Have you cultivated a love for fermented foods yet? Fermented foods are highly celebrated right now, and for good reason. They can help improve your digestion, support healthy gut flora balance, and even help you look and feel better.
Making a high quality ferment is as easy as soaking fresh vegetables in a salt water brine for about a week. This allows for a natural beneficial bacterial growth to be produced right in the jar. More on the exact how-to of that later.
But, as good for you as they already are, supercharging your homemade fermented vegetables will provide even more benefit with the addition of just one thing.
What’s this special ingredient?
By adding MegaSpore Biotic, a spore based probiotic, you can produce a broader spectrum of nutrients and a more robust enzyme profile in your ferment, allowing for better absorption of your fermented foods with even greater benefit.
If you’ve never made your own ferments before, you may have some questions. But don’t let this process intimidate you.
What you’ll find is that it’s a lot less technical than you might think, and it’s actually quite easy and fun.
You will need:
1 quart wide mouth mason jar with lid
2 cups of good quality clean filtered water
1 Tablespoon of high quality mineral salt such as a sea salt, Real Salt®, or a pink salt
About 3 1/2 cups of fresh (preferably organic or home grown) vegetables of your liking
1 capsule of MegaSpore Biotic
Good vegetable to try:
- Carrot
- Cucumber
- Cauliflower
- Broccoli
- Brussels sprouts
- Cabbage
- Asparagus
- Beet
- Radish
- Green beans
- Fennel
- Garlic
- Onion
You can chop, slice, chunk or shred your vegetables, depending on preference. Feel free to add fresh herbs such as rosemary, dill or cilantro, or even whole peppercorns for added flavor. Just make sure everything is clean, free of debris, and the fresher the better!
Instructions:
- Start with impeccably clean jars to ensure they aren’t harboring any bad bacteria. This will prevent cross-contamination of unwanted bacterial strains growing in your ferment.
- Make your brine by adding 1 Tablespoon of a good mineral-rich salt to 2 cups of pure clean filtered water and stir until it dissolves. You can add more or less salt, as desired, but start there and adjust your next batch to your liking. Never use tap water. Chlorinated water will inhibit your ferment. Always use a good quality mineral salt, not table salt (see above).
- Pack your jar tightly with veggies. You can layer them or combine them all together. Fill up to about 1 inch below the top of the jar.
- Open your capsule of MegaSpore and distribute it evenly over your vegetables.
- Add your brine, filing just above the vegetable level. You probably won’t need the entire 2 cups of brine, just use what you need. If your veggies float up to the top and start bobbing above the water level, you can weigh them down with a fermentation weight so they stay submerged. Alternately, you can lay thick carrot slices or cabbage leaves over the top. . .whatever it takes to keep them under water as best as you can.
- Affix the lid to your jar. Set it in a safe, room temperature location away from direct sunlight to ferment for the next week or so. You’ll need to make sure you burp the jars daily to release any built up carbon dioxide by unscrewing the lid enough to let the air out, then immediately tightening it back up.
- In about a week, your vegetables should have fermented nicely. Give them a taste and if they’re about right, move your fermented veggies to the refrigerator where they can stay safely for a couple of months, if not longer.
Note: some foam or film may form on the top of your ferment during the process. Just skim it off and discard. The brine will likely become cloudy after a day or so. This is completely normal.
Lastly, if you’re new to fermented foods, it is recommend that you start slowly. You might even start with just a spoonful of the brine to get your gut used to it. Over time, you should be able to integrate fermented foods nicely into your regular diet, and reap the benefits throughout your body.
If you find that you’re really enjoying your fermented foods and want to kick up your game, there are a couple of great attachments you can use. I like this jar topper called Kraut Source (https://www.krautsource.com) which both pushes down the vegetables in the jar and allows the excess air to escape on its own. Less work for me! Plus it makes an excellent ferment.
Another one I have come across but not yet tried is called Mason Tops (https://www.masontops.com). You can also find more recipes on their websites.
I’m excited for you to supercharge your fermented foods!