Pickling

Pickl-its are best stored covered to give the lactic acid bacteria a good place to grow.  We think they look like wise men. 

Since we started eating more traditional foods, we have experimented with lacto-fermenting since it is one of the best ways to get good bacteria back into your gut.  Colin started out this experiment doing it the way the GAPS book recommends.  He made sauerkraut and fermented cauliflower and had limited success. The ferments would grow mold around the top outside edges and he would scrape it off.  We didn't realize that our food probably had unseen mold growing in it (even if we'd scraped out all that we could see). 

After reading a few posts about lacto-fermenting at Cooking Traditional Foods, I spent some of my Christmas money (since we don't have much expendable income, I save up my gift money to use when I find something I want!) on a set of Pickl-its.  We are really happy with these - it's so much easier to make ferments in a Pickl-it because we don't have to worry about mold and the results are tastier, crispier, and full of good stuff. 

I used the 3 liter jars to make beet kvass and sauerkraut and the 1.5 liter jars to make dill carrots and dill green beans (my favorites so far).  When we ate up half of the green beans and carrots, I combined them into an air tight jar and made pickled garlic in the freed up Pickl-it.  I recently made a batch of pickles which I am anxious to try when they are done.  We also use one of the 1.5 liter jars to make our water kefir, which we used to make in a mason jar, but the lactic acid bacteria is increased in an airtight environment.  We have started having water kefir at dinner with a spoonful or two of beet kvass in it.  It looks like a purple sci-fi space drink. 

 

We are big fans of our Pickl-it jars because we can make lacto-fermented raw veggies easily and cheaply.  We have some with every dinner which means one of our veggie sides is always ready in the fridge.  Yay!