Ginger Lacto-Ferment - 2 lb. batch. First Made Apr 27/19 & repeated... again & again & again...

- 1.8 lbs ginger root peeled & finely chopped

- 1 1/2 tsp. pink salt

- 2 smallish leaves of green cabbage finely chopped

I chopped everything as finely as I could and then mixed it all together before packing it firmly into a liter mason jar, filled to the shoulder.  I thought I might need to add water since this mix doesn't have much water, but it wasn't necessary; there's PLENTY of water. I've made it with my usual amount of salt, but I'll only be using it in very small quantities as it's VERY spicy, so I may add a little extra salt down the road if I feel it will keep better with more.  However, I'm not sure, so for now, I've left it as it is in the cupboard over my stove for 3 days...  This has fermented a little strangely.  After 2 days it seemed to be fermenting well and usually I would have just moved it to the fridge at this point, but this time for some reason I just repacked it so the ginger was well submerged in the liquid and left it in the cupboard... and it stalled out...  I'm not sure why... Maybe it takes longer to ferment such a spicy mix... In any case after 4 days in the cupboard I added about another 1 Tbsp of finely chopped green cabbage... We'll see... I've also tasted it and decided it didn't need more salt...  I'll move it to the fridge when I can see it's REALLY fermenting well...  Well I waited until May 4th... It wasn't any livelier, so rather than force it, I decided I want this one to last for a LONG time, so it's OK if it's SLOW to ferment... and I moved it to the fridge.

Made again Mar 29/21:  I used the same quantities of ingredients, but after chopping the ginger finely I ran it through my "mini-prep" food processor in 4 batches to chop it extra fine.  After mixing everything together I put it into a 750 ml and a 500 ml jar, firmly packed to about 1 1/4" from the rim, and left them covered in front of one of my rads to begin fermenting... After 4 days I could see they were fermenting well, so I moved them to the fridge to stabilize and be eaten...

Made again Sept 10/21:  This was made the same as my previous batch... except that I bought about 2.2 lbs of ginger so I've increased the amount of Himalayan pink salt to 2 tsp and added this along with the 2 leaves of finely chopped cabbage.  The mix was then packed  into a liter mason jar... It's filled a little higher than I usually like to fill my jars, only about 1/2" from the rim.  However, this is usually a slow, not very lively ferment, so I'm trusting this will be enough expansion room...  We'll see...  After 3 days it is fermenting well... I'll leave it for another day or two... but the water on top of the ginger paste was almost touching the lid, so I removed about 1 Tbsp. of this water and added it to the remains of my last batch of ginger (about 2/3 of the 250 ml. jar) which I'm still using... so there's now little danger of it contacting the metal lid.  It spent a total of 5 days in my cupboard before I moved it permanently to the fridge.

Made again... Sep 3/22...  I bought 1.93 lbs. of ginger, but one piece had quite a bit that had to be discarded... so I think I ended up with about 1.75 lbs.  This time I have a new Ninja processor... it doesn't shred or slice, but with its 4 or 6 super sharp blades it SURE does chop!   I only had to coarsely chop the ginger and it chopped it all in one go nice and fine. I added 1 1/2 rounded tsp. of Himalayan pink salt and 2 leaves of finely chopped cabbage.  I'm sure I could have added the cabbage to the ginger and chopped it all together in the Ninja, but since it was my first time I did them separately... Next time I'll try chopping them both together...  It fills a 1 liter mason jar perfectly to about 1" from the rim... I left it in my warm cupboard over my stove for a week... It's slow to ferment again, but I want it to last for about a year, so that's OK...  Nonetheless, it's clearly fermenting well so I've moved it to the fridge to stabilize and be eaten...

Yam, Beet, Radish & Cucumber Lacto-Ferment - Made Apr 18/19

- 12 slices of frozen cucumber chopped
- 6 slices of a large frozen zucchini chopped

- 1 med/large onion chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic minced

- 5 small chiogga beets coarsely grated
- 5 med. black radish coarsely grated
- 4 leaves of Green Cabbage finely chopped

- 3  med./large sweet potatoes (my parents called them yams), coarsely grated
- 1 1/2 Tbsp Himalayan pink sea salt

I mixed everything together in my large glass bowl, mashed it down best I could, then transferred it to 3 liter mason jars, firmly packed to the shoulder.  I left them in a cupboard for only 2 days as they fermented VERY well, before moving them into the fridge to stabilize...