Basic Beet Ferment

I just started the ferment described in an earlier post. I of course varied the recipe a little, mainly by using a little more garlic and adding half a large red onion.

I sliced the garlic a little thick and put the slices into one of the jars. I then diced beets fairly small and added to the jar until it was filled. 

Next, I halved the red onion vertically and cut one half vertically in half again, then sliced it into fairly thick slices, breaking them into strips, which I put into the second jar. I used just half the onion. I diced a couple more beets and filled the jar. There were 3 beets left unused; those, along with the other half of the onion, will be cooked with some red kale I have in the fridge.

I put a large bowl on the scale, tared it to zero, then added the contents of the two jars. That weighed just over 1kg — 1033g. 2.5% of that is 26g, so I measured out 26g of grey sea salt, which was about 1/4 cup (but I was going by weight, not volume). I sprinkled the sea salt over the contents of the bowl and used a silicone spatula to toss and mix well.

Then I used a canning funnel to load both jars. I had started some of the starter culture I use in 1/2 cup water. I stirred that and added 1/4 cup to each jar and then filled the jars with a 2.5% brine. I used my kraut pounder to compact the beets, and then placed a red-cabbage leaf in each jar to cover the diced beets and put the fermentation weights on that. I finished by screwing on the lids with the fermentation airlocks. 

This batch will be read on January 20. I have a post that lists all the ferments I’ve done and also includes the reference information I use.

Update 17 Jan: A guy on Mastodon says that he always goes longer than 2 weeks, so I’m going to stop one jar at 2 weeks and go 4 weeks (to February 3) with the other.