Scamperings

1. Use high-proportion feeding for my sourdough starter.

I've been using a feeding schedule that increases the starter 30% per day with no discards, then takes ~85% of it on Sunday to make bread. However, Sandor Katz strongly encourages doubling every day, which means "discarding" half into a discard jar in the fridge and then replenishing with water and flour. This is a little more work, but I often have a discard jar going anyhow for one reason or another, and I regularly make cheese and sauerkraut pancakes using discard. Katz says to discard 75–95% instead, and that this "encourages yeast"; he doesn't explain it thoroughly, but it sounds like the issue here is that otherwise the lactic acid bacteria become too dominant and suppress the yeast (presumably via acidity). Fair enough.

I'll probably do daily high-proportion feeding in a very small jar (maybe 50 g starter), then when I want to bake combine the 40 g of discard with 70 g each of water and flour to make what I believe is called a "leaven", which is left to ferment and is then mixed with other ingredients to create the dough.

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2. Try using non-chlorinated water in my ferments.

Chlorine is an antiseptic, which of course is terrible (in theory) for fermentation. Some microbes are more sensitive than others, but I don't really know whether the chlorinated tap water is making my breads flatter than they could be.

I believe the city's water supply is chlorinated with chloramines, which are harder to remove (they don't just evaporate like chlorine will). Apparently you can neutralize chloramine with vitamin C. I guess I can keep a jug of that combination around without too much trouble.

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3. Make heavier use of fermentation for preserving abundances.

Usually we cook everything down and either can or freeze it, but fermentation would be *way* less work. I'm especially interested to see what I could do with ripe tomatoes.

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4. Keep my finished ferments in the basement, where it's cooler, so they won't get mushy even without refrigeration. (We'll see if this is true.)

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5. Experiment more with salt ratios. Using a splash of whey, sauerkraut brine, etc should allow me to make krauts and whatnot that aren't as salty, since that would establish lactic acid bacteria colonization much faster, reducing the need for salt as a selection factor.

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I'm probably also just going to feel a lot more free to experiment in the kitchen -- fermented tofu, fermented amaranth stalks, various vegetable pickles, maybe some nut cheeses. I'll see if I can apply fermentation to my millet-and-lentil staple as well. I feel like I have a much better sense of the essential processes and can try new combinations much more confidently.

In a different branch of experimentation, my interest in Asian bean ferments is piqued, so I may try natto and some other things I otherwise pass up.

Most of the plants I brought indoors are now on trays under lights. I need to find a simple set of fixtures, lights, and cords that I can use to put more light onto the "plant islands" from various directions.

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I chopped up all the green tomatoes and am fermenting them. 250 g went into a sort of chow chow inspired jar, equal parts green tomato, daikon radish, and green cabbage leaves, with garlic, celery, mustard seeds, and 2% salt by vegetable weight. The remaining 1600 g went into a big jar with 2% salt and nothing else. There are also about 8 tomatoes that have decided they're going to ripen instead of staying green. Maybe some late salsa.

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This evening I composted all the dead plants from the front yard containers and sorted the pots into occupied/unoccupied for the spring. They're mostly moved up against the porch so they don't get salt-laden sidewalk snow shoveled onto them. Rain barrel is emptied lest it freeze and crack, hoses are drained and disconnected. Thermostat is set, although not in use yet. I'm going to hold off on plasticking windows until I can get a read on whether they're actually any colder than our walls, which I don't think are well-insulated. Maybe we can put up gauzy curtains instead, which should help prevent convection currents without making the windows unopenable on the occasional warm day.

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I discovered that the sweet potato I planted on a lark has produced a second tuber. It sounds like they won't overwinter even underground here (unless planted really deep, I guess?) so I've brought those in. I'll see if I can grow one of them as a houseplant for the winter. They want heat and sun, but maybe they'll creep along OK in dim and cold conditions.