Alright this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today we have another exciting episode for
you and the time has come for me anyways I
don’t know about you guys yet, but basically
I’m changing out my garden from the you
know fall winter garden to the spring/summer
garden. So it’s time to basically pull some
plants and some of the vegetables that I’ve
grown over the winter. I’ve already harvested
all the cabbage and broccoli out of this bed.
You could see theses stocks just kind of sitting
there. I left them in there. And what I’m
gonna do today is harvest my cabbage here.
Some of my delicious cabbage. We’re gonna
just take a little knife and we’re just
gonna go ahead and slit that guy off. Check
it out man. One nice baby head of cabbage.
And you know you might be thinking John what
do you do with all the cabbage man? You can’t
eat it all, it’ll give you bad gas. Does
cabbage give you gas? I don’t know if it
gives me gas but anyways what I’m gonna
be doing with the cabbage, this cabbage as
well as some other cabbage that we’re gonna
go harvest in a second, is ferment it. So
anyways let’s go ahead and pick the rest
of this cabbage and we’re gonna go to get
some other kind of cabbage and then we’ll
get inside and show you guys how I’m gonna
ferment my cabbage the easiest way ever.
So now I’m on the other side of my garden.
You’re looking at my circular round raised
beds and now this is the new and improved
side with a concrete block garden, an improved
soil mixture, as well as the aqua jet system.
And this side has basically been blowing up.
Like the growth on this side is so much better
than the old you know drip irrigation system.
It’s the old soil you know. So I mean it’s
amazing you know. That’s why I love having
experiments and different ways to grow cause
you never know what’s gonna happen unless
you try. So over on this side we had a bed
of arugula that has now since gone to a flower
and seed. We have some lots of lettuce that
is actually now starting to go to seed. And
then actually we have some cabbage that unfortunately
is starting to flower now and this is the
napa cabbage. So once again you know napa
cabbage is what’s used to usually make kimchi.
So we’re just gonna go ahead and just come
down here with a knife and cut off this nice
big head of cabbage. Now don’t worry you
know if plants are flowering or going to flower
you could see the little broccoli like flowers
in the inside of the napa cabbage, you know
that’s alright you could still use it. You
don’t have to throw it away. You don’t
have to let it go to seed completely. You
could still use it but be forewarned that
there may be a little bit stronger flavors
of the cabbage. It’s always best to catch
it before it goes to flower since we have
had for me anyways, in you know short winter
and it’s been heating up soon. It’s caused
this guy to bolt a little bit quicker than
I expected. Anyways I’m gonna go ahead and
harvest a bunch more cabbage, then we’re
gonna go ahead and go inside to make some
delicious kraut like you’ve never seen before.
So now we’re inside. I got all my cabbage
washed and now we’re gonna ferment it. So
we have a K&K Keramik Fermentation Pot which
actually has a burping lid which means actually
you put water in here and then basically it’s
kind of like an airlock where it lets the
you know the gases out but not the air in.
This encourages beneficial bacteria growth
instead of you know bad bacteria, mold, and
yeast, and what not. So normally when you
use a fermentation crock like this, and these
crocks are available at my website discountjuicers.com
so if you are looking for a crock be sure
to visit me and support my work with these
videos by making your purchase at discountjuicers
which allows me to continue to do the work
that I love to do and I wanna thank you for
that. To my customers that have supported
me and that will support me in the future.
But the crockpot really makes it easy and
really makes it easy to do what we’re gonna
do. Once again the easiest way. I mean I’ve
fermented things in like mason jars and you
know like a little one way valve and chopped
everything up but I don’t wanna deal with
chopping. I don’t wanna deal with putting
my produce through a juicer or grind it up
or chop it up or shred it or anything. We’re
simply gonna put this stuff in whole and this
is the traditional method that’s been used
for thousands of years by you know peoples
in certain countries in the world like Romania
was one of them. So literally all we have
to do to ferment this properly, oops, is take
this and put it in the fermentation crock.
And this is a 10 liter crock, nice and large
there. Some of the leaves are gonna kind of
get bent down to the bottom and that’s alright.
We’re gonna go ahead and take our second
head of the Chinese napa cabbage right in
there. Look at this. This is like one of those
endless buckets you keep pulling the money
out of, well we wish. But it’s big enough
to hold all this cabbage. No problem whatsoever.
That’s two, let’s go for three. And then
now I think we’re pretty much full. We still
got some room in there, man we could do it.
I like tight fits. Actually it’s better
if you you know fill this to capacity so actually
you’ll have to put less liquid in there.
Let’s go ahead and put the fourth head in
there, see how we’re fitting. Alright we’re
pretty nice and tight. Let me go and hold
this up for you guys to see how it’s looking.
Once we got that in there looks like we could
probably stick these solid heads, these little
guys. I’m gonna take the biggest one first,
cram him up, and we’re just gonna shove
him all the way down in there. Alright third
little small baby cabbage head. You ever had
a cabbage patch kid? I hadn’t. Alright.
Alright, I think we lost a couple leaves shoving
that one in there. Oh look at this man. We’ve
shoved so many leaves down in there. So many
little heads of cabbage. Alright isn’t that
amazing? We fit all that into this crock.
Let’s go ahead and shove this purple head
in there. Alright so we have all that cabbage
packed in there. I wanna show you guys what
it looks like here. This is a fair bit heavy.
Look at that. All that stuff on the table’s
now in here. Now we could do a plain ferment,
in which case we just basically make the salt
water brine solution that we’re gonna do
next, but I like to flavor things up a little.
We’re gonna use two different spices today.
I got some garlic here so we’re gonna put
garlic or at least minimally you know break
it in half. Break it into little small pieces.
Distribute that in there. You know it’s
probably good to put it into the bottom. I
kinda forgot so we’re putting it in the
top. As long as it gets in there you know
you’re pretty good. And smooch it up a little
bit so there’s more surface area for the
water to get in there and then the flavorings
to come out. And we’re gonna put out seven
small cloves in there. This is a 10 liter
crock and this crock is made in Germany. Now
I wanna talk about that for a second. You
know there’s a lot of different crocks made
in foreign countries you know like China and
what not and you gotta kind of wonder about
you know things made in China these days.
Unfortunately they may be high in you know
different heavy metals or what not. So I like
the K & K brand. They’re probably my favorite
brand because they are made in Germany and
they’ve been very high quality. Wow! This
smells amazing. So what these are, check it
out, you know as you guys know fermentation
is a excellent way to preserve your food,
preserve your harvest. The other way I really
like the best is actually dehydration. I mean
these peppers from my garden from last year
have an amazing aroma. So what I’m gonna
do is we’re just gonna dump a whole bunch
of these dried peppers, most of them are hot
peppers in there and maybe I even got some
Trinidad Scorpion Teas in there I’m not
sure. But these peppers are gonna go in the
mix to you know add some nice good flavor
to the fermented cabbage. So I mean that’s
pretty much it. The last thing that we need
to do is we need to make the brine but before
we do that I’m gonna go ahead and take some
of these leaves. And we’re just gonna go
ahead and fold these guys over and kind of
like wedge it in here to make sure that this
whole mixture stays like down. Now I’m doing
it with the leaves but you could also use
the ceramic weights. They come with the crock
which actually I will put on top of this to
make sure it all stays submerged because that’s
really important. We wanna keep this underneath
the water line super important, and super
critical. So we got that all pressed down
in there. The last thing you know that you
really need to pay attention on is making
the salt water brine solution. Now you know
you could use different levels of salt water
brine depending on who you ask. Anywhere from
2% on up to 5% works and depending on what
you’re fermenting will determine and how
you’re fermenting it will determine your
percentage of salt in your brine solution.
You know I’m gonna do today a 3% brine solution.
2 to 3% would be what I would recommend for
something like this. And basically what we’re
gonna need to do is you’re gonna use some
sea salt. Very important to get the sea salt.
You know a real sea salt not like iodized
table salt you know we want the real sea salt.
And then you know it’s like John, how much
do I use? Well, here’s the thing. You wanna
figure out how much water you got. So this
is basically about 200 milliliters in this
measuring cup. Now we need to add the percentage
the right percentage of salt by weight because
if you have large salt crystals or small salt
crystals you know you’re gonna be able to
fit a different volume in say a tablespoon
or a teaspoon for example. So what we’re
gonna do, we’re gonna weigh it out and what
I have for that is a special gram scale. These
guys are actually hard to find. You can’t
find these at a department store. I had to
go to my local smoke shop called Still Smoking
in Las Vegas on Decatur. They had great prices
and great service and that’s where I got
this guy. So yeah this is commonly used for
weighing other things that you might wanna
sell by the gram. So we’re gonna go ahead
and open this guy up, take out this little
handy dandy tray, put it upside down on here,
turn the scale on, and we’re gonna tear
it out to zero. So now we have zero grams
and what you’re gonna wanna do is you’re
gonna wanna times your container for example
you know 200 milliliters time .03 because
I’m using 3% solution and then that’s
gonna give us 60 grams. So now what we’re
gonna do is we’re gonna go ahead and take
the salt and pour this out up to 60 grams
here. Alright we’re at 60 grams. Man this
little thing on the scale barely held it but
this is 60 grams that we’re gonna go ahead
and take and dump this into my 200 milliliters
of water. We’re gonna then stir this up
mix it on up and then we’re just gonna simply
pour this into the crock and we’re gonna
make another batch until all the cabbage in
there is completely submerged under water.
This is very important.
Alright we got all that salt stirred in and
now we’re just gonna go ahead and simply
pour this baby in there. Alright let’s go
ahead and fill this up. Now I do recommend
you guys use some filtered water with the
chlorine removed for fermenting your vegetables.
I use reverse osmosis water here you could
also use something like distilled water or
just a good filtered water because the chlorine
you know may inhibit some of the lactic acid
bacteria from properly fermenting and doing
their job well. Because chlorine is put in
there to reduce the microbial populations
and we want to increase and encourage it.
You know before I fill this back up I wanna
stop and talk a minute about the benefits
of fermented foods. You know you might be
thinking John how does this ferment actually?
You know what is going on? So what happens
is on cabbage and also plants and vegetable
you're growing in your garden, you know that
are in the that are in the natural environment
you know not sterilized and all this kind
of stuff, is there’s naturally occurring
bacteria. There’s beneficial organisms and
there’s harmful organisms. Most of the time
on fruits and vegetables there are beneficial
organisms such as beneficial bacteria beneficial
yeasts even that have a symbiotic role within
us to basically act as our immune system and
help us digest our foods. And you know from
taking things like antibiotics, these beneficial
organisms can get wiped out so that our bodies
don’t work properly. That’s like why do
we add compost tea to our garden? Because
it’s the beneficial organisms we want in
our garden that help make nutrients for the
plants to absorb and also protect plants from
you know bad diseases and other bad bacterias
and what not. And we need the same thing with
within us so when we eat fruits and vegetables
right we’re getting probiotics you know
in small amounts but also the pre-biotics
because the beneficial organisms are on here
and when we eat the produce we’re getting
them in small amounts. We’re also getting
the food that feeds them. So this will encourage
their growth within us. So when we’re making
our own and fermenting the cabbage what we’re
actually doing is we’re taking the already
existing lactobacillus on here. We’re putting
it in a container with a small level of salt
solution in which they thrive in. We’re
gonna put our airlock on here which then doesn’t
allow any air or oxygen in which then provides
a environment for the lactobacillus to thrive.
So then they multiply. Now because we are
fermenting whole leaves instead of you know
diced up small leaves there’s not as much
as BSA as Josh Cunnings and the boogy Cunnings
likes to say. There’s not as much bacterial
surface area because we haven’t cut everything
up. So what this will do is that this means
that this ferment will be a lot more mild
than some of the stronger you know sauerkraut
ferments or kimchi ferments that you’ve
had because they cut everything up and dice
it up into small pieces. This also means that
this will take a little bit longer to make
a full fermentation than one that’s been
fully cut up all the way. But nonetheless
this is one way to encourage you know and
have some of the best probiotic foods in the
world, one that you simply made yourself using
your high quality ingredients that you grew
in your very garden. Alright so next I’m
gonna go ahead and get another batch of water
set up.
Alright so now I got another 2 liters of water
and we’re gonna go ahead and measure out
another 60 grams of the salt. Alright there
we go 60 grams exactly. Once again take this
salt and dump it in 2 milliliters of water.
And stir it up get it mixed and we’re gonna
go ahead and dump that back in.
I wanna give a special shout out to Farm to
Ferments in Sonoma County, California. They
actually gave me the idea for this recipe
because I was there the other day checking
them out at the farmer’s market and they
were like here John try this out man. And
those guys are like geniuses with fermentation.
They have all kinds of cool stuff. So if you’re
lucky enough to see them at the Sebastopol
Farmer’s Market on Sunday, or the Santa
Rosa Farmer’s Market at the Wells Fargo
Center on Saturday in Santa Rosa you’ll
be able to get some of their awesome fermented
stuff and talk ferments. Ferments with the
fermentation master there, they make some
good stuff. I like their Jun Tea made with
pure herb tea or their jun ferment. Alright
let’s go ahead and add this mixture in there.
Alright so so far so good. This is working
pretty good. We’ve added a total of four
liters of water to a 10 liter fermentation
crock. So we could only put another maximum
of 6 liters of water but we’ve just placed
a lot of by the kraut cause I really packed
it in there so I think we’ll have to do
at least another 6 liters of water. So I’m
gonna go ahead and fill this baby up again.
Alright so filled that up one more time. Let’s
go ahead and measure out more salt. Alright
60 grams once again man. It reminds me of
my high school days. Alright there we go,
dump it right in. I think this will probably
be the last one cause this is gonna be 6 liters
of water total and I’m sure like I mean
I stuffed that cabbage was packed in there.
We probably filled that at least with like
4 liters of you know cabbage displacement.
The other thing you guys wanna be aware about
is cleanliness. Right you wanna try to get
all your vegetables like clean right no snails
no slugs. You don’t wanna ferment any caterpillars
in there right. And then you also wanna make
sure your crock and all the different utensils
you’re using are like clean. You know and
some people like wanna make them sterilized
and all this kind of stuff and I mean you
could do that if you want you know and put
them in the microwave and blast the microwave
on I don't know. I don't actually recommend
microwaving your food but it probably would
be good to sterilize stuff cause nothing’s
alive after you cook it in the microwave man.
And that’s the other thing I wanna talk
to you guys about. You know like when making
a recipe a fermentation recipe, I’m just
kind of using cabbage leaves some garlic and
some peppers today but the more different
kinds of ingredients you can put in your ferment
the better because check it out every different
kind of leaf or food you’ll be fermenting
in there will attract different kinds of probiotics
to it right. So the more diversity you can
have in your ferment the more diversity of
the probiotics as an end result you’ll get
which means you know you’ll be getting them
in to you which I just think is a good thing
all around you know. I think probiotics are
a beneficial organisms that we should all
be including in our diets and it’s sad that
most of Americans, they think they’re eating
probiotics when they’re eating yogurt but
unfortunately when you pasteurize a yogurt
all the probiotics are gone. So you’re really
not getting what you’re thinking you’re
getting. Plus yogurt is not healthy for you
for many other reasons you know in my opinion.
So we got this all mixed up and let’s go
ahead and put this in the crock.
Alright so I got 6 liters in and I could almost
see the water line but I’m gonna have to
do another one. I think I’ll do like probably
like 1 more liter with 30 grams of salt and
then to be able to top it off. Make sure all
my cabbage is buried.
Alright so since we’re using 1 liter or
1000 milliliters of water this time we got
half the amount of salt here 30 grams. That’ll
make this a 3% solution and I probably think
I’m gonna only need like 500 milligrams
but I’ll probably wanna have a little bit
extra and have too much than too little. So
basically it looks like I just placed approximately
4 liters of cabbage in here and this is whole
leaf cabbage. You know I’m sure if you packed
it full and tamped it down you know you’re
gonna get a probably a bit fuller by you know
cutting your cabbage up but once again you
know this is the easy way to do it. I didn’t
wanna have to cut anything up. I just wanted
to be able to put it in whole and you know
get this thing to ferment. Alright so we’re
filling this baby up. We’re almost up to
the top and the last thing I wanna let you
guys know is you know if you do have excess
liquid in here you’re gonna actually wanna
pour this in the little trough here. The trough
area and fill that up as well cause that’s
gonna provide an air seal lock when you put
the lid on. So before I put the lid on the
final thing we’re gonna wanna do is we’re
gonna go ahead and take these ceramic weights
and we’re gonna go ahead and submerge this
in there and get this fully weighted down
so that all the cabbage is surely underneath
the water.
Alright so I got the weight in there and the
final step is just to put the top on it. Bubbling
over a little bit. And now we’ve created
an airlock in there and now we just have to
simply put this aside and let it ferment in
a nice temperature that we would like. You
know so we don’t like it too hot and we
don’t like it too cold. Around 70 degrees
would be you know just about right for this
to sit. I also like this as a dark fermentation
vessel so it’s not actually gonna let the
light in there because light can photo degrade
some nutrients in the food and also this is
nice and isolated so it’s gonna stay nice
cool temperature for the fermentation that’s
happening inside. I mean this is truly how
easy you can preserve your food how you could
actually make your food more nutritious and
more beneficial with high probiotic content
that’s gonna benefit you and your health
in my opinion. And plus also ferments and
probiotics that you make out of your own food
is far better than buying the little white
probiotic supplements at the grocery store.
You know because home grown is always the
best. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode
learning how I ferment my whole leaf cabbage.
Be sure to subscribe if you’re not already.
Be sure to like this video if you want me
to do more videos on how I preserve and prepare
and eat the food that I grow in my backyard
and be sure to check my past episodes. I have
over a thousand episodes now covering all
aspects on growing your food including ways
that I like to use it and eat it. Once again
my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens,com.
We’ll see you next time and until then remember
keep on growing.
