Fermenting your own food may seem like a daunting and unattainable process to take on at home. We have to admit, we were there one day too. But after you wrap your head around it, understand fermenting’s history and methods, and know why fermented foods are so beneficial to your health, you may just reconsider. And because you’re reading this book now, you’re likely there already.

Coauthor Marni: As someone whose philosophy is rooted in natural nutrition, each step of my journey with food has been a true evolution. I’ve taken on each layer with true determination. When I first made the choice to eat a clean whole foods diet, it only became natural to take on all the things that came with eating in a more natural way. This included sprouting, juicing, blending and the most intimidating of the bunch — fermenting.

I resisted fermenting for years, thinking it was too difficult. When I started my first batch of sauerkraut, I had reached new levels in my kitchen and in my own health. The concept of it was a true novelty. It was so simple and so rewarding to preserve my own food. Of course, experimenting with all the different forms of plant-based foods was my true mission. So it was only natural to start taking some of my existing recipes and altering them to become more nutritionally active and alive.

Coauthor Amy: I can’t remember a time when food wasn’t an activity in my family. Sauerkraut, corned venison, pickled eggs — these were the foods of my people. It wasn’t until I became a teenager that I realized no one else knew what in the world I was eating! From this upbringing, I developed a taste for fermented foods.

There’s something intriguing about taking a single food and completely changing the taste and texture in a simple way. The smells and tingle of good fermented nourishment always remind me of being loved and cared for. I bring that same sense of self-reliance and health to this book. Each time I teach someone about the benefits of fermenting foods, I know that it opens up a whole new world of delicious taste that can come from their own backyard. There’s no need to travel to exotic locations to experience delightfully tasty, nutritious food. You can create a wide variety of recipes with the simple ingredients you have on hand and a little time.

About This Book

This book breaks down the whole process of fermenting, from how to get started to what equipment and ingredients you need to discovering all the different foods that you can ferment. You’ll be quite amazed at what takes place during the process of fermentation.

Here are a few of the topics that we explore:

• The basics of fermentation
• How to get started
• The benefits of fermented foods
• All the different types of foods that you can ferment: vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, meat, dairy, and beverages

On a technical note, you may notice that some web addresses in this book break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these websites, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s written in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just click the web address to be taken directly to the website.

Foolish Assumptions

This book is for anyone interested in exploring the world of fermented foods. They’re fascinating to learn about and healthy to boot. So if you’re looking to take your health up a notch and take your foods to the next level, then this book is for you!

We expect that you have an interest in the topic and that you probably fall into one of these categories:

• You want to learn the basics of fermentation.
• You want to preserve your foods using natural methods that don’t involve cans, vinegar, or other methods of food preservation.
• Your digestion is weak and you’re looking for a natural solution through foods to heal your gut.
• You’re interested in getting back to your roots and into the kitchen.
• You’re looking to make your own homemade fermented beverages and foods so that you can avoid the not-so-healthy options in the supermarket.

Icons Used in This Book

This book uses icons — small graphics in the margins — to help you quickly recognize especially important information in the text. Here are the icons we use and what they mean.

This icon appears whenever an idea or item can save you time, money, or stress as you add more fermented foods to your diet. These include cooking and shopping tips and ideas for incorporating fermented foods into some of your existing meals.

Any time you see this icon, you know the information that follows is so important that it’s worth reading more than once.

This icon flags information that highlights dangers to your health or well-being.

When the discussion veers off into the realm of too technical or downright nerdy, you’ll see this icon.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the web. Even though we try to give you as much info as possible in this book, you’ll likely want to find out more. To get to the cheat sheet, go to www.dummies.com and type Fermenting For Dummies cheat sheet in the search bar.

In addition, you can read interesting companion articles that supplement the book's content at www.dummies.com/extras/fermenting. We’ve even included an extra top-ten list, which For Dummies readers seem to love.

Where to Go from Here

For Dummies books are organized in such a way that you can surf through any of the chapters and find useful information without having to start at Chapter 1. Naturally, we encourage you to read the whole book, but this structure makes it very easy to start with the topics that interest you the most.

If you’re looking to gain an understanding of fermentation and its roots and what you need to get started, take a look at Chapters 1, 2, and 4. If you’re trying to understand why fermented foods are so good for you, check out Chapter 3. If you’re vegetarian, vegan, or generally plant-based in your diet, you may want to refer to Part 3, which covers all things plant-based.

Chapters 11 through 13 cover animal-based fermenting. So if you’re looking to ferment dairy, meat, or fish, these chapters are for you. The book also has several chapters on fermented beverages, from healing beverages in Chapter 14 to alcoholic beverages in Chapters 15, 16, and 17.

No matter where you go in Fermenting For Dummies, you’re sure to discover a lot and gain a healthy attitude toward fermented foods!

IN THIS PART …

Get familiar with the basics of fermentation.

Discover traditional to modern practices of fermentation.

Find out the difference between pickling and fermentation.

Figure out the items you want to ferment.

Understand why fermented foods are so good for you and your gut.

Getting Familiar with Fermentation

Fermented foods are all around you. You may not realize it, but you’re likely already a consumer of one or more fermented food products. Have you had any sourdough bread, soy sauce, tofu, yogurt, cheese, or a glass of cider or wine lately? Does your sandwich come with a salty pickle or some sauerkraut on the side? You can thank the process of fermentation for these items.

Fermentation turns sugars to alcohol or other acids using yeast and bacteria. The chemical change often involves increasing the acidic environment and develops in places without oxygen (anaerobic conditions). It’s a low-cost, highly efficient way of preserving foods.

Fermented foods have existed for centuries as populations around the globe learned how to capture the slow decomposition process of organic materials and preserve them by adding salts, sugars, or yeasts. They controlled mold and promoted good bacteria with the intention of maximizing the shelf life of their foods, enhancing flavors, or gaining health benefits.

Getting to know the art of fermentation also gets you familiar with the beauty of bacteria and its desirable presence in your food products. The changes caused by fermentation can be both good and bad. When fermentation occurs naturally, the food can smell or taste “off” (think of sour milk), but when you control the fermentation process, you can actually have some incredible results! When you execute fermentation processes properly, something that could have turned rotten instead turns into a consumable product. That’s right — bacteria, yeasts, and molds will soon become your new best friends.

When fermenting foods, the key to developing the perfect environment and flavor and gaining all the great health benefits is to be confident, experiment, and do your best to create the utmost environment for fermentation, with proportional ingredients to support its growth. Some recipes are more challenging than others or require longer fermentation time, but plenty of fun and simple recipes are out there for beginners.

Fermentation throughout History

Food can give you insight into cultural and culinary traditions from around the world. Every part of the world has had a fermented food to be proud of. From beverages and breads to vegetables and fruits to meats and milk, there is often a whole culture and ritual behind these fascinating fermentations. This section pulls back a historical veil and reveals some rhymes and reasons behind this unique food process.

How Can Something Rotten Be Good for Me?

In her book Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon says that the proliferation of lactobacilli in fermented vegetables enhances their digestibility and increases vitamin levels. These beneficial organisms produce numerous helpful enzymes, as well as antibiotic and anti-carcinogenic substances. Their main byproduct, lactic acid, not only keeps vegetables and fruits in a state of perfect preservation but also promotes the growth of healthy flora throughout the intestine.

Fermented food helps turn those hard-to-digest substances into digestible ones and even comes chock-full of vitamins and minerals.

It may be deceiving that a food that has seemingly started to ferment can be good for you. Yes, the line can seem quite thin between rotting and fermenting, but as you get to know the art of fermentation, you’ll quickly discover the difference. Food that is rotten has already become useless and inedible. It can smell bad, be moldy, and can certainly harm one’s health. Fermented foods actually prevent rotting, can even be safer to eat than fresh food, and last much longer before they’re considered truly spoiled. Fermenting foods can enhance the foods’ flavors — you’ll grow to love the new smells, strange fizzes, and interesting looks.

Fermented foods offer some amazing health benefits. They can

• Improve your digestibility
• Help you better absorb more vitamins and minerals
• Lower your risk of eating spoiled foods or getting food poisoning
• Reduce your risk of cancer and other diseases

For more information on how fermenting foods increases the nutrients in the food and the digestibility of your gut, see Chapter 3.

Fermenting Essentials

The fundamental things you need to ferment foods are often the same, but there are many variations of those ingredients that can change your results.

• Fermenting containers: Fermented foods must be made without the presence of oxygen or spoilage will occur. A good fermenting container is essential to your success. Use a sturdy container that’s large enough to hold your fermented goods. Containers are best made from glass, like Mason jars, or nonreactive materials, such as a crockpot made from ceramic or a well-cleaned plastic bucket. The key to fermentation is creating an anaerobic, or oxygen-free, environment by sealing out any outside air.

  Look for fermentation jars with an airlock seal that allows gas to escape but no air to get inside, though in some recipes a weighted lid will do the trick.

• Lactobacilli: These naturally occurring bacteria are essential to the fermentation process. These good bacteria have been proven to fight intestinal inflammation and help create a healthy gut. They also enhance the flavors and digestibility of fermented foods — they’re the invisible workers that make your food ferment!
• Salt: Salt can kill any bacteria that may cause illness. It does this by creating a less inhabitable environment by removing water from the plant cells. Salt also helps enhance the flavors of food. It can reduce sweetness or bitterness in foods, a desirable thing for your recipes!
• Spices and herbs: You add herbs and spices to your fermented foods to create unique recipes. Think of adding ginger to your kombucha, cranberries to your sauerkraut, or caraway seeds to your pickled goods!
• A starter or a culture: Many fermented recipes ask for a starter or a culture. No, we’re not looking for you to adopt a new way of life; this type of culture is one full of existing microbial life. A fermentation starter can come in the form of a dried powder, yeast, or a wet substance and is essentially used to boost the food’s flavor and the digestion process. You can get good results using a kick-start from a previous batch to accelerate the fermentation process. You can purchase starters or, depending on the product, reuse them from other food products like sourdough or yogurt.
• Sugar: You use sugar to help preserve foods when salt would be undesirable. (Imagine making jam or kombucha with salt. Yuck!) Most commonly used in wet brine, sugar can include cane sugar, honey, or maple syrup. (Refer to Chapter 6 for info on sugar substitutes.)
• Time: Every good fermented food product needs time. The tiny microbes will work to turn those starches into sugars and alcohol and will only slow down if you place them in cooler temperatures. Depending on the end product, you’ll leave your ferments anywhere from two to seven days, or longer! Check your recipe and taste your food according to the flavors you desire.

Pickling (and How It Differs from Fermenting)

There are so many different kinds of pickles! Pickles are generally associated with the traditional cucumber in brine, but you can pickle all kinds of things, from fruit and vegetables to meat, fish, and eggs. In India, some of the most popular pickles are made from mango and lime. In Europe, you’ll find pickled herring, olives, and beets. From Asia to Europe, the world of pickling is vast and varied.

Pickling is the process of preserving food using a brine (saltwater) solution. The salt in pickling acts on the food by drawing out the water from its cells and kills any bad bacteria that may spoil the food. Pickles are often added to a meal to help aid with digestion, giving your body that extra bit of Lactobacillus acidophilus it needs to restore some healthy gut and intestinal flora.

So, what’s the difference between pickling and fermenting? Fermenting and pickling can seem very similar, but they’re not the same thing. The process that occurs inside the brine is called fermentation, but the act of making brine and placing food into the saltwater solution is called pickling. Pickling also usually requires added heat through a canning process, whereas fermented goods can sit out on your shelf and don’t require heat. Fermented foods thrive in anaerobic conditions and make use of naturally occurring “good” bacteria submerged under the saltwater. Fermented foods have a bit of a tangy flavor, while pickled goods taste salty or vinegary all the way through.

The role of salt in fermentation is to help draw out water from foods and make a salty living environment so bad bacteria have little chance of survival. A brine is created in fermented recipes to preserve fruits and vegetables or other food products. Making brine can be a bit of an experiment, and the salt measurements sometimes depend on your personal preference. Remember that a little salt goes a long way! Some brine even contains a bit of sugar to balance out the salty flavor.

Here are some general tips on pickling:

• Use the firmest, freshest vegetables or fruit possible.
• Scrub your veggies well before using them; any dirt or bacteria can affect them.
• Make sure you clean and sterilize all your pickling supplies.
• Choose unrefined salt for the highest-quality and best-tasting pickles.
• Keep your vegetables submerged under the brine (salt solution).
• Wait the recommended period of time before eating your pickled goods.

A Quick and Easy Intro to Fermenting: Making Sauerkraut

Before we end this chapter, we want to show you just how easy it is to experience the wonders of fermented food. One of the most popular forms of fermenting and pickling is done with the common cabbage. For centuries, cabbage has been made into kimchi in Korea and sauerkraut in Germany. There are many different types of sauerkraut. Sauerkraut is an incredible recipe that uses the process of wild fermentation, meaning that no starters are needed. The natural bacteria living on the plant life are responsible alone for the ferment. It doesn’t get any easier than that, which makes sauerkraut a perfect recipe for fermentation beginners!

Here are the items you need:

• One head of cabbage (any color your heart desires)
• Sea salt
• A well-sharpened knife and a cutting board
• Cleaned and sterilized fermenting containers; a glass bowl, wide-mouth Mason jars, ceramic bowls, or plastic buckets will all work just fine

Sometimes people use a weighted object to cover sauerkraut as it ferments. Whether you use one depends on the fermenting container you’re using. For sauerkraut, large ceramic bowls or wide-mouth jars are certainly handy. Keeping your cabbage submerged under the wet brine is most important. A weight, something as simple as a heavy plate or a plate with a stone on top, helps to put pressure on the top of your container and pack down your cabbage.

Try to ensure that the plate fits snugly around the circumference of any vessel you use. You want to allow the gas to escape but minimal oxygen to get inside that may cause mold to build on your sauerkraut. If you notice mold, you can scrape it off and still eat the cabbage below. The fermentation process and all the salt will kill off any unwanted microbes.

After you gather your materials and equipment, here’s how you make sauerkraut:

1. Chop the cabbage into fine, thin slices.

2. Place the cabbage into a large bowl or plastic bucket and add an even amount of salt to cover the cabbage.

   Two to four tablespoons should suffice, but feel free to add according to your taste and preference.

3. Mix the salty cabbage and squeeze the vegetable until liquid begins to emerge from it.

   The act of salting the cabbage draws out enough water. You’ll get to see this over time.

4. Place the squeezed-cabbage tightly into a Mason jar or other fermenting container.

   Press it forcefully down into the bottom of the container so it’s packed well. You don’t want to have any air bubbles. Ensure that the brine (saltwater) is covering the cabbage.

5. Leave the cabbage submerged under the brine.

   If you want to add a small amount of water you can, but this isn’t necessary.

6. Seal the jar or cover your fermenting container with a heavy weighted object.

   A comfortable fermentation environment is at or just below room temperature. Some people suggest covering the top of your sauerkraut with several full cabbage leaves before placing the lid on top. Try this for yourself and see what works best. Leave your jar sitting in a room slightly colder than room temperature for three to five days.

7. Check on your fermented goods daily.

   Pressure will begin building on the inside of your container, and you may see some water overflowing. You can taste the changes over time and adjust the salt or water content as needed (add some water if you find the brine isn’t covering the cabbage). If the cabbage you use to ferment isn’t fresh, the water content is naturally going to be less.

8. After several days, your sauerkraut should be ready to eat.

   When you’ve achieved the softness and salty flavor you desire, serve it as a side dish or just eat it alone. It will last for months in your refrigerator.