Kimchi, Kefir, Sauerkraut and all other fermented foods

I sterilised some scissors and gave it a go... I think it should be fine

Yeah it should be fine

@atz confirmed.

Regarding the earlier horseradish post, biona do one with actual real fermented horseradish.

I've made my own a few times and it's quite labourious as you have to grate the horse radish finely. It also stings your eyes. Absolutely delicious though when done well

Well the beetroot and horseradish thing is tasting good, it didn't ferment as vigorously as I was expecting, dunno if that is typical of beetroot, or maybe our house is a bit on the cool side. It's got a nice acidic tang though as well as earthiness from the beetroot and a nice crisp heat from the horseradish but not overpowering.

Ended up blitzing the horseradish which was going well until I lifted the lid and it was like breathing in fire.

How do you tell when Kombucha is in the zone where you can drink it? I appreciate it continues to ferment but it's not visibly any different to how it was when I bottled it but I'm a week down the line so I assume I can start to taste?

Just taste it? I would leave it more like 2 weeks though

Just remembered that I had been brewing.

I now have 5 liters of vinegar...

Oops.

At least I have a giant SCOBY though.

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If it has vinegared, won't you transfer the vinegar bacteria to your next brew on the scoby?

Most of the guides I gave seen make little distinction between the two.

I've bottle a litre of it for using as vinegar, started a new 5L brew with the new pellicle & 400ml of the scoby, a a 2L brew with just a few hunderd ml of scoby, and reserved the old pellicle & a few 100ml of scoby in the fridge for a later brew.

This time, I'll probably check the fermentation a bit sooner.

^^^ is good to go for a second ferment.

I'm going to bottle 2 litres as-is, and the rest (about 3L) with raspberry syrup (5oog raspberries, ~200g sugar, ~200ml water).

Will report on progress in a week.

^ I ended up using a load of the vinegar for pickling jalapeños. Well worth the effort.

Also, how do you get the smell of kimchi out of glass...

Nothing I have tried has worked. Just make it your only-kimchi-jar.

Nice vinegar! Don’t leave it too long. I once had a big batch of lovely live homemade apple cider vinegar denature into a horrible watery thing.

What’s the diff between a pellicle and a scoby ?

As far as I'm aware, the pellicle is the cellulose mat that forms as part of the fermentation process. The SCOBY is in mostly in the liquid.

Opened a few bottles last week.

This stuff is damn good.

Another 5 litres due next weekend - I've doe a lot more filtering this time, as there is a lot of sediment at the bottom of the bottles, which mixes in the fizz when you open them.

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How do you get so much sparkle in. Mine are very slightly fizzy but not much.

Beginner's luck, probably.

1st ferment was about 9 days, then bottled with syrup for 7 days in the warm, and 7 days in the fridge.

Anyone (ideally south London based) have some excess live kefir grains?

Yep, I've got some going spare in SE, send me a PM

Still looking for some (milk) kefir grains if anyone has any going spare.

I've finally had kombucha for the first time. I quite liked it.

I kept the bottle as it had some floaty bits in it - In people's experience, can I use that to start my own kombucha? It was a live unpasteurised kombucha by Kitty's.

Fermented scotch bonnets. One with garlic and one with garlic and chilli

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In theory, yes.

The floaty bits aren't necessarily the bits you want, but are probably indicative of their being the bits you want in the liquid.

Feed it week, leave it a few weeks, see what happens

You can but it'll take a while to grow into a full blown scoby. I have a couple now that are quite big and can be halved if you're after one.