“Oh No! What Happened Here!? A Fermentation Gone South”

Posted by admin as live-culture, probiotic,

So what happened? Why did my fermenting foods project, yogurt making bonanza, end up as curds and whey? Any Guesses?

Here is what I did: I super cleaned my VitaMix and my gallon jars with my top secret super cleaning routine, heated the milk to 100 ish degrees, added the yogurt cultures, blended in the VitaMix some more, and placed in my clean one gallon jars. Here is a special note, dear reader, if you are like myself and have more than one size and diameter of one gallon jar: perhaps you should check to see before you start cleaning if the jar you are planning to use is the short and squat one gallon jar as opposed to the taller one gallon jar that, yes, you guessed it, does not freaking fit in the Excalibur. Aye Carumba!

So after I wasted more time shuffling and cleaning jars with the super secret process I pulled all the trays out of the Excalibur, placed jars in with a kitchen towel secured over the mouth with a rubber band, fired that bad girl up to 105, set the timer for 12 hours and told her I would check her in the morning.

Cr@p! What happened here? My ratio was off of inoculating yogurt to milk. As in, use more than one tablespoon of starter yogurt for an entire gallon of milk, Rowan.

So I ended up with curds and whey, which is still a fermented food, but not the yogurt I was hoping for. The curds, the white on the top has a similarity to lebne (a Lebanese style, I think) which is a fermented cheese that has the taste and texture of a cottage cheese/sour cream blend. I love this style of cheese on chili, yes.

So don’t throw it away! Bake a potato, make chili, bust out the onion soup packet and some chips, this is still definitely edible and most probably delicious, just different from the original intent.

And what to do with the whey? Well almost anything according to Sally Fallon of the Weston Price Foundation.

So keep fermenting your food, and don’t give up if your result is different than your desired result.
Be brave, get cultured!
Rowan

p.s. feel free to share your own learning curve.

Tweet This Post

Technorati Tags: fermented food, live-cultures, yogurt

No Comments »

Mar

“WHAT! You Bought a $400 blender?!!!!”

Posted by admin as kefir,, live-culture

That’s a direct quote from my frugal yet prosperous sister. The year is 1997, I have about fifty cents to my name but I am anxiously awaiting my new (refurbished) Vitamix. Im post divorce, depressed, and able to keep anything but smoothies down due to stress.

Enter the VitaMIx. I know people who have ‘em, they are all over The Farm, I’ve used em for years, so I decide to take the plunge.

So I am outside gardening, weeding, and talking to my sister Blythe on the phone and I see a BOX that the mail carrier had shoved in a hedge. WHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEE, I am so jazzed I cant even speak, just whooping and making a bunch of noise, Blythe’s asking me what’s wrong, but I mostly don’t hear it because I am trying to rip into the box, and finally it penetrates that she is concerned when I hear, “Are you ok, did you see a snake?”

Thats some passion, right?

So I tell her I bought a VitaMix and she is APPALLED, “What, you bought a $400 blender?” I know my sister and there is no way I could explain this to her satisfaction, so I tell her its a good idea for me and just to wait and see.

Since then I have used it daily, and for a brief time Blythe and I lived together, and guess what Slick Rick took with her when she moved? So then who had to buy another $400 blender. Me.

What Am I going to use the VitaMIx for today? I will make a smoothie with some fruit, kefir, frozen berries, Protein plus from Young Living, and what ever else calls to me.

Later I am going to use it to make yogurt: heat up a couple of gallons of milk (1/3 gallon at at time in the VitaMix) , then i will add yogurt to them, place in 2 one gallon glass jars,slip those into the dehydrator with a rubberbanded kitchen towel over the mouth of the jars, set the excalibur timer for 12 hours at 110 degrees, yehaw, we got yogurt.

I might decide to live on the edge and add some powdered milk, it’s supposed to make yogurt mad creamy, and we have some left over from IKE.

And what do I do with all this yogurt? I feed to the dog and my mom!

Supah Love,

rowan