That's not actually a fermentation, it's just a jar on my counter! I am re-hydrating some wheat berries, so that they can sprout, and then I will dry them out and grind them. Diastatic malt is an enzyme that converts starch to sugar for when a seed begins to grow... but it also converts starch to sugar so yeasts can have an extra-long growth phase when you have a long-resting bread.

I'm going to make bagels soon. And they will be the best.

(Also, I geared this meeting mostly for beginners, so feel free to chime in with extra knowledge you have---you could very well have more experience than me! less

I'm so glad you're here!

The first couple of cultured milks to spring to my mind are cheese, yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, and labneh. Kefir is one I didn't learn about til a few years after I became interested in culturing things. These four basic foods are made using two different cultures. Yogurt and labneh and many hard cheeses are made with thermophilic (heat-thriving) bacteria, and buttermilk, sour cream, and many soft cheese are made with mesophilic (moderate-temperature thriving) bacteria.

Cheese is a more time-intensive food to produce, but if you guys are interested I can throw together some of the basics that I know at the end of the meeting.

But for the cultures you can make today and eat tomorrow, buttermilk and sour cream are the easiest. You can get a live culture (containing strains like Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris, Lactococcus lactis biovar diacetylactis and Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. cremoris... but it's hard to know from dairy to dairy) by buying some fresh buttermilk (grab the one with the freshest date at the grocery store, this will be fresh enough in most places), and adding about a quarter cup of the buttermilk to a quart jar of regular milk. In 24 hours at room temperature, your quart jar will all be buttermilk. You can store this in the fridge, and make more buttermilk by adding a quarter cup to a quart of milk any time. The culture will stay fresh if you do this about twice a week. Sour cream can be made in exactly the same way, just fill your quart jar with heavy cream instead of with milk.

Yogurt and labneh (and in the middle, by the same technique, "Greek Yogurt") can be made with just a little more work. The thermophilic cultures that produce yogurt (Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus) can be gotten from a fresh batch of (plain, unsweetened) commercial yogurt from the grocery store. But for the microbes to flourish, they need to be cultured at warm temperatures. Because both desired and undesired microbes work faster at higher temperatures, first bring your milk to a boil to be sure you're starting with a clean slate. Boiling the milk also helps the finished yogurt to be thicker. Then, let it cool to 115F. Add the culture, and incubate at 115F for six to eight hours. I usually do this by floating sealed mason jars in a travel cooler filled with warm water, underneath my electric heating pad. If you are working without a heating pad, make yogurt on a day off and change the water every half hour or so, dumping out cooling water and adding water that you have boiled and let come to 118-115F. After the ~8 hours, your yogurt be finished. If you want the thicker "Greek yogurt," put your yogurt in a pillowcase and hang it so the whey drips out, and put it back in the container when it reaches the desired thickness. For labneh, have it drip and hang overnight until all of the whey is gone---you will have the spreadable rich yogurt-cheese found in Lebanese cuisine.
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I'm so glad you're here!

The first couple of cultured milks to spring to my mind are cheese, yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, and labneh. Kefir is one I didn't learn about til a few years after I became interested in culturing things. These four basic foods are made using two different cultures. Yogurt and labneh and many hard cheeses are made with thermophilic (heat-thriving) bacteria, and buttermilk, sour cream, and many soft cheese are made with mesophilic (moderate-temperature thriving) bacteria.

Cheese is a more time-intensive food to produce, but if you guys are interested I can throw together some of the basics that I know at the end of the meeting.

But for the cultures you can make today and eat tomorrow, buttermilk and sour cream are the easiest. You can get a live culture (containing strains like Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris, Lactococcus lactis biovar diacetylactis and Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. cremoris... but it's hard to know from dairy to dairy) by buying some fresh buttermilk (grab the one with the freshest date at the grocery store, this will be fresh enough in most places), and adding about a quarter cup of the buttermilk to a quart jar of regular milk. In 24 hours at room temperature, your quart jar will all be buttermilk. You can store this in the fridge, and make more buttermilk by adding a quarter cup to a quart of milk any time. The culture will stay fresh if you do this about twice a week. Sour cream can be made in exactly the same way, just fill your quart jar with heavy cream instead of with milk.

Yogurt and labneh (and in the middle, by the same technique, "Greek Yogurt") can be made with just a little more work. The thermophilic cultures that produce yogurt (Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus) can be gotten from a fresh batch of (plain, unsweetened) commercial yogurt from the grocery store. But for the microbes to flourish, they need to be cultured at warm temperatures. Because both desired and undesired microbes work faster at higher temperatures, first bring your milk to a boil to be sure you're starting with a clean slate. Boiling the milk also helps the finished yogurt to be thicker. Then, let it cool to 115F. Add the culture, and incubate at 115F for six to eight hours. I usually do this by floating sealed mason jars in a travel cooler filled with warm water, underneath my electric heating pad. If you are working without a heating pad, make yogurt on a day off and change the water every half hour or so, dumping out cooling water and adding water that you have boiled and let come to 118-115F. After the ~8 hours, your yogurt be finished. If you want the thicker "Greek yogurt," put your yogurt in a pillowcase and hang it so the whey drips out, and put it back in the container when it reaches the desired thickness. For labneh, have it drip and hang overnight until all of the whey is gone---you will have the spreadable rich yogurt-cheese found in Lebanese cuisine.
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Yeah, I was really happy. And of course now I share mine along forward too---it's self-propagating, so why not!

Once you've got kefir grains, the kefir practically makes itself! Just put your grains in a clean jar (either washed in a dishwasher, or boiled), and cover them with milk. I'll show you how I make mine, but the process is adjustable to taste---If you like thinner kefir you can use more milk per grains, or strain more often. If you like it thicker, you can use less milk per grains, or let it culture for a long time. If you're using a long culturing time, be sure to stir with a sterilized spoon, or shake your jar up every once in a while to get the grains access to fresh milk.
For pictures, let's start at the beginning, when your benefactor hands you your grains. Put them in a jar.

Fill the jar with half a quart of milk.

Let sit at room temperature (for me, that's about 68F this time of year) for 24 hours. So at the same time on the next day, add another half-quart of milk (so the jar is full) and stir the culture well. (In the original days, when peasants of the Caucasus Mountains would make kefir in a goat bladder (because these were the days before mason jars), the kefir sack would be hung in a doorway and people would slap the bag to mix it every time they walked through.)
In 24 more hours, the kefir is ready to drink (or to be made into pancakes).


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Yeah, I was really happy. And of course now I share mine along forward too---it's self-propagating, so why not!

Once you've got kefir grains, the kefir practically makes itself! Just put your grains in a clean jar (either washed in a dishwasher, or boiled), and cover them with milk. I'll show you how I make mine, but the process is adjustable to taste---If you like thinner kefir you can use more milk per grains, or strain more often. If you like it thicker, you can use less milk per grains, or let it culture for a long time. If you're using a long culturing time, be sure to stir with a sterilized spoon, or shake your jar up every once in a while to get the grains access to fresh milk.
For pictures, let's start at the beginning, when your benefactor hands you your grains. Put them in a jar.

Fill the jar with half a quart of milk.

Let sit at room temperature (for me, that's about 68F this time of year) for 24 hours. So at the same time on the next day, add another half-quart of milk (so the jar is full) and stir the culture well. (In the original days, when peasants of the Caucasus Mountains would make kefir in a goat bladder (because these were the days before mason jars), the kefir sack would be hung in a doorway and people would slap the bag to mix it every time they walked through.)
In 24 more hours, the kefir is ready to drink (or to be made into pancakes).


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