kraut thumping

Courtesy of and copyright Adam Harvey

Fermenting the night away
Fermenting the night away

She eats a sauer treat
She eats a kraut treat
She eats a yoghurt treat
She eats a salami treat

She ferments the foods that remind her of the good times
She ferments the foods that remind her of the better times

copyright & licensing

all content © VM (Vicky) Brasseur and licensed under CC BY-SA unless otherwise specified

radishes

2 liter Cambro container with quartered radishes and a 3% brine, held down with pottery weight.

287 g Homegrown French breakfast radishes, quartered
3% brine

The radishes were starting to bolt, meaning I was overdue to do something with them. The greens became lunch pies. The rest will be a simple pickle.

When it’s done it’ll probably make a pint of radish pickle, but right now it’s in a two litre Cambro. The pottery weight is holding everything well below the brine. This is the first time I’ve used the new two litre Cambros that I bought for small batches.

3% brine since it’s summer. Things aren’t too warm (17.7C in the fermentation room this afternoon), but not too cool either.

I’ll let this sit for two weeks before checking on it, but I suspect it’ll take a month or more to complete.

2020-07-19

Every time I walk into the fermentation room I’ve been smelling these things fermenting, so I know that something is happening. Time to check in on them officially.

The brine is a very pleasant pink from the outside of the radishes. This has also dyed the radishes all the way through so they’re now a fairly uniform lightly pink colour.

This is definitely a pungent ferment. Those radishes aren’t messing around.

There were little islands of mold floating at the top. I skimmed them off then cleaned off the Cambro top and the pottery weight. Unfortunately, I think this will just delay mold growth rather than stop it. That genie is out of the bottle. Would swapping out the brine help prevent it? Maybe, but I don’t much want to lose that nice pink.

Anyway, taste test. The radishes as still quite crispy but with a marked acid tang. I’m pretty pleased with how they’re shaping up but will give them another week to sharpen up a little bit more.

The temp in the fermentation room this morning was 17.9C. It’s been moderately hot out this week (~30C), so I’m sure the room has been warmer than 18C but probably doesn’t get much warmer than 20 or 21C.

2020-07-26

A glass pint jar filled with lightly pink pickled radishes Moved these to the fridge today. There were little dots of mold floating at the top again so I replaced the brine, losing some of the pink but there’s still plenty left in the radishes themselves. I’m not convinced this will prevent mold, but it should at least slow it a bunch?

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