Easy Home Fermenting: Preserving Vegetables with Healthy Probiotics

1. Welcome: hello and welcome to easy home fermenting preserving vegetables with healthy probiotics. My name is Matthew Ivan, and I'm a food photographer and recipe developer at plating pixels dot com. It's a food blogger that focuses on healthy comfort food with over 200 recipes and more at it each week and this course you're gonna learn everything you need to know about fermenting your own vegetables. I'll cover the benefits of fermentation and healthy probiotics. You'll learn what you need to get started, your class assignments going to be how to create your first batch in five minutes. And yes, that is possible. You'll learn about recipes are gonna cover garlic, fermented carrots, crispy dill pickles and super simple sauerkraut. Also gonna learn about advanced tips during and after your fermentation process. Still become a pro and have perfect from into vegetables every time. This courses for really anyone who's interested in eating more vegetables, trying something new in the kitchen and just experimenting and having fun 2. What is Lacto-fermenting? : before we get started. Let's talk about the process is lacto fermentation is the preservation of vegetables using healthy bacteria called lacto by Celia's thes thriving saltwater and have the ability to create lactic acid from sugars and starches and your vegetables? This is a natural preservative that kills bad bacteria and allows good bacteria and healthy probiotics to thrive. Now this process is different than creating alcohol, canning or pickling, and in this course a couple specifically lacto fermentation. And in the next video, we'll talk about the benefits, and some of them might surprise you. 3. Benefits of Fermentation and Probiotics: there many benefits creating your own fermented vegetables. The lactic acid acts as a natural preservative that kills bad bacteria once they're fermented. You can storm in your fridge for at least a few months, if not longer. Now this extra storage time creates easy, healthy snacks to have on hand. And once you buy the vegetables and ferment on, you can let him sit in your fridge for months and they're ready to go. This will save you time and money. You'll do less shopping trips. You can buy vegetables in bulk and preserve them in storm. And then the other benefit is the probiotics that are created. Thes act is a digestive aid. They boost your immune system, they fight foodborne illnesses, and they reduce inflammation. And, of course, Lex fermentation just makes your veggies taste good. They give it that nice, pickled, vinegary taste. Plus with the added health benefits 4. What You’ll Need to Get Started: fermenting vegetables is surprisingly simple and only requires a few items, most likely already have them on hand in your kitchen. To start, you'll need a jar or a container. I prefer 32 months mason jars as of the ideal shape and size for fermenting any size, shar or continual work as long as it's sealed, so find what works best for you. Next, you'll need water and you want to use purified or filtered tap water. And this is critical for the growth of the lactic acid and the probiotics. If use unfiltered water, trace amounts of chlorine and other chemicals can inhibit the process. Next, you'll need salt, nytnews, pinko Himalayan salt, sea salt or kosher salt. You want to avoid iodized table salt or any kind of salt with additives, so be sure to read the labels, and it should just say salt. That's the only ingredient. If there's any anti caking agents or any kind of additional items, those air gonna inhibit the process as well. And then finally, of course, we're gonna need some vegetables. Now try to find vegetables that are ideal rightness and as fresh as possible. I personally like to use pickles, carrots, cherry, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower beats just experiment. What works for you? Some have better flavors than others. And then, of course, you can always add some extra flavours like Bailey's and peppercorns, which will cover in future videos. So now that you have everything you need to get started, let's create your first batch in less than five minutes. 5. Start Fermenting in Less than 5 Minutes: Now we're ready to start our first back to fermented vegetables all under five minutes. We're doing cherry tomatoes and have everything I need here to get started. So we have our 32 ounce mason jar and are filtered water. So you want to add for this size container about two cups and you want to fill it just under halfway and that'll save room for your vegetables. Next, you're gonna add 1.5 tablespoons sea salt. Go ahead and steal it up and give it a good shape to dissolve. Now, I found the ideal ratio of salt toe water to be four cups water to three tablespoons sea salt. So now that the salts ready, we're gonna go ahead and add in our flavor enhancers. I like to add in things like a few clothes of garlic, couple bay leaves and about a tablespoon of black peppercorns. And now you just add your cherry tomatoes. So we're gonna fill up the rest of the jar, and this will be about two cups tomatoes or pint, and when you fill it, you want to leave about 1/2 inch of space, and this will allow the gas that created during the lactic fermentation process to escape. So you want to seal it and there you have it. You're done. You just created your first batch of fermented vegetables Well, under five minutes and this is ready to go. You just want to store in a cool, dark place. So you're covered or a counter out of direct sunlight is best. And for cherry tomatoes, you want to let him sit about three days and with the gas I mentioned, you wanna open that thing and we caught burping. So this will allow the gas to come out. That's form to do that once a day and then after about a few days, easily perfect and ready to go, most specials take longer, but this is best for cherry tomatoes. And then when they're done, you can storm in the fridge. This will stop the fermentation process in the last months or longer. That is, if you don't eat him before then. So there you go. This is also your first assignment. So once you're done, go ahead and post a picture. Leave a comment, let me know how it went. If you tried anything else I'd like to hear from you. Thank you. 6. Recipe: Fermented Garlic Carrots: 7. Recipe: Fermented Crispy Dill Pickles: four get started on your fermented, crispy dill pickles on a point out. One key thing that's going to make these crispy ISS best pickles possible. So generally when you ferment pickles, the skin will get kind of soft and mushy. So there's a trick to keep him nice and Chris, that you want to add tannins, too. The batch. Now you can either use a fresh grape leaf, but those are hard to come by. So I found using a plane bag of black tea. No flavors, no other additives. Those are gonna give you the perfect amount of tannins for about a 32 months mason jar. So add in your salt water, your dill, your cucumbers and place that in there. Let it sit there during the entire fermentation process, and then the last key trick is the end of the cucumber. It's called a blossom, so you want to cut that off. There is a chemical in there that's gonna also make them a little mushy. So those two tricks the tea bag and cutting off the end, you're gonna have perfect crispy dill pickles every time. So let's get started 8. Recipe: Super Simple Sauerkraut: now ready to make our super simple sauerkraut Sarah Kratz different than most fermented vegetables, and I want to point out a couple key differences. So for one, I like to use a food processor to finally shred the cabbage. If not, you can shop by hand. The other key difference is we're not using any water to create. The sauerkraut were using the built in liquid that's in the cabbage as well. Assault. Now that you know the few key tips, let's get started and will make super simple sauerkraut, Theo. 9. Pro Tips: Before Fermenting: Now that you started fermenting on vegetables, let's cover some advanced tips to make you a pro. First, the size and shape of your vegetables affect the flavor and textures. Generally, you want to cut him into smaller pieces, so strips slices or wedges. Work best smaller items like cherry tomatoes. You want to leave hole and certain vegetables. It depends. Either one appeal or leave the skin on. So start your vegetables like carrots or beets. You want to peel the skin off, but for cucumbers. If you're making pickles, you want to leave the skin on to create that nice crunch. You also want to add flavour enhancers to your vegetables. Generally every batch I create. I add garlic peppercorns. In Bailey's. You can also get more creative and added coriander, dill, other fresh herbs. Just kind, experiment and find flavors that work. Depending on the type of vegetable and flavor you're going for. You may have noticed that it ferment most my vegetables in separate jars. This is important for a few key reasons. One. The flavors will combine and melt together so a stronger vegetable will generally overpower the other vegetables in the jar. The colors will also mix as well, so you have a darker vegetable like beets mixed with something else than those are gonna mix together as well. I learned this the hard way when I created carrots and cauliflower in the same jar, and I ended up with orange cauliflower that tasted like carrots. If you're going for that, great. But I prefer to keep him separate and then combine them after the fermented. And the other good important reason is fermentation. Time is different, depending on the vegetable that starts Penis the size etcetera. For example, cherry tomatoes really only need a few days to properly ferment, however, vegetables like carrots, you can go 1 to 2 weeks, so if you keep them separate, you can control the fermentation length better as well, to create optimal flavor and texture. 10. Pro tips: During and After Fermenting: now that you started first few batches of fermented vegetables. Let's cover some key tips for, during and after the fermentation process to make the best possible fermented vegetables. It's important to create an anaerobic environment. This is an environment that's completely sealed from its surroundings. The salt water will create this, and it's important to make sure vegetables are completely submerged under the water. If you find they're floating to the top, you could add a heavy item like a canning. Wait. Just make sure that they're sterilized and clean. And in the off chance you do get mold that forms at the top. It's completely harmless to the rest of the fermentation process. Just simply scrape it off. Maybe remove the top couple vegetables and let the process continue. The lacto fermentation process creates gas and carbonation inside of the jar, so it's important to release that I find about once per day. Just simply open the jar and it's called Burping. So lets the air out and generally maybe a few days into the process. It'll be strongest and you'll see actual fizzing happening and an out of bonuses. Every time you open it, you get the lovely with of whatever eventually fermenting and really just makes a process that much more fun. The fermentation length can vary depending on the vegetables, your fermenting and the flavor you want to achieve. So experiment with what works best for you, I find generally about a week, plus maybe few days is best, But some vegetables, like cherry tomatoes, might only in a few days, but something like sauerkraut would need a full three weeks to develop. So began whatever works best just experiment for the amount of flavor, acidity and texture that you want for your vegetables. Once he reached the desired fermentation laying to get the right flavor and texture, it's important to stop the fermentation process. Simply put in the refrigerator. The cold environment will stop the lactic acid and probiotics from for me. Once they're in there, they'll store at least three months. Six months. I've heard up to a year, that is, if you don't eat them all before then, 11. Closing: Get Started Today: and that's it. You have everything you need to know to create your own fermented vegetables, as well as a few recipes to start with. I hope you enjoy the process as much as I dio, and it's been a pleasure to teach the class. So for your first assignment, make sure you try your first vegetables with the cherry tomatoes. You'll be done in way under five minutes and feel free to post your pictures along the way . Share comments, your favorite vegetables, any other tips. Just anything to help other students in the class really get the best possible fermented vegetables they can again. My name is Matthew Ivan. It's been a pleasure, Thank you so much.