Try Fermenting Vegetables - Here's How

Acidified food has a number of positive health effects. Take advantage of seasonal produce and try making your own pickled vegetables. Here you will learn how!

If you want to ferment yourself, you need salt, vegetables and a glass jar with a metal hanger and rubber ring.

Fermented Vegetables

• Shred or grate the vegetables.
• Weigh them and add salt corresponding to about 1.5 percent of the weight of the vegetables (= 15 g or about 1 tablespoon of salt to 1 kg of vegetables). Squeeze the vegetables until they liquefy considerably.
• Pack the strips tightly in the glass jar and fill with the vegetable liquid to cover. Leave 5 cm free to the edge of the jar.
• Take a small freezer bag and unfold it at the top of the jar. Pour water into the bag so that it fills up the remaining space. Press out the air and tie a knot high up on the bag. Close the lid.

The water bag acts as a weight and keeps the vegetables below the liquid level so they are not exposed to oxygen. For the same reason, you should not open the glass jar during the fermentation process. The carbon dioxide that develops escapes via the rubber ring.Ferment for 14 days at room temperature, leave to mature for 14 days in the refrigerator. Store preferably cold.

 

You can also ferment the vegetables whole or in pieces in brine.

•  Good vegetables to pickle
• Cabbage
• Red cabbage
• Salad bowl
• Carrot
• Beetroot
• Zucchini
• Break beans
• Outdoor cucumber
• Kohlrabi
• Fennel

Buy Fermented Vegetables

You can also buy pre-fermented. vegetables .If you want to ingest live lactic acid bacteria, however, you should choose those that are sold as refrigerated preserves. The acidified products that stand at room temperature on the store shelf have undergone pasteurization, which kills the bacterial culture.

Yeast And Mold

If the contents of your opened can of home-pickled or store-bought vegetables go moldy after a while, throw it all away.

If, on the other hand, the contents are covered by a thin layer of powdery white overgrowth, the vegetables have been affected by top yeast, which is harmless. Remove the top layer it doesn't taste as good and use the rest.