Mixing The Brine
Available in Salt & Accessories
For most fermenting vegetables and kvasses a 2% brine is sufficient. Carrots, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, whole or quartered beets, onions, garlic, horseradish, and just about any other firm vegetable you can think of, will do well with a 2% brine. Finely sliced cabbage and grated or very thinly sliced beets will create their own brine. Pickling cucumbers and peppers are very prone to mold, and require higher salinity to prevent mold: at least 3.5% up to 5% for cucumbers, and up to 10% for pepper mash.
You will notice that recipes from other sites for fermenting and fermenting cookbooks will call for a higher amount of salt. In The Probiotic Jar, the molds and yeasts are starved for oxygen very quickly, and lower amounts of salt are sufficient to control them. When adapting recipes to use in The Probiotic Jar be sure to adjust the salt according to the types of vegetables in the ferment.
One critical principle to be aware of when the goal is true lacto-fermentation for the creation of a probiotic medicinal food is that LAB are mineral-hungry and need some salt; however, more salt inhibits them, slowing their growth, and too much salt kills them. When you use too much salt, what you end up with is a brine-cured food, which is fine if that is what you want. Many recipes on other sites and on blogs have very high salt recommendations (such as 1/2 cup salt for 2 1/2 cups water), and still call it "lacto-fermentation" but with such high levels of salt, little or no actual lacto-fermentation is going to happen. If you always mix the brine (2% or 5% depending on the vegetable type), and discard the salt recommendations in the recipes, your recipe will turn out wonderfully. Fresh herbs are a wonderful addition to a ferment. Keep in mind the other recommendations such as using only whole spices, because ground spices contribute mold. The one exception to this is for a 2 or 3 day quickly consumed ferment, when molds won't have a chance to gain a foothold, as in salsa.
Some considerations regarding this rule should be taken with some foods such as pepper mashes and lacto-fermented/preserved lemons, which require great amounts of salt to prevent mold. Most of the time a very slow lacto-fermentation is detectable during the room temperature phase, which means that the LAB are active on a low level, but not enough to consider those foods "healing, probiotic" foods.
It is critical to use properly filtered chlorine and fluoride free water. Chlorine and fluoride both kill microbes, and will not support a healthy ferment. Clean well water and fresh spring water are wonderful to use in ferments, and properly filtered city water is fine too. If your water is safe to drink, and chlorine and fluoride free, ferments will do well in it.
Weighing salt is the preferred method of measurement. We recommend and only use Himalayan Pink Salt. Himalayan Pink is a very dry salt, and moisture content does not greatly affect its weight. You can be confident that your brine salinity is correct using Himalayan Pink. We do not recommend Sea Salts because some sources suggest that they contain mold, which should not be introduced to the ferment.
You will notice that recipes from other sites for fermenting and fermenting cookbooks will call for a higher amount of salt. In The Probiotic Jar, the molds and yeasts are starved for oxygen very quickly, and lower amounts of salt are sufficient to control them. When adapting recipes to use in The Probiotic Jar be sure to adjust the salt according to the types of vegetables in the ferment.
One critical principle to be aware of when the goal is true lacto-fermentation for the creation of a probiotic medicinal food is that LAB are mineral-hungry and need some salt; however, more salt inhibits them, slowing their growth, and too much salt kills them. When you use too much salt, what you end up with is a brine-cured food, which is fine if that is what you want. Many recipes on other sites and on blogs have very high salt recommendations (such as 1/2 cup salt for 2 1/2 cups water), and still call it "lacto-fermentation" but with such high levels of salt, little or no actual lacto-fermentation is going to happen. If you always mix the brine (2% or 5% depending on the vegetable type), and discard the salt recommendations in the recipes, your recipe will turn out wonderfully. Fresh herbs are a wonderful addition to a ferment. Keep in mind the other recommendations such as using only whole spices, because ground spices contribute mold. The one exception to this is for a 2 or 3 day quickly consumed ferment, when molds won't have a chance to gain a foothold, as in salsa.
Some considerations regarding this rule should be taken with some foods such as pepper mashes and lacto-fermented/preserved lemons, which require great amounts of salt to prevent mold. Most of the time a very slow lacto-fermentation is detectable during the room temperature phase, which means that the LAB are active on a low level, but not enough to consider those foods "healing, probiotic" foods.
It is critical to use properly filtered chlorine and fluoride free water. Chlorine and fluoride both kill microbes, and will not support a healthy ferment. Clean well water and fresh spring water are wonderful to use in ferments, and properly filtered city water is fine too. If your water is safe to drink, and chlorine and fluoride free, ferments will do well in it.
Weighing salt is the preferred method of measurement. We recommend and only use Himalayan Pink Salt. Himalayan Pink is a very dry salt, and moisture content does not greatly affect its weight. You can be confident that your brine salinity is correct using Himalayan Pink. We do not recommend Sea Salts because some sources suggest that they contain mold, which should not be introduced to the ferment.
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Sea salts also tend to hold moisture, which greatly affects the weight of the salt. This can alter the actual salinity of a brine, making it too high or too low which will affect the outcome of the ferment. If the salinity is too high, the result may be a brine-cured food, which is just fine for preservation, but this is not culturing probiotic lactic acid bacteria. If the salt content is too low, the result may be a failed ferment where molds and yeasts get a foothold before the lactic acid bacteria flourish.
Table salt with added iodine actually has an unnatural level of iodine that will kill the ferment. Other salts may have added flowing agents or other hidden additives, which should never be added to a ferment. To get the concentrations right, it is important to measure out the filtered water correctly, and then weigh the salt before adding. The mathematical calculation for mixing brine is: The volume of water in ml (which equals the weight in grams) multiplied by the strength of the brine desired (2%=.02) equals the amount of salt in grams. To get a liter of 2% brine, fill a pitcher with 1000 ml. of water (1 liter), multiplying by .02, which equals 20, which is the amount of salt to add (in grams) to the water. Or, you could just use the handy brine chart, but isn’t it good to know how to do it? |
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