Breakfast of..well stuff you would not usually eat for breakfast.

Early this morning after tending and playing with the dog for a bit I tuned into Anthony Bourdains: No Reservations-China program on the Travel Channel which is a kick ass show...even if he is a bit of a dick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bourdain), well this got my foodie mind going so I decided at 7am that would prepare our (potentially just mine..) breakfast of the 3 items blogged previously: kimchi, kombucha, and gravlax...

Everything came out really well! My only complaint is that the gravlax (salt cured salmon) was a overly salty, but that is easily traced back to me leaving it in it's brine for 1-2 days too long (most guides I've seen say 3 days or so, I went with 5). So overall everything went really well, I also decided that my kombucha is ready for the big time and I have a large jug of sweetened black tea cooling on the counter as we speak, which means sparkling kombuch (carbonated) in 2 weeks. Also we have enough gravlax to last all week if we really spread it out.

Next post: Belgium Wit review, starting a starter, and brew plans for 7/22.

Thanks for reading, and as always please subscribe and/or check back frequently and leave comments!

3 active fermentations...

Well after a break from posting (puppies take energy!) I would like to get back into it with a post not about homebrewing (however a post on my recent Belgium Wit will be up shortly, and the tasting notes with brewing maestro Ted-www.tedbrews.com) but regarding 3 food products I have been fermenting at home: Kombucha, Kimchi, and Gravlax.

First up Kombucha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha), which can be traced back centuries to ancient China (250 BC) but my involvement with it can be traced back to an organic food store (starts with a "W", means complete and ends in "foods"-not sure I want to infringe here) where Euni tried a free sample which I loved to a week later when I traced a link back from Teds blog to another blog (pending approval) on the actual making of Kombucha from a store bought sample. Because it is not pasteurized and thus packed "raw", meaning live culture is included in the bottle fermented product, you can easily "BYO" (brew your own :) at home! I have one more week of culturing the mushroom (that's what the mass is called-not actually a fungus) while the daughter colony splits off, which I will gladly pass on to anyone who wants to make their own Kombucha, before I add the colony to a fresh pot of black tea and sugar to ferment, then a week later I'm bottling Kombucha baby! Now consider the costs here: $4 per bottle at the above reference store, to under 50 cents bottled here at home-AND I made it myself! Again I give credit to reading more about Kombucha on Teds blog as I would have taken years (if at all) to look into making my own.

Next we are on to Kimchi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimchi), which is the national food of Korea and obviously a staple of the everyday diet there. Kimchi, when googled, will return article upon article of being oneof the worlds healthiest foods so I will not go into it now..but do me a favor and look it up! Essentially we are looking at fermented vegetables, preserved and loaded with vitamins, nutrients, and beneficial bacteria! My first batches were put together a few weeks ago and are being enjoyed to this day, however I will say my Daikon Radish Kimchi takes the cake thus far..and this was an extremely simple recipe of:
-Daikon Radish (1 large)
-Crushed Red Chili Peppers (from your local Asian grocer..or make your own with you choice of hot chili!)
-Garlic (full bulb-1/2 pressed, 1/2 full)
-Leeks (hand full..or however many you like)
-Brine Solution of chunky sea salt to brine the veggies in.

Process is really simple, but first let me tell you how I fuck#d it up....

Basically you brine the veggies in a salt/water mixture for a few hours to prep them for the fermentation process, then you mix them all together with the chili pepper and crushed garlic (keeping the brine solution..by the way do not do this :) and use a food grade container which will let the by products of fermentation easily escape..which I did not!

What I did was use a sealed glass jar, which luckily for me, was not airtight but rather let the gasses escape, but this also included the brine escaping as well. You see the salt in the brine is going to suck out all the moisture from the veggies..which is why you do not need to include the introduced brine water to the fermentation vessel (in this case being the sealed glass jar). What all this equals is more liquid present than expected and the elimination of some of that liquid while fermenting..and eventually...the mass exit of this liquid when the seal is broken..

I wish I had a pick to back this up but just try to picture me in a fresh pressed shirt, ready to go to work, but covered in red kimchi juice (also our kitchen wall...blender..scale..and ceiling) and cussing up a storm while lamenting the fermentation of cabbage!

Okay okay so I know what your thinking..what am I doing even messing with that stuff right before going to work....well I was impatient of course!

Anyhow I recently was able to work from home and thought I would really enjoy a break from fielding emails by hitting up theDaikon Kimchi with a new recipe, which can be found on this blog (http://www.desertmodernism.com/blog/)

Great success!

Okay so lets round this huge posting off with the batch of GravLax I just put together this afternoon in about 10 minutes, if your unfamiliar with this item please take a quick peak at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravlax) this one is border line when it comes to if I actually am utilizing a fermentation process to ready the item..I'll let you be the judge. I really like this picture, not only does it include a great lighting but also includes a fossil rock given to my by my dad, who had found it years ago in the New Mexico area (waiting on specific mountain range)..you can see the impressions of some ancient shells in there!

Starting with 1/2 cup of sea salt, 1/2 cup of fine cane sugar, 2 tbsp of ground pepper, 1 cup of dillweed, and 1 lb of fresh copper river Sockeye Salmon. This has long been one of my favorite ways of enjoying this amazing animal and am eager to see if I can pull off making it at home in a satisfactory way..if I can this is another case of an extremely simple recipe and shaving 80% off of a bill by making it here at home.

Process was very simple, mixed the salt, sugar, and pepper together, crusted it onto the fish (one fillet cut in 1/2). Using a pyrex bowl I put down a layer of fresh dillweed, then 1/2 salmon fillet (skin down), with a layer of the salt mixture and dillweed on top, then putting the remaining 1/2 salmon fillet on top of that (meat side down, or skin up..basically a salmon sandwich) with a little dill and alot more salt mixture in between the pieces and topped off with some more dill and weighted down (using the flexible lid and jar of Kimchi) for 24 hours.

And that almost catches us all up! I need to post on my Belgium Wit soon but will be traveling some of this week so please don't expect any updates until later in this week...but I promise to make it an interesting post..how could I go wrong-fellow home brewer Ted (http://www.tedbrews.com/) initial reaction to tasting this brew was "oh wow..there is some funk there..."