Fermentation and Seasonal Changes

Sabrina and I decided that we should repost this around the beginning of each season, as a reminder. Here’s your winter reminder!

During seasonal changes, we tend to get a lot of questions because your toddlers are toddlering. In this instance, your cultures are your toddlers. There’s a reason memes like this exist:

Thankfully, our toddlers aren’t trying to drink toilet bowl cleaner. They just are refusing to act appropriately, and we are confused because nothing changed on our end. Part of the problem here is centralized air conditioning and heating. We don’t really feel seasonal changes as well because we have those, but it doesn’t mean that our cultures stopped feeling them on their account.

The other part of the problem is that they do still feel them. That’s why they’re acting like this.

Also the reason even our indoor furry pets still shed astonishing amounts of fur right before and during the summer. Like this guy. I’m saving his fur as it leaves, and one day I shall spin it and make something fun. No idea what, but he’s probably got another good decade left in him. His reduction in shedding currently tells me fall really is on its way, and I’m grateful. Fall here is kind of like summer in some more moderate climates, because it’s all gloriously under 90F. Still grateful.

This is Flopsy. Unlike the vast majority of bunnies, he is not a jerk. He mostly just wants to snuggle. Please excuse the mess. It’s been one of those weeks.

So much like your pets have some seasonal differences, so do these pets. I’ve switched to pets because I like pets more than I like toddlers. I assume the reasons for that are obvious.

Prime time is generally spring and fall for cultures. This is when they act normally. Sort of. There’s always a sort of wax and wane, like the moon, with how cultures transition into and out of a season. That said, spring and fall are inherently transitional seasons in sum. But generally speaking, those seasons are pretty straight forward, unless you’re doing water kefir. Water kefir can be a little fussy about routine temperature changes that occur during the spring and fall.

It’s the poles that’re not so much on the consistency front, and it typically all comes down to temperatures. Those of you in arctic or tropical locations will see some variance here due to where you sit on the planet and how seasonality is affected by this. Our Hawaiian friends, for example, may find it challenging to keep your cultures cool enough, whereas our Siberian friends could need to place theirs by the proverbial fire more often than the rest of us do.

This globe is in the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Child Tester never can get enough of this one! The long and short of things, though, is that the closer to the equator you are, the more consistent (and consistently hot) your annual temperatures will be. The closer you are to the poles you are, the less consistent (but consistently colder) your annual temperatures will be. That’s really all we need to say about location, since y’all already understand the climate you live in.

Summer

Summer is all about the hot, of course. Because it’s hot (even if you can’t tell), your cultures may get a little antsy in their pantsy from drinkin’ all that syrup.

I’ll let those of you who are interested in seeing the maple syrup scene of Supertroopers look that one up, since it has a small bit of language that may be objectionable to some viewers.

The long and short of this is that you really just want to watch them. Not like you watch your kid at the pool, but like you watch your kid at the pool if another adult is really watching however many kids. I personally check mine somewhere between 50-75% of the time that should elapse before they’re done. But it’s summer for nearly half the year in Houston, so this is just what I’m used to. Sadly, summer fermenting is my norm.

Hot as the sun here half the year, it seems. Mostly because of the high humidity. When I lived in Utah, hotter temps than we get were more comfortable. I’m sorry for those of you in tropical zones that it’s so much hotter. I’m so ready for the 12 days of “winter” to get here!

I picked this picture from Getty (I totally forgot to copy the attribution, and I’m so sorry whomever you are) because it hurts my eyes, and that also is true of our summers.

Oh! Those of you who do vegetable or fruit ferments really want to check on them more frequently in the summer.

And if you really do live somewhere where the summers are worse or you simply don’t have centralized air conditioning, a cool pantry, closet, or basement works really well for ferments to get them to act more normally, and so does burying them in the ground. This is why really hot places with strong fermenting cultures so frequently bury things, at least in traditional methods. They really do last longer, and also taste and feel better in your mouth.

One other note: if you can, really do try to help your cultures keep within their preferred temperature range, and especially the veg ones. The balance of yeast and bacteria will be skewed due to the higher heat’s inhibitory process on L. bacillus, so the ferment will still ferment, but the texture, longevity, and flavor may be dramatically affected. The last time this happened to me was with carrots, and I haven’t fermented plain carrots since. I can’t wait until my mouth is over that incident so I can do them again!

The clearest sign that you didn’t put your ferment somewhere cool enough or pull it fast enough is generally going to be the smell: acetone. You’ll get much, much yeastier products during the summer, also. Both the acetone and yeasty flavored ferments are still totally edible. You just may not wish to eat them, is all, because of the second clearest sign: potent sour flavor! That potent sour flavor really does reflect that over-fermented foods are more potent, so if you are doing ferments purely for health reasons, you may actually prefer them over-fermented.

If this bothers you and your culture can handle doing so, use the fridge. If your culture can’t handle the cold (lookin’ at you, kombucha and vinegar!), you need to taste a bit earlier than you normally would. I try 1-2 days earlier for kombucha and jun, a week earlier for vinegar. Okay, I really only do this for vinegar, because I don’t do the whole kombucha thing. Those of you who do should taste your brew earlier than you’re accustomed to.

Some people will put their summer ferments in a cooler with a couple of ziplocks of ice. Not enough to make it cold, but rather enough to insulate it against the ambient heat. If you have A/C, though, this step shouldn’t be needed.

Here’s a fermented carrots recipe, because I love this woman and also because I still don’t know where the fermenting notebook that has the carrot recipes I told Sabrina I’d give her. This woman always makes me smile, though we sometimes disagree on this or that. I do not, however, understand why she stirs the salt in rather than tossing on a lid for the shake-shake-shake.

Winter is Coming

During the winter, cultures get sluggish. This is the main issue, and it’s the problem that frequently causes y’all to think your cultures died because they aren’t culturing within an appropriate time frame.

For those of you who do sourdough or milk/water kefir, it’s basically the same thing as doing the fermentation in the fridge. Happily, it’s not quite like that for fruits and vegetables being fermented, because it’d take an eternity to ever have them fermented if it were! You can also reduce the amount of milk you use for your kefir if you want it to still ferment within 24 hours. Otherwise, I’d just expect it to take a couple of days instead. Water kefir will also want its time extended, in most cases.

If your sourdough starter isn’t doubling or isn’t showing a lot of bubbles, just keep using it. Even in the winter, that’s what it really wants. But this behavior is normal, because it’s sleepy. For your kombuchas and vinegars, expect they may need a bit more time. I pretty much go in the exact reverse of what I’d do in the summer if it’s cold enough here for my cultures to be reactive beyond a little bit of sluggishness.

Even though I consider milk kefir done when it looks like the jar on the far left, you can think of these more like “winter, spring/fall, summer,” because it really does give a good visual representation of how the differences really function. This is Sabrina’s picture, and I’m glad she always thinks of doing stuff like this.

In the winter, also don’t be afraid to store your ferments in a room that’s cooler than the kitchen! I sometimes will stick a ferment in my closet, though for me this is dangerous due to my memory. I’m always a little bit afraid when I find a jar in my closet that I don’t remember putting there. That said, I know Ross does not put them there because he gives me “the look” when he finds a jar of fermenting whatever in the closet. I assume this is because I usually put them on his side since there’s more room over there.

The Long and Short

The basic deal here really is just to pay attention to your ferments and get to know them. This might take a year or so if you’re new to fermenting, and maybe less if you’re not new.

In the summer, expect it to be fast paced and all about the parties. Keep an eye on those kids, because they’ll get all jazzy and do stuff behind your back. Consider refrigerator fermentation where possible.

Winter? Good luck getting those kids out of bed, and expect them to be all pouty about it once you’ve sent them off to school. They’ll get their work done; just more slowly. You may want to put them somewhere a bit warmer to help them wake up.

There’s a natural rhythm to the annual seasons, and fermenting cultures simply reminds us to be aware of it, even if only to care for them. It’s kind of silly, but I often think of ferments as foods that don’t just connect us to our bodies more deeply, but also the larger world around this. Seasonality is hands down the biggest way ferments do so for me.