#ferments
Otis’s jar was getting pretty full, so I scooped out 2 100g blobs, ziploc’d them, and vacuum sealed them. Into the freezer they go. Supposedly, all I need to do is let one come to room temperature and use it. I’ll see if I can conjure up some concoction next weekend to test that premise.
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All the stretch and folds are done. Now it sits “for up to 12 hours or until it doubles in size.” You heard them, Otis! Get to rising, I ain’t staying up Zero Dark Thirty wetnursing ya ass!!!
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Meanwhile the fermented Vidalia is quietly burbling on the heating pad. It’ll stay there till Tue-Wed then into the fridge.
On another note, I see that the CSA has corn available! ~quickly googles for a fermented corn relish recipe~ I do enjoy when “X season” arrives (corn, blackberries, cauliflower, whatever). Not only does it kick my culinary creativity into high gear, but only having a particular food available at certain seasons “feels right.” As it should: that’s how humans lived until roughly the post-WWII era, and how most of the world lives to this day. Being able to walk into a supermarket any day of the year and purchase any produce you want is a deeply unnatural state of things. (I may have to pen something on the subject …)
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Found another hack for giving a reluctant sourdough starter a kick in the pants: a heating pad. Worth a try, it did wonders for kickstarting my mushroom kits awhile back. I figure towel wrap + heating pad during the day, oven with the light on at night. That’ll create pretty much ideal conditions for fermentation. If Otis is going to show any signs of life, that combo ought to do the trick. All the other pieces were by the book, so if he fails to thrive I’ll need to ponder the “why” of it and start over again. I’ll know by the end of the weekend. If it succeeds, that means that Monday will be bread-making day. Luckily my Monday afternoon looks wide open, perfect timing.
This morning Otis was supposed to have doubled in size and be showing the distinctive bubbles that indicate that fermentation is underway. Nothing. Nada. Time to try a couple of hacks from back in the day. First thing I’ll try is wrapping his jar in a towel, see if keeping him warm will move things along. If that doesn’t get him bubbling, tonight I’ll stick him in the oven with the oven light on, that does the trick for yogurt so it might help. Beyond that, it’ll be time to sit and cogitate a bit, do a root cause analysis and figure out if there’s anything I missed, and determine if I need to start over. Living organisms are a real pain in the ass sometimes.
