible!

I finally got my kefir grains and I have my first batch brewing! I think I'm going to throw it out, though- I made a few mistakes and it can also take a few batches to get them really up and running.

It makes me happy to look at my big jar of ferment on the counter, working away at its task.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 10:59 am

Claire, here is a song about not mowing the lawn so you can make tooth of lion wine!

https://youtu.be/ue6WSjf3kKo

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 11:04 am

RCH wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 10:59 am Claire, here is a song about not mowing the lawn so you can make tooth of lion wine!

https://youtu.be/ue6WSjf3kKo

I’m actually collaborating with my neighbor on a little batch of dandelion wine right now. We’ll see. Could be nast.

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 11:30 am

It's not preserving and it's not rocket science, but I'm sprouting lentils and it's my new favorite thing. To tend, to watch, and to eat!
I've been in a deep and busy stress zone for several years and any kind of home-life tasks became low priority... now that I'm coming back to normal a bit these things really delight me to no end.

Kefir Water report soon!

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 1:31 pm

Folks, my kraut burped so much brine onto the counter early on that I am afraid it is not saucey enough. I clearly filled my jars too much out of fear of a dry/moldy top layer. I took some out of each of my two big jars and put it into a third jar, then made a little salt water and poured it on all three. AM I OK?
That caraway seed is fierce. It smells like a rye pickle in there.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 4:21 am

you are okay! It just has to be covered, every bit of cabbage has to be covered by brine (hence the boiled rock on top). As fermentation starts it is VERY normal for brine to overflow. So long as you keep things covered with brine (adding more when it barfs too much out, as you have done) it will eventually calm down and be fine.

My first few tries at fermentation things got moldy, so don't despair if this happens to you! But it sounds like things are going great, if it's burping that much ("that means it's working")

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 5:05 am

This is a relief! If no mold grows, can I assume all is well?

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 5:17 am

Yes! Even if mold does grow, it might still all be well--you can just scrape it off and keep going.

Start tasting it and see how it tastes! At first all you will be able to taste is salt and super crunchy raw cabbage. After a few days (depends on how warm your kitchen is), the salt starts being slowly overpowered by SOUR, and the cabbage vibe gets rubbery. At that point you are just waiting for it to taste how you want. If you like it now, stick it in the fridge (put lid on, treat as normal jarred product from here on out). If you want it sourer/rubberier, give it another couple days.

Once it starts living in the fridge, the brine slowly goes away and you are left with just sauerkraut in there (my point is, once you fridge it, you no longer need to worry about topping off brine). I just looked at ours--our last dregs of our last jar, which I made last summer and which has now been in the fridge for 8 months--by this point the cabbage is very soft and very sour and there's no liquid whatsoever. Still great!

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 6:11 am

THANK YOU!!!

astral hellion · Post by **astral hellion** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:01 am

Also be on the lookout for Kahm yeast, it can form on the surface & looks like white scuzz. It’s not mold & not dangerous, but can negatively affect the flavor. Just skim it off the top & go about your day! You might need to do this several times throughout the fermentation, especially if you are baking a lot of bread.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:49 am

Ah, thank you! I noticed it looked pretty normal but tasted a little sour in a bleh way. I added more salt water today. Fingers crossed. Belgium (especially Brussels) has famously yeasty air. No joke!

astral hellion · Post by **astral hellion** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 12:19 pm

Just spent several hours assembling the only sauer that I ever make: cabbage/lemon/ginger.
It is the best because the lemon & ginger keeps it from going to funky town & makes it EXTRA SOUR (best flavor).

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 12:40 pm

I dumped my first two batches of kefir water because they didn't seem super fermented and I read that it can take a few rounds for the kefir grains to really wake up and snap to it. I tasted today's and it was mostly sweet, just sliiiiightly sour. Maybe in a few days round 3 will be better.

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 12:41 pm

I am rooting for your kefir!

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 12:44 pm

Thank you! I love to say hi to it every day and encourage its labor!

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 5:40 am

Kraut has been moved to the fridge! We ate it for the first time today. Spelt bread with salty butter, a block of cheese and a little pile of kraut for lunch. Korneel had a bite, set down his food and offered his hand for a firm shake - about as high a compliment as you can expect from a Belgian.
The caraway is really really great. It mellowed a little in the fermenting so it is not JUST caraway the way it seemed like it might be. I'd do even more turkish chilis next time. The real king here is the coriander seed. When you bite one it gives a fresh lemony burst of flavor. I just love my kraut so much. Thanks for your guidance, team!

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 6:32 am

HOORAY
This is very inspiring and thrilling!! Congratulations!

freddy · Post by **freddy** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 2:03 pm

I have a question for you all. And I say this as someone who enjoys sauerkraut. But how/when/in what configuration are you eating so darn much sauerkraut? Are you just piling it into a bowl and going to town? Do you have a secret stash of sauerkraut recipes somewhere? Because I have, like, three or four sauerkraut-containing recipes, and occasionally I'll pop some on a frankfurter, but other than that I just don't see how I'd eat enough of it to justify making it. Tell me your kraut secrets!

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 2:13 pm

We do not eat very much sauerkraut. Every fall I make 2 quart jars of it and it lasts us an entire year.

We eat it as a little pickly garnish when we have a burger, a sandwich, sometimes with certain kinds of noodle bowls.

2 quarts a year doesn't seem like a ton to me! I will say that I never once ate sauerkraut in my ENTIRE LIFE until I started fermenting it myself purely out of scientific interest; now I eat a small amount per year.

These other freaks on this board I don't know what they're up to, guzzling kraut

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 2:46 pm

Freddy, I have a weird comfort food that may inspire you (if you can glean any culinary meaning from it).

I bake one of those frozen hash browns that sell 20/$3 while I'm cooking a nice short chewy rice. I put the hash brown in a bowl, add rice, whatever veggies I can cook up, a splash of gooey sweet teriyaki sauce, and pickles. Whatever pickles I have, be it sauerkraut, giardiniera, or even just capers.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 2:52 pm

I eat it all the time! I make a (kinda) Asian style kraut with nappa cabbage and Sichuan peppercorns and/or chilies, which I toss into stir-fries wherever I might normally use cabbage for a salty savory kick. Sometimes I’ll just make a little fermented side salad by tossing my kraut in sesame oil. It’s great added to ramen, or plopped onto the side of a rice bowl with veggies for some extra bite. Fermented salty taste has become a big part of balancing out spicy flavors in all kinds of dishes. My more “Western” krauts (caraway, coriander, garlic etc) go on sandwiches or into big salads.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 2:53 pm

@RCH that sounds really good!

astral hellion · Post by **astral hellion** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:50 pm

I make the aforementioned cabbage/lemon/ginger kraut in QUANTITY (currently have about 1.5 gallons fermenting) bc I am a fiend. I used to buy this in bougie little 16 oz jars that cost $10 dollars & though I was scandalized & knew that the ingredients cost literal pennies, I would still go through a jar a week!
I LOVE A SOUR THING. (This is also why I make my own kombucha, there would be no way to justify the cost of that habit.)
I live in a Polish neighborhood & eat the kraut as a side w/pierogis (which are mushroom & kraut filled)! But I will also eat it straight from the jar just like it was some kind of a salad.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:56 pm

I love all these home kombuchas. It's a prince of home beverages... Personally I got hooked on the stuff in the 90's, from my health food stepmom. We called it "mushroom tea" and in the summer months she was probably brewing a keg of it every 5 days.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 5:40 pm

I also make kombucha and it is scandalous how easy it is

freddy · Post by **freddy** » Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:39 pm

Rebecca, your dish sounds amazing!

infopetal · Post by **infopetal** » Tue Apr 28, 2020 10:49 pm

[mention]ritchey[/mention] I think it is finally time for me to start making kombucha, any tips for a beginner?

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 4:55 am

Like a lot of this stuff (sourdough) I feel like kombucha is sort of confusing at first and then when you do it once or twice it becomes super easy and you barely have to think about it. The only thing I have found to be tricky is getting it the exact taste/level of fizzy you want. But to make just basic workable 'Buch is in my experience very easy.

You get a mother (I got mine off Etsy!!! You can also ask someone). It should come packaged in a cup or so of "starter tea," which is just super strong kombucha, the liquid a mother has been sitting in for a long time so it's very sour and powerfully filled with living creatures.

You brew up a big pot of black tea with sugar (proportions vary but it's also not very finicky. I take my big saucepan and fill it up with water (so maybe two quarts), bring it to a boil, turn off the heat, put in 6-7 black tea bags (don't use flavored like Earl Grey, don't use herbal, don't use green--just plain ol black) and like 2/3 cup of sugar and stir to dissolve. Let it steep. (the proportions of caffeine to sugar to amount of yeasts in your starter tea IS important to your final product but I have read a lot about it and still can't follow it or understand it so I just don't worry about it. But just FYI this is something you can read a lot about if you want to know the science and tips for tweaking)

When it's nice and cool (too hot and you will harm your mother/the nice guys in the starter tea), pour it into your fermenting jug.*

So now your fermenting jug has a couple quarts of super strong sweet tea in it. At this point I add cool water to fill up the rest of the fermenting vessel. You could also just use the strong tea as-is. I actually have no idea what difference it makes! I'm sure it makes one. Next time I brew I will do it without diluting with extra water and see what happens and report back.

Then pour in the starter tea, and gently slip in your mother.

Then cover the vessel with cloth, secured with rubber bands**. Don't mess with it again--don't stir it or anything. Let it sit.

MOTHER NOTES:
- the mother is just a big slimy glob. Appearances can vary but it should be firm (I've never touched a piece of liver but I picture it being like that--slimy and wet but somehow also pretty dense and firm). Pinkish-brownish color. Smell like vinegar. It can have weird brown spots on it but if you see white spots or fuzzy spots or slimy spots that's prob mold and something went wrong.
- position of the mother in the fermenting vessel can also vary. Sometimes it floats on top. Sometimes it sinks to the bottom. Sometimes it hangs out in the middle. It doesn't matter. New mother will always form on top of liquid. Most often for me, the old mother sits in the top of the liquid and the new mother grows right on her back. Whatever the mother/baby mother want to do is fine.
- it usually takes a couple brewing cycles to get a new mother up to her full robustness. With a new small mother, start small--just make a couple quarts of kombucha. When she gets bigger and stronger, you can make bigger batches.
- this is why I don't understand why everyone says to throw away the old mother and brew the next batch with the new baby mother. The new baby mother is small and thin and weak as shit! Give me the hardy old-ass giant mother! I throw the new mother in the compost and brew the next batch with the old one. You can do this indefinitely although I think over time the mother will eventually weaken.

Over the coming days and weeks, the creatures in the fungus will slowly eat all the sugar and caffeine in the vessel and poop out kombucha (this is my scientific understanding of the process). A new mother forms on the top of the liquid and slowly grows and thickens. It will grow to fill the entire circumference of your vessel and at that point some natural fizz will start occurring in the liquid, because you've cut off the air to it. This is good.

Brewing will happen faster if your kitchen is warm and much slower if your kitchen is cold. In the summers here in New England, in my house with no AC, the summer is actually stressful. The Buch brews up in two seconds and you can't drink that much Buch. I don't really know what to do. I try to brew smaller batches and let it go as long as possible. I just realized just this second that in the summer I should just keep it in the basement, which is always cool. I am an idiot!!!!!!

Taste it after a week and feel the vibes. It will probably still mostly taste like sweet tea, not like kombucha at all. Give it another few days and taste it again. Etc.

Oh here's the other reason the spigot is nice--every time you disturb the top of your kombucha, you disturb the growth of the new mother that is forming, and basically it stops that one and starts another one. I don't think this matters that much but as a rule people are like "try not to disturb your mother." A spigot at the bottom means you can do taste tests without disrupting what's going on up top. If you don't have a spigot, you have to stick a straw or dip a spoon into the top to get a taste, which disrupts your new baby mother.

When it's as sour as you want it, it's time to bottle it! Here is where I am actually not very good/I am confused, although like I said it nonetheless always turns out fine. It's at the bottling step that you add flavors (lemon, ginger, cayenne, whatever) and it's also ostensibly at the bottling step that you can make it fizzy and I can't quite nail this down. So usually the kombucha will have a bit of natural fizz. But if you want it fizzier you're supposed to add some sugar at the bottling step (which basically wakes up the yeast one last time and makes them generate a bit more kombucha, but now in an air-tight container where the oxygen byproduct can't escape). This means that you pour your kombucha into a bottle with a "swing-top"--the cool stopper with the rubber gasket like you'll see on some cider bottles or English ales. We collect them; you can also get big boxes of used ones from local brewer supply stores usually. (note: You can use any old jar or bottle you want IF you don't care about fizz and are going to put it in the fridge right away! The swing top is only important if you want to work on fizziness).

Here is the bottling process:

- take out your old and new mothers and gently set them aside in a bowl or something (no metal)
- stir up your Buch in the fermenting vessel, to evenly distribute the nice yeasts. Use a wooden spoon, not metal
- take out a cup or two of the Buch and pour into the bowl with the mother(s) (to start your next batch with: this is your "starter tea" now)
- in your bottles, put your flavorings and your extra sugar to create fizz. I'm really unclear how much sugar you are supposed to use as reports vary. Half a teaspoon? A whole teaspoon? Something like that. For flavorings I pretty much exclusive do lemon/ginger/cayenne. Into each bottle, put your sugar, squeeze half a lemon, slug around 1tsp - 1 Tbsp ginger juice depending on how gingery you want it, and tap a little pinch of cayenne.
- pour your Buch into your bottles (you can see now why that bottom spigot is so helpful), leaving very little room at the top (this can be messy)
- cap the bottle and gently agitate to get everything mixed up/the sugar dissolved

(at this point you can start your next batch brewing in the fermentation vessel. Often I just put both mothers back in, because a lot of the time the new mother has grown ON TOP of the other mother, like fused to her, and I feel weird chopping them apart so I just stick the whole glob back in)

Then the bottles go through a "second fermentation" on the countertop. This is where people sometimes have bottles explode because the fizzy pressure builds up too much. You are supposed to "burp" your bottles once a day to prevent this from happening (meaning, just unstop them for a second, usually some gas will come out). You can also keep the bottles in a box or a cooler if you are too scared (i.e. to contain any devastating explosion-based messes that may occur). I have NEVER ONCE had this happen, primarily because like I said I actually have a hard time generating fizz and am not sure why!

Second fermentation might be just 24 hours in a hot kitchen or a few days in a cool one. Keep tasting, once a day (don't unstop them too much or you'll lose your fizz--it'll go flat, like a soda once you open it). When it tastes good, stick it in the fridge!

Mine always turns out either good or adequate. Never bad! A few times I've really nailed it and it's been spectacular. But it's always good, certainly a more than adequate substitute for store-bought. It's fun to always have kombucha in the fridge.

You can make other stuff with kombucha too. You can make vinegar out of it, you can make beer out of it, etc.

Questions? This may be too much info but when I was first starting I felt like I could never find ENOUGH info or nitty-gritty enough info so I erred on the side of too much info

*Fermenting jug has to be glass or earthenware, no metal or plastic. I use a big glass jug with a spigot at the bottom, like what you'd serve lemonade in at a (fancy) picnic. I got it at the antique store. You could use one of those old sun tea jugs from the 70s also. The spigot at the bottom is very handy but it's also not necessary--really any big ol' glass or (food safe) pottery tub will work, it's just harder to taste and bottle without a spigot is all. If you are rich you can get a REALLY fancy handmade pottery kombucha fermenting vessel on Etsy that is really beautiful. Probably though you should make Buch for awhile in an old jug so you can be sure you know what you're doing/want to continue before making such an investment.

**Depending on where you live, in the summer fruit flies are a BIG issue re: kombucha. I once lost a whole mother to a fruit fly infestation, despite the vessel being totally tightly covered. Make sure the cover is fairly thick (thick dishtowel vibe) and maybe even do two rubber bands. In the summer, monitor it carefully.

Additional fruit fly nightmare tips: I really struggle with fruit flies and I hate them so much, they really are a trial for me each summer. No matter how careful I am I always end up with a kitchen full of them. The kombucha fermenting on your counter WILL attract fruit flies, there's nothing you can do about it. Here is the only fruit fly trap I have found that actually sort of works (like, kitchen still has flies but not nearly the full amount): fill a small jar with an inch of kombucha. Add a drop of dishwashing soap and mix it up. Put it on the counter. That's it! Flies will flock to it by the millions and drown and die because they get stuck in the soap or something. It works! Periodically dump out the corpses and replenish. You could put these all over your kitchen. IT WILL STILL NOT PREVENT FRUIT FLIES FROM BASICALLY SITTING ON THE COVER OF YOUR BUCH VESSEL CONSTANTLY. This is your cross to bear and it simply must be borne!

Other important notes:
- never refrigerate your mother, it will compromise her and she will grow weak and sickly

actually that's my only other tip

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 5:39 am

This is a great explanation!
It makes me very tempted to dive back into this world. I think the spigot must be a real game changer.

Right when I was at max buch production is when I got inexplicable incapacitating abdominal pain which went of for months. It finally turned out that (they think?) my appendix-zone(?) had just become spaghetti sauce inside my bod. (Everyone was kind of vague/unsure seeming on the diagnosis, which was finally determined to be "abnormal appendicitis") I was in the hospital for 2 weeks for draining. Now every time I mention kombucha, the man who loves me just gets this very sad "do you have to??" look on his face, but I don't blame the booch.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 5:46 am

"abnormal appendicitis" is a VERY stressful phrase!