37
Dry powders are easier to mix if you make a slurry first with a small amount of liquid and then mix the slurry in.
If you skip this step you will have clumps of dry powder floating on top of the milk and it will take a lot more effort to mix in.
When you are using yoghurt as a starter for a new batch this step is not necessary and the starter can just be ...
35
The initial heating of the milk, besides denaturing proteins to improve the texture, also pasteurizes the milk.
The culture needs to be added in a high enough concentration to crowd out harmful bacteria that might exist.
That said, if your tools or containers are dirty or if your starter is dead, or you don't add enough starter, your yogurt can grow ...
21
Yes, those spots are normal, they form as the nattou ages. They are amino acid crystals, and they are perfectly safe. Here's a picture.
They're a bit crunchy, which you may or may not like. If you don't like the dots, get young nattou and consume it before the crystals form. If you do like them, get more mature nattou. With younger nattou, you should be ...
21
It sounds like it's fermented, and more harmful bacteria or mold could definitely have grown without being visible.
So it's not safe, in that there's definitely some risk. It's hard to evaluate exactly how risky it is. It sounds like you're already routinely taking risks by eating iffy food that's not obviously rotten or moldy, so you certainly could choose ...
20
This recipe is listed under the section for fermentation, together with beer, wine and mead. The section starts with the sentence "Wine, beer and traditional sodas all depend on yeast to ferment sugar into alcohol and generate carbonation".
I don't know enough about the history of soda to know if early sodas were alcoholic. Or rather, I am quite sure that ...
18
Ok, first you had me wondering "How did he get the small jar inside?", but having kids I quickly realized this is a futile question. (For those w/o children, read Douglas Adams...)
The standard procedure for detaching two jars / glasses that are stuck, would be putting ice cubes in the inner one and then placing the outer one in hot water. But you said you ...
17
Note that the milk you take out of the fridge has been sterilised (UHT or pasteurisation) - it doesn't have any bacteria (etc.)[1]. It also isn't very acidic or salty. This makes it a wonderful breeding ground for anything that can get in - there's no competition. Yoghurt (and cheese, and varieties of ham and salami, and...) is full of a bacterial cultures ...
15
Well, having grown up near "the" Sauerkraut region in Germany - I'd say don't.
Honstly, I hadn't ever thought about why until today (can't have been only lazyness that my ancestors left the kraut in peace until done.), but:
Why making really sure to create a water-seal when you are breaking it with stirring? The kraut is supposed to ferment under the ...
14
Vodka by definition is a flavorless distilled alcohol, retaining any of the organoleptic properties of the grain or potato could be considered as ruining the end product.
Potatoes are a good source of starch, but brewers yeast has a limited ability to break down starch into usable fuel; its preferred fuel sources are relatively simple sugars like mono and ...
14
SUMMARY: Glass containers are perfectly fine for fermentation. It's usually other design aspects of the container that create fermentation problems.
Do you have any sources that actually say glass isn't a good container for fermentation? I've never heard or read that anywhere. The only negative thing I can say about glass is that it's usually transparent,...
13
2% (20g per 1000g) would be my default recommendation based on sources local to me, but with care less salt may work if sanitation is extremely good (to minimize introduction of undesirable bacteria which the salt helps to supress.)
On the high end, I can say that 4% seems to slow things down, but work, and 8% seems to be simply too much. The pictured jars ...
12
You might want to try a desem starter. Have a look at the desem primer, which is also linked on the Wikipedia page. Starter instructions are given toward the end. Common lore says that desem starter should never get above 65F, which sounds perfect for your situation. (It's actually fine if it gets warmer than that, though.) Traditional conditions for ...
12
Do.
Not.
Eat.
The assumption that it fermented enough to be safe because it fermented some is likely incorrect. Lacto fermented food recipes are specifically formulated to encourage the rapid and significant growth of lactic acid producing bacteria which lowers the ph so quickly that it overwhelms pathogens which are also trying to grow. Even then, ...
11
You can absolutely make your own black garlic. All that is required is to have the garlic in a vaguely air-tight container (preferably individual wrapped or contained) for 30 days at 140°-155°F. My method, covered at my blog, is to put the garlic in mason jars in my light bulb heated black garlic oven, which can be made for about $30 and can ferment 12 ...
10
This is not yogurt per definition, you are making a fresh cheese. You can actually use other types of milk for such a cheese, but the mouthfeel and taste will be very different and won't be as similar to yogurt.
There is a large class of acid-curdled cheeses, including paneer, tvorog, quark and many others. I don't know if yours has a specific name. I know ...
10
So, fermentation is complicated, and the answer to this question really depends on multiple factors. You're particularly interested in the role of sugar vs. salt, not lactobacillus vs. yeast. The simple answer to that question is that lactobacilli are salt-tolerant, while yeast is much less so. So adding salt gives the lactobacilli a headstart in converting ...
9
Per NC State's Extension's article on pickles and sauerkraut (some emphasis added):
Pickles or sauerkraut mold during fermentation.
Answer:
Unsafe—microorganisms are growing improperly.
Possible reasons
Fermentation temperature was above 75°F.
Too much salt was used,
not allowing adequate lactic acid production.
The ...
9
If your jars aren't in the refrigerator already, I highly recommend unscrewing the lids as soon as possible...unless you want to be able to share stories about how you found glass shards and the smell of kimchi everywhere in your kitchen one day.
Depending on when you mean to eat them, I'd recommend a mix of room temperature ripening and fridge storage. ...
9
After dumping out a couple of jars of failed not-quite-fermented fennel I wondered, "Could fennel have antimicrobial properties?"
<< facepalm >>
Why, yes. Yes it could:
An article on PubMed
Another on PubMed
One on Science Direct
One on Research Gate
Granted, these are about the essential oil and not the whole plant. So I can't be sure this is the ...
9
Yes. The cooking sterilizes the sauce, but adding uncooked basil afterwards has contaminated the sauce again with germs.
8
This is actually a great chemistry question! First off, you need the density and molecular weight of the acetic acid (1.039 g/mL, 60.05 g/mol) and alcohol (which is ethanol — 0.709 g/mL, 46.07 g/mol). Assuming 100% conversion of ethanol (y) to acetic acid (x), you will end up with the same number of moles of acetic acid as the amount of ethanol you started ...
8
Fermenting vegetables is a pretty safe procedure, in fact, if done properly, fermented veggies are probably safer than raw. Really, little can go wrong if handled properly. The process is literally thousands of years old. In fact, your biggest concern is contamination after the process is complete. Of course you need to use safe food handling procedures ...
8
Exposing the sauerkraut to air is undesirable: we want an oxygen-free environment for the bacteria to do their work, and air exposure also brings increased (though small) likelihood of surface contamination (by mold for example).
I don't have a reference but I'm pretty sure that historically opening a crock to stir was not a thing.
And regarding your ...
8
The short answer is yes, salumi produced in the US is a fermented product. The process is different from salumi produced in Europe, but it is still a fermented product. In the US, producers rely on rapidly lowering the pH by using fast acting starter cultures and higher curing temperatures (as high as 104 F). Whereas in Europe, a lower temperature, and ...
8
To avoid clumping. It is much easier to disperse a solid into a small volume of liquid first by whisking or stirring to reach an even consistency and then pouring it into a larger volume of liquid where it will disperse readily, than it is to manage the solids being dumped directly into a larger volume of liquid.
7
That's mold, and you should discard it.
Kimchi keeps forever (well, years) if and only if it's not exposed to air, meaning there's always enough liquid in the pot to cover the cabbage. If you have bits poking up into the air and you leave them there for days/weeks, they'll dry out and start growing mold.
7
If you are going to do anything, do it when you are ready to put the pickles in the fridge again, not when canning - acid keeps the canned pickles safe.
So - leave them really sour as canned. When ready to eat a jar, open, dump the brine, add water (whether or not you salt it is up to you and the salt level in the pickles - I'd try plain water) - put it in ...
7
There's enormous amount of yeast and lactobacteria on the old bread (mostly sporulated, captured from the air). There's also the same tremendous amount of them readily available on fresh cucumbers.
While the yeast don't thrive much in the brine, lactobacteria are tolerant to salt -- similar process happens in sauerkraut. The difference from sauerkraut here ...
7
Milk proteins will coagulate at particular temperatures and Phs. You wrote that you used 2 Tbs of lemon juice but you didn't say how much milk you added that to. If you used too much milk then the mixture will not be acidic enough. Follow a recipe.
You also wrote that you boiled the milk once. I don't know if it is a language barrier issue but it sounds ...
7
Recipes call for a certain amount of starter to maximize the chances that your starter bacteria will crowd out undesirable wild bacteria.
If you use too little starter you will increase the chances that some random bacteria will win the incubation war. Since you don't know what you will get this can be actually dangerous.
I would recommend making an ...
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