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(fermentation)

elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Sunday, December 10th, 2023 03:56 pm

Oh, i forgot to mention the vinegar.  Vinegar making si a bit ... unaesthetic. It's sort of letting nature have its way with ripe fruit bits.

Between the end of August and the end of October, I collected two quart jars of overripe figs. In early November i combined the jars into a very tall jar and rubber banded on muslin. The jar has a hinged glass lid, so i couldn't use my fermentation lid. It has about the same footprint, but  definitely more than 2 quarts of volume. I added an almost a whole packet of Cote des Blancs Wine Yeast and infrequently stirred down the solid matter that would separate and float above the red liquid. The sharp alcohol smell was noticeable.

Apparently that floating vegetative matter is the "cap", and wine makers have to manage it. "The cap can present a number of risks, a combination of acetic bacteria, the warmth of fermentation and oxygen could easily convert a vat to vinegar." -- https://wordonthegrapevine.co.uk/cap-management-winemaking/ (Also, i appear to be doing a "cold soak" in advance when i collect my fruit and just let them go to mush in a jar in the fridge.)

In the past week, i noticed how a thick vinegar mother seemed to appear by magic on top of the cap.  Today i coarsely separated the large solids from the the juice (sediment is already separating down). The smell of vinegar was intense. I'm really pleased with the ease of this production this year. I wonder about the volume to surface area ratio that using the large tall jar provided. I'll try to use the same jar next time.

Right now i'm collecting orange peels in the fridge: i'll make fig marmalade again. I've just read about mostadas -- a fruit preserve with mustard -- and fruit mustards. That's a rabbit hole for the afternoon: pondering reconstituting dried figs in fig vinegar, adding mustard (and cloves)....

Meanwhile, i also made yet another loaf of the fermented buckwheat bread. It is amazing in its simplicity and tastes good, and i keep having successful ferments and bakes. Part of me wants to try rye again, the other part of me is asking why on earth i would try something different. I do have some roasted malted whole rye still in the back of the pantry. Maybe i will add that to the next batch?

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(random, fermentation, garden)

elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Friday, October 28th, 2022 07:21 am
We have a contract for solar installation that says "late March". The project manager started writing to us about a late December install. I wrote back that we were expecting installation in "late March." And they wrote back a bunch of "but our project schedule." AITA for writing our sales contact "What is going on? I feel like i am being treated like a project and not a customer"? I talked to our sales contact, and they noted the person was new, so hopefully the project manager received some gentle coaching on customer communications. I now have a message from the project manager, "Please note that there will be no movement on your project until January 2023 to allow our design team & project management to move forward with installs; to be completed by 2022." Which, as the sales guy points out, is better for them (as many customers, i'm sure, want to get the 30% tax rebate next year). I replied with my thanks. I feel frustration coming through the project manager's messages, they seem to want to understand. But hey, no, i don't need to explain.

Excited about:

Finding beech nuts on the massive beech trees at Town Lake Park. Should i eat them or plant them? Glorious huge trees.

My vinegar has a mother! Last weekend i siphoned the liquid out from between the sediment at the bottom and "Kahm yeast," a less than desirable layer of yeast that grows on the surface. I was hoping such an exercise might mean i'd avoid the growth again. Then i saw a little something at the place where the fig-vinegar-to-be meets the air and the jar: more yeast growth? Sigh. Later i held it up to the light, and it looked different. Unlike the yeast which forms a film on top and cracks and tears with a slight slosh, this undulated. This is pure figs and water and environmental microbiotic critters, oh right, and purchased yeast. The first batch i had been more ad hoc with me jumbling a variety of advice into the mix. It's in the fridge as i was tired of fighting kahm yeast. I've used it with tahini for a sauce for roasted brussels sprouts and to "deglaze" a pan after making a tofu rice scramble. It's OK there. I begin to ponder accumulating a jar of fruit bits in a mush in the fridge to ferment and make more home made vinegar.

Less excited about wire worm damage in the first sweet potatoes i have harvested. I really need to get beneficial nematodes and whatever that stuff is that fights Japanese beetle into the soil. Along with a ton of amendments. Bah.
Tags:

Vinegar and chemistry (cooking, fermentation)

elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Saturday, October 15th, 2022 02:10 pm
Welp, just litmus strips and a refractometer are far from sufficient to understand vinegar's acidity content or wine's alcohol level. Need the hydrometer AND a titration system as well.

Cheese cloth is slightly superior to coffee filters in filtering because you can can squeeze out the juice from the stronger cheese cloth. So that seems like a useful investment that i will use again with jelly and sauces as well as this vinegar trip,

I bought glass straws to pull samples up, sort of like a "wine thief". "I'm getting a refractometer instead of a hydrometer," (which needs a moderately large volume to test bouyancy in), so i just need something to get little samples for the litmus and the refractometer. "I'll get a glass straw and i can put my finger over the end to control the sample." That does work. I was horrified, though, at the "buy glass straws to reduce plastic" sales pitch for the straws and the many many layers of plastic it was delivered in.

So the vinegar i am making is now significantly more expensive, and i still can't tell if it's acidic enough to be used for preserves. It turns out the acidity of some complex fluid like vinegar is not easily determined from the pH. That, and getting 0-14 pH strips leaves me squinting at the subtle color differences between a pH of 3 and 4 and 5. There are, i now see, pH strips for measuring just acids: maybe i'll invest in that someday. First, gotta use the vinegar i've made.
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