Agricultora

I’ve spent most of the last few days at the 2012 North American Biodynamic Festival here in Madison. On Thursday afternoon, there was a workshop on “Food Rights, Food Freedom” moderated by the wonderful David Gumpert. The speakers included Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund attorney and organizational vice president Elizabeth Rich. I interviewed her during the break between two panel talks, for local community radio station WORT 89.9FM and our local news show “In Our Backyard” Thursday night:

Interview_with_Elizabeth_Rich_FTCLDF_Raw_Milk_in_WI_11-15-12.m4a Listen on Posterous

Well, it’s finally happened. I don’t have a picture because my first thought upon discovering the mess was to clean it up, not photograph it, but I had my first bottle explode this evening.

I used to religiously make tester bottles of each batch of ginger beer, pouring some into a plastic bottle and feeling it occasionally to see how much pressure was building up. But I don’t have any plastic bottles around the house now, and so I’ve made a few batches of kombucha, ginger beer, and now water kefir without that safeguard. Oops.

I fell asleep on the couch this evening while attempting a little self-hypnosis. Since I wasn’t trying to hypnotize myself into falling asleep, I think it wasn’t really successful. 😉 I woke halfway to the sudden tinkling explosion of broken glass, but took a while to climb all the way out of sleep and get up to look around.

By the time I made it to the doorway into the kitchen, it was like a crime scene. There were a few large chunks of broken glass in the dining room and a spreading pool of red liquid and broken glass all over the kitchen floor around the fridge.

As I mentioned last time, the winter home of the fermentation station has been the top of the fridge. Included in the station were three thick glass bail-top bottles of water kefir finished with its initial fermentation, with cherry juice and elderberry syrup added and bottled for secondary fermentation. And how.

One of the three bottles holding the flavored water kefir, not a green Grolsch bottle but a clear German square-bottomed bail-top bottle that I bought locally, burst and sent its contents and its container everywhere.

The first thing I did was to transfer the remaining two bottles into the fridge. After I cleaned up the juice and glass on and down the sides of the fridge, down the walls and doors, and puddling on the floor, I pulled one of the remaining bottles out of the fridge and carefully opened it in the sink, with my face averted. It was anti-climactic. The bail top flipped open with a little pop, and I poured a fizzy but well-behaved and delicious red beverage into a pint glass.

Well, then. Chalk one up to: Lesson learned. Plastic tester bottles, here I come. Obviously that won’t prevent every incident, since each bottle clearly carbonates at a slightly different rate, but hopefully it will help.

In other news, the beet kvass/rassol is also in secondary fermentation, and the ginger bug is bubbling madly, ready to be made into another batch. I’ve been drinking the first batch, and I think it could actually have gone for a longer fermentation, as it’s still quite sweet. And this time I’ll add more ginger — I like it spicy.

The water kefir, previously described as delicious, is that, but also slightly odd-tasting, as I remember it being the last time I incorporated it into my fermentation practice. I wonder if the taste will change over time with frequent fermentation. The grains Jack gave me are obviously well cared for and frequently fed, so it’s not that they’ve developed off flavors due to neglect. Could I change the flavor by using different carbohydrates, like maybe diluted maple syrup?

Put that one in the experiments yet to be performed column.

Well, in mid-November the pantry gets too cold for most ferments to go at any decent rate, as it turns out, so the fermentation station has been moved around the corner into the kitchen proper. Its true location is on top of the fridge, but it’s all more photogenic down on the table:

New developments are: the ginger bug on the left, which has already been made into one batch of ginger beer that’s carbonated and been transferred to the fridge tonight; the tibicos grains that are currently trying very hard to turn sugar water into water kefir (two days in there and it’s still sugar water); and the beet kvass/rassol, which I haven’t made in a while.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Also, the three bail-top bottles in the back are not the first batch of lemongrass ginger reishi kombucha but the second. Unfortunately, I forgot to steep the lemongrass with the black tea this time… So I made a lemongrass simple syrup and added it to the bottles for their secondary fermentation. We’ll see if it works. The first batch, especially the one bottle of it that was in a small bail-top like these and not in a bigger bottle, was ridiculously delicious and perfectly bubbly.

I know you were all waiting on the edges of your seats, so let me assure you that I jarred up enough kimchi for my 11 CSYaymates, went to drop if off, and then introduced my scoby to my new batch of sweet tea. Then, for good measure, I made a batch of mayonnaise with a bit of whey to ferment slightly overnight.

<congrulates self on an evening well spent>

Lest you surmise from my woeful posting habits that the fermentation station is no longer in operation, rest assured, the bubbling, fizzing, and souring continues. I made a crock of kraut on Saturday from a couple cabbages from our community garden plot, started souring some vinegar from the remains of a bottle of red wine, and of course have the weekly kefir and viili going as usual.

I recently found out about a monthly community exchange of consumable goods and joined up. I can’t decide whether to contribute 14 shares of kraut or 14 portions of some preparation of the ridiculous quantity of collard greens currently exploding at the garden. What should I go for? The fermented delicacy or the slow-cooked autumnal greens?

For more on my fermentation station, including the missing parts of the conversation between “Progress in the Pantry” and “June Garden News,” please visit my F(ermentation)Log.