wild fermentation

Homemade Blueberry Vinegar

fermentation, homesteading

Blueberry vinegar first began as a failed attempt at blueberry wine, but is now an annual tradition and the primary vinegar we use for everything. Making vinegar is a perfect use for old, blemished, and forgotten fruit.

This recipe is for a sweet blueberry vinegar that is excellent as a finishing vinegar or to dress up salads. No fancy task here, though a hydrometer is laxidazically used to measure the sugar content along the way. It’s an essential tool for alcohol ferments that costs ~$20, though is not required for here.

For every gallon of fresh blueberries you’ll need:

  • 1# Sugar
  • 7/8 gallon of water (or just a tad less than a full gallon)

To start, load up your bloobs into your fermentation vessel and give ’em a preliminary mash.

Add water and sugar and give a good stir to dissolve. You could certainly dissolve the sugar before adding but the lazy method is always refreshing. The sugar will dissolve eventually. Cover your container with a breathable cover, like a t-shirt affixed with a rubber band to keep insects out.

After about 48 hours I’ll measure the sugar with a hydrometer. I like to shoot for 22-24 Brix, which is the equivalent of wine’s starting brix. Measuring this isn’t necessary, as the recipe water and sugar amounts will get you close enough.

Soon enough your blueberries will start to ferment from wild yeast. It’s a helpful thing to come by and stir the top once or twice a day, or as you remember. The fermentation will push the blueberry solids to the top so we need to break up that cap every so often. Don’t worry about using a clean tool to do it, we’re making vinegar after all.

A hydrometer can help chart the processes of your fermentation, though the old way is just observing the bubbling activity and intuition. If the mixture can ferment down to around 10 or below Brix then we will be looking at a 5-6% acidity vinegar, which is our goal. Without a hydrometer you can let it go until the bubbling has calmed down to just occasional pricks. There’s no wrong way here. We like a sweet blueberry vin so like to catch it before the fermentation has completed. However you could very well just let it ferment to dry all the same. Regardless, when the time is right, add a little acidic acid inoculation via a splash of live vinegar, over-the-hill kombucha, vinegar mother, or a backslop of last year’s bloob vin. You can also just let the mixture sit untouched with its breathable lid until it eventually sours. Whichever way, it’s time to just let it sit.

Taste it ocassionally until that one magical day when your bloobs taste unmistakably like vinegar. Now is a good time to press which can be done by emptying the contents through a pillow case, then twisting and squeezing it until enough of the juice has run out.

After a couple days rack off the solids accumulated at the bottom by carefully pouring the liquid out until it reaches the sludge. Discard the sludge and store your delicious vin away in a lidded containers or a carboy.

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Making Maple Mead from Sap

alcohol, fermentation

To make this mead you’ll need a plentiful amount of sap to work with. Maple mead is a great idea for a home tapper who gets overwhelmed with sap. This recipe is for those ambitious types who do their makings from scratch- go out there and tap those trees!

The sap itself can be quick to spoil. It is high in pectin which will, in time, make the sap into a weird jelly-ish texture, this then could invite mold or other unwanted microbial influence such as the fermenting away of the little amount of sugar presently available. The sap is only ever-so slightly sweet, 40:1 sugar ratio. Therefore it doesn’t have enough sugar to ferment into much alcohol just as is. However, by boiling it down we can concentrate the sugars into a beverage to produce a suitable amount of alcohol.

When making alcoholic beverages I prefer to get my measurements generally accurate, erring away from specifics but shooting for close enough- and for that I use a hydrometer. While not an advocate for buying too many things, I do think this instrument is worthwhile, and is only about $20 anyway.

Hydrometers measure sugar in terms of brix. And roughly converted about 1 degree brix can ferment into about 0.5% alcohol. Therefore for an average 5-6% beverage we’d need somewhere around 10-12 brix, for 10% we’d need about 20 brix, etc. For those who wish to eye-ball it rather than measure I’d recommend boiling down to about 1/10. The sap should taste sweet as juice. The sweeter, the higher alcohol you’ll likely get. However, there is too sweet that it won’t ferment. In that case you’ve made maple syrup- congrats.

Monitor your boiling, whether it’s indoors or outside. More information on boiling is given in the maple syrup post here. Regardless of your method do keep an eye on it to reach your desired brix level or finger-licking sweetness level. A burnt sap is a heartbreaker. Keep in mind too that the temperature of the liquid affects the hydrometer reading, so if you’re use a hydrometer with some hot sap here’s a handy calculator to use.

Once the liquid has reached your target, let it cool.

We have boiled to death any microbes previously in the sap and consequently have a pasteurized base, we now need to think about how to start it fermenting. This can be done by adding yeast, backslopping from an active brew, or reinstating wild yeast by leaving it open to the air. Inviting wild yeast can be assisted through vigorous and frequent stirring, however this can increase your chances of acetobacter (giving your final brew a hot acidic bite), but maybe it’ll work out?

Ferment to dry either continuing to use your hydrometer to get a reading below 0, or to wait until absolutely all bubbling activity has ceased. Rack then age in a clean carboy with an airlock for 3-6 months, or bottle away.

Ryazhenka – baked & yogurted milk

dairy, fermentation, homesteading

Since we are in oven season here is a recipe that you can’t miss to help warm your house and your spirits. It seems likely that this technique was developed by making full use of woodheated ovens. After a day of baking, a crock of milk was tossed in the residual heat, with the oven cover sealed, and left to slowly caramelize. The milk changes to a bronze-ish hue with brown caramel-y flavors as the sugars in the milk does its Malliard reaction thing. The baked milk is then inoculated with a lactic-acid culture and fermented into a delicious beverage.

The possibilities of this technique are great. I love the flavor of the baked milk and can be inoculated with everything from kefir, to sour cream. In this example I use yogurt as it’s my preference. The cultured product can then be drunken as is, perhaps spruced up with some maple syrup and cinnamon, or strained into a thick Greek-style yogurt. The choice is up to the maker.

But stay keen on the hidden treat of the crispy surface that develops on the milk as it bakes. That crispy, fatty, creamy cap deserves to rest on a slice of freshly baked bread and get eaten immediately.

Start with delicious milk.

Then bake it uncovered in the oven at 225 degrees for 6-8 hours or until it has reached a nice carmelized-ish hue, with a superbly crispy layer on top. The color of the milk can vary but you can determine its done-ness by a dark, crispy surface layer.

Quick snack break

Grab a freshly baked bread slice, scoop off the hot crispy top layer, add a sprinkle of salt. Swoon.

Making the yogurt

Let the baked milk cool. If you have a thermometer cool it to 120 degrees, if you’re low tech, test it by dipping a finger. When the temperature on your finger is hot but still comfortable you’re good to go.

Set up your jars or containers to ferment in. Basically anything with a lid. You can inoculate with a dollop of your favorite store bought live-culture yogurt or follow the instructions on purchased cultures. For this montage, I just put a dollop of already made yogurt into my quart mason jars.

Pour in the warm, baked milk, and stir everything up to incorporate the starter culture.

Incubation

My preferred yogurt incubator is a small cooler and hot water. I incubate at 120 degrees for 4 hours, and the little Playmate cooler handles the job smashingly.

I take my inoculated milk jars and place them in the cooler. It’s a good idea to pre-warm my cooler by filling it with hot water while the milk was cooling. Next fill the cooler with a new refresh of 120 degree hot water and fill it up to the height of the milk in the jars. My taps run at 120 degrees at their hottest making this an easy task. Otherwise you can heat up water on the stove.

Close the cooler lid and give it 4 hours of solitude.

Then pop the yogurt into the fridge to cool and firm up.

Straining Yogurt

There are a couple directions to go here. You can leave it as is. Ryazhenka is a cultured beverage so you can drink your yogurt as is, use it as yogurt, or strain it into something thicker. I like thick yogurt so I opt for a strain.

Using a clean, wet, and wrung out cloth, line a colander with a catch basin beneath for the whey that runs off. Since it’s winter I just throw this outside to avoid taking up too much refrigerator space. When it reaches a thickness you like it’s done. Greek yogurt perhaps? A thick dollop for my bigos?

A Beverage?

It also makes a delicious beverage with nothing more than a generous shake to distribute the thickness. Sometimes I’d add a dash of maple syrup and a pinch of salt for a wonderful treat. Cinnamon and ginger also suit it well.