I carefully consider food pairings for our large hot sauce collection the way some people think carefully about wine. In this case, I would suggest using this with eggs, potatoes, or a pasta dish with a simple tomato sauce.
All amounts here can be adjusted according to taste except for the salt.
There are many options, from vapour locks used by homebrewers to a simple plastic lid screwed firmly but not too tight. Any of these will work for lacto fermentation as long as oxygen from the air doesn’t touch the vegetables but carbon dioxide produced within the jar can escape. In a day or two you should see bubbles forming in the jar, and if your lid is tight enough you’ll hear gas escape if you loosen the lid slightly as a test. If you use a tightly sealed glass jar, it is possible for the pressure to build to the point where the jar will burst, so be careful! The easiest solution I’ve found is to just use any bail lid jar, for example the Fido brand (as suggested by my colleague Jason, whose home fermentation successes inspired me to try as well).
For more on home fermentation in general, a good place to start is Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz.
We buy yogurt culture online from Glengarry Cheesemaking in Ontario. The trickiest part is learning how much yogurt culture to add. Glengarry sells the culture in packages of 60 grams, which they say is enough for 60 gallons (~230 litres), and you’re supposed to use ¼ tsp per 3-4 gallons (12-15 litres) for a “small” batch, which works out to about 1 gram (or 1/50 tsp) per litre of milk.
I currently use a 1/32 tsp measuring spoon to measure the culture into a ½ litre jar. (This is traditionally called a “smidgen”, and it came in a set that also included a 1/16 tsp measure, or “pinch”, and a ⅛ tsp measure, or “dash”). I’ve also done this by eye on the tip of a butterknife; after a few tries you get the hang of it. If the yogurt is too thin, use more culture; if too thick, use less. If it doesn’t work at all, you probably added the yogurt culture when the milk was too hot.
You’ll need a thermometer capable of reading temperatures from 40°C to 85°C, and a large thermos able to contain the jar you want to make yogurt in with lots of volume left over.
After years of making yogurt on the stove, we bought ourselves an Instant Pot model with a yogurt making option, which makes this process even simpler. I wouldn’t buy one just to make yogurt (there are cheaper options for that) but if you’re buying one anyways and eat lots of yogurt I’d definitely suggest getting a model with this feature. No thermometer or thermos is needed with this method.
You need to use a mason jar since they’re made to withstand heat. I use four 500 mL jars, since they fit well inside our 6 quart Instant Pot. If you have to force the lid down, the jar will be under pressure and might break. Don’t use the “quick release” method to release the pressure either; that causes the jar to cool down too fast, which will also break it. Just let the Instant Pot cool until the pressure is released naturally (about 20 to 30 minutes).
It’s also possible to simply pour the milk into the Instant Pot and transfer it to jars once the entire process is complete, as described in the manual, but I prefer to use jars from the beginning to simplify cleanup.
]]>It’s going to be quite a year. Wish me luck, and all the best to you & yours.
]]>My plans for the year turned out alright: I succeeded in my goal to write short reviews here of everything I read in 2013; the total came out to 45 books, which doesn’t count a few children’s books and short graphic novels. I also more or less stopped dressing like I had walked into a Salvation Army store naked with a $10 bill, a step in a long, slow trend towards adulthood (or at least my own interpretation of it).
This year, I aspire to start taking better care of my aging body, regardless of how cliché it may be to resolve to exercise more. We’ll see how well this goal turns out.
Here’s hoping you have a year of joy and hope. As I said to a friend yesterday, may you have all the cake you deserve.
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