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.