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.