Yogurt

Heirloom Greek Yogurt

This culture is a heirloom variety of yogurt.  If properly cared for, it will last for years!  Heirloom cultures are adaptable to home culturing conditions and will stay strong and true.  Commercial cultures like you purchase pre-made at the store will lose their strength after making a few batches and have to be purchased over and over.

Making your own Greek yogurt at home is simple, tasty, and inexpensive!  

This post will be updated with more details in the next week, but the short version of yogurt culturing is.....

1) Keep it clean to avoid contaminating your culture.  Scrub and thoroughly rinse everything that will come in contact with your culture.

2) In a pot on the stove, slowly heat raw or pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) milk to  160 - 180 degrees.  Stir while heating and carefully monitor the temperature. Avoid burning milk on bottom of pan!

3) Once milk reaches desired temperature, remove from heat and cool to approximately 110 - 115 degrees.

4) Stir in yogurt culture from the previous batch.  You need approximately 1 - 1 1/2 teaspoons of yogurt per cup of milk you wish to culture. Be sure to thoroughly combine yogurt with milk.

5) Place a lid on top of your yogurt-to-be and place in a yogurt maker or a cooler with hot water from the tap or a jug of hot water.

6) Incubate yogurt 5-12 hrs.  Start checking hourly to see if yogurt is set after 5 hrs.  Yogurt is done when it pulls away from the side in a jelled mass when tipped to the side.         

7) Once yogurt is set, place in fridge for a few hours to allow it to finish culturing.

8) Store prepared yogurt in fridge.  Eat and enjoy, but remember to save enough starter to make your next batch!

9) Re-culture your yogurt every 7 - 10 days so that the culture stays strong.  If you need a break from making yogurt, freeze some culture or dry some in a thin layer on waxed paper.

Milk Kefir

Milk Kefir Care Instructions

Keeping milk kefir is easy.  You simply put the kefir grains (see below) into milk.  The next day (two days, if it is very cold in your home), strain out the kefir grains and place them in fresh milk.  Ta-da!  You have made milk kefir!

Milk kefir grains will thicken milk and give it a sour flavor.  Milk kefir is similar in consistency to a tangy, drinkable yogurt.  It is full of probiotics!

To make a quart of milk kefir at a time in a canning jar with a plastic lie, or brew in a fido jar:

1 - 4 T. milk kefir grains (the more grains, the faster your milk will kefir)

~ 3 c. milk (any dairy milk will work, goat milk and skim milk will be thinner in consistency)

Place grains in jar and pour milk over grains (milk can be cold or room temperature).  Container can be filled ~ 2/3 - 3/4 full.  Leave some head space as the milk kefir will sometimes expand as it ferments and/or become fizzy.  Cover this mixture with a solid lid or cloth lid.  It will be fine either way.  I prefer to use a plastic lid to avoid cross-contaminating my sourdough starter, kombucha, sauerkraut, and other ferments.  Leave milk kefir at room temperature until it thickens.  This may take 12 - 48 hours.  The warmer your house is, the quicker it will ferment.  The more grains you use per quart of milk, the faster it will ferment.  If your milk kefir over ferments, which is common in the summertime, it will separate into a milky layer and a clearish (whey) layer.  No worries.  Stir it up to recombine them.  You might want to use fewer milk kefir grains or not ferment for as long next time to prevent this.  This is your first ferment. You can drink it plain, but it will taste MUCH better if you second ferment it.

Pour through strainer to separate grains from kefired milk.  A strainer with large holes is quicker and easier to use than a fine strainer.  The kefir grains are placed in fresh milk to culture at room temperature, just like before.

Second ferment - This step is optional, but it adds delicious flavor to kefir and cuts down on the sour flavor. Add fresh, frozen or dried fruit, citrus slices or peel, latte powder, flavoring, extra, or even garlic to the kefired milk and let it sit on the coutnertop for 24 hrs. to ferment (again).  Strain out flavoring (if applicable) and place in fridge or consume.

Kefir can also be strained to make a kefir cheese.  This kefir cheese can be used in place of sour cream.  You can strain until firm, add some spices and herbs for a healthy and delicious vegetables.  Ron's Kefir Dip is particularly amazing!!!

***Cultures can cross-contaminate one another.  Keep several feet from other fermented foods/beverages.***

Links to care of milk kefir, milk kefir recipes, and troubleshooting:

Dom's Kefir Site endless kefir information!

Cultured Food Life by Donna Schwenk, fantastic kefir recipes and information

Whole Natural Life kefir photo guide

Yeemos kefir troubleshooting guide and great source of cultures

Cultures for Health kefir troubleshooting and culture source, great customer service

Sourdough Baking

Sourdough baking is a wonderful yet almost forgotten skill.  If you're patient and feed your starter often, you will be rewarded with some of the best bread you have ever eaten!  I live in a cold, breezy farm house and love the smell of slow-rising bread.  Sourdough is much healthier than regular breads and is a great excuse for warming up the oven in the wintertime.

There are many websites with instructions for how to start your own starter from scratch.  If you want a really good starter for free, you can send a SASE for Carl Griffith's 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter at carlsfriends.org.  There are many websites with great sourdough starters to purchase too. Starting sourdough from scratch is very rewarding, but working with an established starter is easier when you are getting started.  I enjoy kitchen experiments.  The photos at the top are where I compared 6 white starters, 5 whole wheat starters, and 1 rye.  Each of them tastes distinctive.

Care of your starter:

Like any pet, your sourdough starter requires some care and maintenance.  It is forgiving of mistakes but will perform best for you with regular care.  All your starter needs is flour and water.  Some folks add a variety of ingredients to their starter.  You are welcome to do this as well, but it is not needed.

Each time you feed your starter, you can double the amount of your starter.  If you received a couple of tablespoons of starter from me today, scrape the starter out into a larger container, add a couple of tablespoons of room temperature or slightly warm water.  Stir in the water to mix it well.  Add a couple of tablespoons of flour, stir it in a little.  It is fine to leave it lumpy.  In fact, the sourdough likes it this way.  I keep my starter around the consistency of pancake batter.  You can keep it thicker or thinner or experiment and see how your starter likes it the best.

Sourdough starter must be fed daily if kept on the counter at room temperature.  This works well if you are baking with it on a daily basis.  If you bake less often, the starter may be kept in the fridge and fed about once per week.  It will sleep in your fridge happily for a while, but to bake with it, you need it active and alert.  Pull your starter out of the fridge a few days before baking and feed it 1-3 times per day.  Small, frequent feedings work best for your starter.

It is easy to make more sourdough starter to bake with or share with your friends.  Your starter can be fed (and doubled) approximately every 4-8 hours.  Extra starter can be used to make pancakes, biscuits, etc.  You can bake with the extra or discard it.  If it sets for a while, a dark layer may form on top that smells like alcohol.  This is called hooch.  It can be stirred back into the starter or poured off.  It is up to you.

*If you use a wide-mouthed container, it will be easier to get the starter out and wash the container.  You can use a solid lid screwed on very loose, a cloth lid, a coffee filter, a paper towel, etc. held down securely with a rubber-band.  Sourdough will produce gas bubbles that need to escape.  Do not brew kombucha, jun, or water kefir near your sourdoughs as these cultures can cross-contaminate one another.*

Baking with sourdough:

Now that you have fed your sourdough for a few days, it is probably bubbling up to the top of its jar within a few hours of feeding it.  It is now ready to use for baking!  Your sourdough will work at its own pace, which you may or may not enjoy at first.

Below are links to some recipes I enjoy:

For pancakes, biscuits, etc.:  http://carlsfriends.net/OTbrochure.html

For No-Knead sourdough bread: http://www.sourdo.com/recipes/no-knead-sourdough/

For Sourdough bread with fermented jalapenos:  http://www.culturedfoodlife.com/jalepeno-sourdough-bread/

What's that?  You don't have any fermented jalapenos?  (Gasp!)  I highly encourage you to join the friendly facebook group, Fermenter's Kitchen and learn how to ferment them!  You can learn a lot more about sourdough baking and well as other ferments there.  There are sourdough recipes and tips in the files.  It is full of friendly, helpful people.  If you're not a fan of facebook groups, Fermenter's Kitchen also has a facebook page and a website.  There are several other sites lists on the resources page for you to check out as well.

Wonderful Facebook Groups and Books

There are many facebook groups and books on fermentation, natural living, gardening, etc.  Below are a few of my favorites.

Recommended FB groups:

Fermenters Kitchen - friendly, helpful atmospheres to help you get started with fermented foods/beverages, vast wealth of info on fermented foods/beverages, monthly projects to encourage you ferment a variety of foods, exchange cultures
Sourdough breads-Milling-Growing the wheat - fun, helpful group of bakers with every level of experience
Culturing Friendships - many fermenters near KC, periodically meet and have tastings

Wild Fermentation - recipes and ideas on fermentation
The Cult of Pre-Pasteurian Preservation and Food Preparation - traditional food preservation

Recommended FB pages:
Fermenters Kitchen
Fermenters Club
Cultured Food Life
Cultures for Health

Recommended websites:
Fermenters Kitchen - Fermentation info., recipes, healthy vinegar mothers for sale, excellent service
Cultured Food Life - Cultured foods in everyday dishes. recipes, KC area fermentation classes
Wild Fermentation - Sandor Katz's site, full of information
Friends of Carl - free Oregan Trail sourdough culture for SASE, sourdough recipes
Breadtopia - Endless sourdough information, video tutorials
The Fresh Loaf - Sourdough chat forums, recipes, etc.
Cultures for Health - many, many cultures for sale, instructions, helpful info.
Gem Cultures - great cultures, nice family-owned company
Sourdough International - Ed Wood's site on sourdough cultures from around the world, cultures for sale

Recommended books:

Wild Fermentation Sandor Katz

The Art of Fermentation Sandor Katz
Cultured Food for Life Donna Schwenk

Real Food Fermentation by Alex Lewin

Jun

Jun - 1 quart

Primary ferment: 4-7 days

1 quarts boiled water

1/4 cup honey, raw is best

2 green tea bags

1 scoby

Boil 1 quarts of water. Add 1/4 cup honey. Boil for 5 minutes. Steep 2 regular-sized green tea bags. Allow tea to cool and pour into wide-mouth jar. Add 1/4 cup or more fermented tea (from previous batch) and scoby. Cover tightly with a clean cloth, papertowel, or coffee filter rubberbanded down over top.  Place out of direct sunlight (keep warm in winter and cool in summer). Check flavor after 4 days (4-7 days) until desired tartness is reached.

For Secondary ferment (2-7 days), place ferment into small bottles. You may add 1-3 oz. juice per 15 oz. bottle.  Frozen, dried, or fresh fruit all work well.  Consider adding combinations of fruits, spices, etc.  Be creative.  If tightly capped, it will become very fizzy.  Be careful when you open the bottles as they may have built up pressure.  You can burp them daily to avoid this. 

Use and Storage:  Place scoby in fresh batch of tea (cooled to room temperature) to begin again. If scoby becomes too thick, it will brew faster and take up a lot of room in your container.  Separate scoby into layers if it becomes too thick. Store back-up scobys in fermented tea.  ***Cultures can cross-contaminate one another.  Keep several feet from other fermented foods/beverages.

Jun - 1 gallon

Primary ferment: 4-7 days

3 quarts boiled water

1 cup honey, raw is best

8 green tea bags

1 scoby

Boil 3 quarts of water. Add 1 cup honey. Boil for 5 minutes. Steep 8 regular-sized green tea bags. Allow tea to cool and pour into wide-mouth jar. Add 1 cup or more fermented tea (from previous batch) and scoby. Cover tightly with a clean cloth, papertowel, or coffee filter rubberbanded down over top.  Place out of direct sunlight (keep warm in winter and cool in summer). Check flavor after 4 days (4-7 days) until desired tartness is reached.

For Secondary ferment (2-7 days), place ferment into small bottles. You may add 1-3 oz. juice per 15 oz. bottle.  Frozen, dried, or fresh fruit all work well.  Consider adding combinations of fruits, spices, etc.  Be creative.  If tightly capped, it will become very fizzy.  Be careful when you open the bottles as they may have built up pressure.  You can burp them daily to avoid this. 

Use and Storage:  Place scoby in fresh batch of tea (cooled to room temperature) to begin again. If scoby becomes too thick, it will brew faster and take up a lot of room in your container.  Separate scoby into layers if it becomes too thick. Store back-up scobys in fermented tea.  ***Cultures can cross-contaminate one another.  Keep several feet from other fermented foods/beverages.

Kombucha tea

Kombucha - 1 quart batch

Primary ferment: 7-10 days

1 quarts boiled water

1/4 cup sugar

1-2 tea bags

1 scoby

Boil 1 quarts of water. Add 1/4 cup sugar. Boil for 5 minutes. Steep 1-2 regular-sized tea bags. Allow tea to cool and pour into wide-mouth jar. Add 1/4 cup or more fermented tea (from previous batch) and scoby. Cover tightly with a clean cloth, papertowel, or coffee filter rubberbanded down over top.  Place out of direct sunlight (keep warm in winter and cool in summer). Check flavor after 7 days (7-10 days) until desired tartness is reached.

For Secondary ferment (7-14 days), place ferment into small bottles. You may add 1-3 oz. juice per 15 oz. bottle.  Flavor may be added to the 2nd ferment with fresh, dried, frozen fruit, or juiced fruit, spices, tea bags, etc.  Be creative.  If tightly capped, it will become very fizzy.  Be careful when you open the bottles as they may have built up pressure.  You can burp them daily to avoid this. 

Use and Storage:  Black tea or a combination of black and green can be used for the primary ferment.  Place scoby in fresh batch of tea (cooled to room temperature) to begin again. If scoby becomes too thick, it will brew faster and take up a lot of room in your container.  Separate scoby into layers if it becomes too thick. Store back-up scobys in fermented tea.  ***Cultures can cross-contaminate one another.  Keep several feet from other fermented foods/beverages.

Kombucha - 1 gallon batch

Primary ferment: 7-20 days

3 quarts boiled water

1 cup sugar

4-10 tea bags

1 scoby

Boil 3 quarts of water. Add 1 cup sugar. Boil for 5 minutes. Steep 4-10 regular-sized tea bags. Allow tea to cool and pour into wide-mouth jar. Add 1 cup or more fermented tea (from previous batch) and scoby. Cover tightly with a clean cloth, papertowel, or coffee filter rubberbanded down over top.  Place out of direct sunlight (keep warm in winter and cool in summer). Check flavor after 7 days (7-20 days) until desired tartness is reached.

For Secondary ferment (7-14 days), place ferment into small bottles. You may add 1-3 oz. juice per 15 oz. bottle.  Flavor may be added to the 2nd ferment with fresh, dried, frozen fruit, or juiced fruit, spices, tea bags, etc.  Be creative.  If tightly capped, it will become very fizzy.  Be careful when you open the bottles as they may have built up pressure.  You can burp them daily to avoid this. 

Use and Storage:  Black tea or a combination of black and green can be used for the primary ferment.  Place scoby in fresh batch of tea (cooled to room temperature) to begin again. If scoby becomes too thick, it will brew faster and take up a lot of room in your container.  Separate scoby into layers if it becomes too thick. Store back-up scobys in fermented tea.  ***Cultures can cross-contaminate one another.  Keep several feet from other fermented foods/beverages.

Water Kefir Instructions

Water Kefir

To  make a quart at a time in a canning jar with a paper towel rubberbanded across the top or cover with a plastic lid, or brew in a fido jar:

1/4 c. sugar (organic, unrefined is best)  You can also regular white sugar and adding molasses to it if it is what you have at the moment.

1/4 c. water kefir grains

~3-4 c. water, non-chlorinated

1/2 organic lemon (or peeled regular lemon, or regular lemon dipped in boiling water 30 seconds) - don't need to squeeze it

1 piece dried fruit (organic, unsulphured)

Water kefir grains need minerals.  I have well water, so they get plenty of minerals from the water.  If you're using reverse osmosis water, etc., you will need to add some minerals.  Unrefined sugar will provide some minerals.  Others add a tiny pinch of baking soda, boiled & cleaned eggshells, a drop of liquid minerals, etc.  Cover this mixture with a solid lid or cloth lid.  It will be fine either way.  This is your first ferment.  Let it sit 24-48 hrs.  You can drink it plain, but it will taste MUCH better if you second ferment it.

Second ferment - Pour through strainer to separate grains. Add fruit, juice or other flavoring (maybe 1-5 oz. juice, small piece of fruit - pureed, dried, frozen, etc. are all fine) and cap tightly. Let sit 24-48 hrs. - burp 1-3 times per day so it doesn't build up too much pressure.  CAREFULLY open bottles.  If the grains are really active, they can shoot yummy liquid all over your ceiling or even break a glass bottle.  If in doubt, open it in the sink with a towel over the top.

The water kefir grains that you strained out can be rinsed briefly (rinsing is optional, be gentle) and placed in a clean jar to start the process again or rested in sugar (1 T. sugar/1 cup water) in the fridge if you need a break.  It takes a bit to figure out how sweet/sour/fizzy/etc. you want it and there are endless flavorings to play with.  ***Cultures can cross-contaminate one another.  Keep several feet from other fermented foods/beverages.

If starting with dried grains, it can take a few ferments for the grains to become active again. Soak 2 tablespoons of dried grains in a quart of water with the juice of 1-2 fresh lemons added. Let soak for 4-6 hrs. Drain and start the regular recipe. Be sure and swirl them it to keep the ones on the bottom mixed up.