Category: Fermentation

Wine Chronicles: Why Not Apple-Fruit Cocktail?

~ Carrie ~ 2 Comments

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So I had a few cans of fruit cocktail that I purchased with the idea that I’d make “rum pot”, yeast-fermented fruit cocktail that is a little like Amish friendship bread: once you get it up and running, you can give some away to your friends.  I specifically purchased a tropical fruit cocktail because it didn’t include the unnaturally red cherries with their beetle-derived color (carmine), and it had no added corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup. Realizing, though, that I needed to keep feeding the living rum pot with more fruit cocktail to keep it going, I decided to go in another direction…what kind of wine could I make? Continue reading “Wine Chronicles: Why Not Apple-Fruit Cocktail?” →

Wine Chronicles: Skeeter Pee (Lemon Juice Wine)

~ Carrie ~ 3 Comments

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A couple of months ago, we found ourselves with 3 glass bottles of lemon juice in the fridge: several of the rabbit tractor water bottles had frozen overnight due to unseasonably cold temperatures and had split along seams, rendering them leaky and useless. The bottles that the lemon juice came in were the right size for replacements, and the metal spouts from the original water bottles were a perfect fit. Leaky bottle problem solved…but what to do with the lemon juice that the bottles formerly contained? Continue reading “Wine Chronicles: Skeeter Pee (Lemon Juice Wine)” →

Bilbemel Update: Blueberry Mead (Melomel)

~ Carrie

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So this was my first foray into the world of wild-fermented mead, and despite using raw honey and adding fruit to try to facilitate the ferment, after four days, there was no detectable activity. Puzzling. Not to worry, though…as a winemaker, I have plenty of yeast on hand, so I added a little slurry from a previously-made berry wine’s lees. I keep the slurry in the refrigerator to extend its life, so it took a while to come up to room temperature in the primary fermentor; when it did, though, it looked the way I expected: bubbly.

Continue reading “Bilbemel Update: Blueberry Mead (Melomel)” →

Fermentation Experiment: Orange Rinds

~ Carrie

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I recently posted about making wine from Cara Cara oranges, but what about the byproducts of that winemaking? After all those oranges were reamed for the wine (and a couple zested for the peel), there were a lot of leftover rinds with pulp and juice still clinging to them. A favorite wild-fermented beverage, Tepache, came to mind…why not try a similar ferment with the leftover orange rinds? Continue reading “Fermentation Experiment: Orange Rinds” →

Managing Ferments: Cold-Fermenting Milk Kefir

~ Carrie

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Perhaps you’ve heard of milk kefir? It’s a mesophilic culture that eats milk sugar (lactose) to produce a delicious, creamy cultured beverage that’s full of probiotic goodness. What’s mesophilic? It just means that the culture works best at a moderate temperature, like room temperature. Yogurt, on the other hand, is a thermophilic culture, meaning that it needs higher temperatures to work properly – which is why the milk is used in yogurt is heated. While milk kefir may look and taste somewhat similar to yogurt, I believe that the ease in making milk kefir gives it a major advantage over making yogurt. In addition, I’ve found that cold fermenting it can produce a wonderful product that’s superior to room-temperature culturing and that will allow you to keep milk kefir production manageable. Continue reading “Managing Ferments: Cold-Fermenting Milk Kefir” →

Audrey Tales: Misbehaving Sourdough

~ Carrie ~ 1 Comment

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If you follow us on Instagram, you’ve already met Audrey, our sourdough starter. With her assistance, we (and by “we”, I mean “he” because he’s the baker and I’m the fermenter..though, technically, sourdough is a ferment, too) have delicious, fresh, additive-free loaves of bread for our morning toast+cream cheese+alfalfa sprouts and our meatloaf sandwiches. We consider Audrey a treasured pet, and we try to ensure her health and happiness so she’ll continue to help us make great bread.

Sometimes, however, Audrey is unhappy. Not “hooch on top because she hasn’t been fed” unhappy, but more of the “I don’t like the flour you’re feeding me” unhappy or “it’s too cold in here so I’m slowing down” unhappy. We have pretty extreme fluctuations in temperature where we live, and Audrey is sensitive to it. Continue reading “Audrey Tales: Misbehaving Sourdough” →