The dead of winter is upon us here in Chicago, and since the fields are frozen and snow covered, I’m dreaming of greener and warmer days and finding creative things to do indoors. Recently I’ve been exploring fermentation, especially beverages. I have brewed kombucha in the past, and tried kefir, although that quickly overwhelmed me with its demands for more and more milk each day. I’m particularly interested in fermented beverages because I don’t buy soda, and try not to drink it much, even though I like the taste. So that left me with coffee, water and milk. Coffee and milk aren’t good for thirst quenching, and I get tired of plain water. I read that you could make homemade alternatives to soda, which sounded promising. Then I learned that they have awesome health benefits, and I was sold.
What is fermentation?
Fermentation is a method of food preservation that converts sugars and starches into lactic acid, and prevents spoilage. Also known as lacto-fermentation, this process has been used to preserve food and even enhance its nutrition for thousands of years. Almost all cultures have some type of traditional fermented food, showing that humans have a long history of using fermentation to preserve our food. So it’s kind of a strange experiment we are all engaged in, in the modern industrial world, where our diets are almost entirely devoid of traditionally fermented foods. Many familiar foods now factory produced were originally fermented-ketchup, mustard, relishes, pickles, slaws, ginger ale. But the fermentation process doesn’t transfer well to the industrial food production system that mass produces the majority of our food today. Companies found ways to produce foods on a large scale, often using high fructose corn syrup or vinegar as a preservative, instead of lactic acid produced naturally through fermentation, and pasteurization, which ensures food safety on a large scale by killing all microbes and bacteria, good and bad. but also nullifying the health promoting qualities of the original living foods. Almost all fruits and vegetables naturally have lactic acid producing bacteria on their surfaces… they only need appropriate direction to be successfully fermented and preserved.
Why is it good for you?
Lacto fermented foods contain lactobacilli bacteria that preserve the nutrients and enzymes in food in addition to promoting the proliferation of good bacteria in the intestines. Eating fermented foods on a regular basis can help keep your gut flora healthy, which helps suppress pathogenic microbes that cause sickness and infections. Healthy gut flora also increase the amount of nutrients your body is able to absorb from your food. Lacto fermentation enhances the vitamin and mineral content of many vegetables, and their digestibility. For instance, fermented cabbage has more vitamin C than plain cabbage. They are excellent foods that are almost entirely absent from the modern western industrial diet. Traditionally, they were eaten in small amounts with foods that are difficult to digest, such as meat. In the days before refrigeration, fermentation was a way to preserve food that didn’t require energy or complicated ingredients.
Lacto fermented beverages are very refreshing, slightly bubbly and range from tart to a little sweet. Some athletes even drink them as recovery beverages after workouts, because they contain electrolytes that replenish mineral ions lost through perspiration without the artificial ingredients, not to mention live enzymes, vitamins, minerals and beneficial bacteria.
How do you do it?
Kombucha
Kombucha is a Chinese fermented tea.
Ingredients
Kombucha SCOBY (order online or get one from somebody who already brews kombucha) and starter liquid
6-8 tea bags ONLY plain oolong, white or black tea; don’t use herbal teas…
about 1 gal water
about 1 cup sugar
Boil about a quart of water, add the tea bags and dissolve the sugar, let it steep until the tea is strong. Add cold water to make a bit less than a gallon, and cool the tea down. Remove the tea bags and add the sweet tea to a glass jar with the starter and SCOBY. I like to use sun tea jars because they have a spigot that make it easy to brew continuously. Cover the jar loosely with the lid, place it out of direct sunlight, at room temperature for a week or more. Taste a little periodically it tastes the way you like. The longer you brew it, the more sour it will get. You can do a second fermentation and experiment with different flavors by bottling finished kombucha in another bottle and adding fruit juice or purees or herbs. I like strawberry, guava, lemon, ginger.
Ginger Ale/Ginger Beer
This doesn’t taste just like store bought ginger ale, it’s more tart
Ingredients
14 tsp grated fresh ginger
14 tsp sugar
1 ½ cups water
10 + 20 cups water
3 cups sugar
Make a ‘bug’- In a mason jar set out at room temperature, mix 2 tsp ginger and 2 tsp sugar in 1 ½ cups of water. Shake to dissolve and tighten the lid. Add 2 more tsp ginger and sugar every day for 7 days, shaking each time. The bug should be fizzy on day 7.
Boil 10 cups water, dissolve 3 cups sugar (turbinado, rapadura, coconut sugar, etc) Add 20 cups of cold water, ¼ cup lemon or lime juice and the liquid from the bug. Mix it together, then bottle it. I put it in pint or quart mason jars, filling it up to about an inch from the top, and then close the lid tightly. Leave out at room temperature for 7 days (or more) before drinking. Store in a cool place.
Pleasant Boundaries 