Keeping your Ferments

[Gutted]

How do you keep your ferments?

Do you keep them in the original fermentation vessel? Or do you jar them and keep them in a fridge?

Does it depend upon the ferment? Yoghurt doesn't keep well unless it is cooled because the food runs out for the bacteria.

Do you keep them in the fridge after you have opened a ferment but in the fermentation vessel before?

I am interested in how other people go about this, so please share how you do it and under what circumstances. Such as before you open the fermentation vessel and after when you are eating them and the quantities involved. Even ambient temperature might be helpful.

[Christopher Weeks]

I typically ferment vegetables in jars that either stay out on the counter for their lifetimes or go into the fridge once I think they're ready. They stay in the fermentation jars.

But I pickle cucumbers in five-gallon buckets and then transfer them to gallon-jars. Except maybe now that I have a spare (large) chest-fridge, I'll just put the bucket in the fridge.

And nukazuke is a special case. It ferments at room temp (or slightly warmer due to fermentation itself) and the veggies stay in there until they're removed. At which point they should be eaten pretty soon. In my experience they don't keep well in the fridge for long, though I've probably been lax about trying different techniques. So as with my misozuke, I just leave stuff in the fermentation medium until I'm ready to eat it.

We transfer yogurt to pint jars with fresh fruit and refrigerate.

Soda's move from carboy to bail-top bottles so that carbonation can build up.

With our limited experience with wines and meads and cider, they have mostly stayed in fermentation carboys for a long time and then consumed from there or bottled and stored in a closet.

[Tibor]

To save space,I transfer everything into specific jars once the ferment is to my taste and store the larger sealed containers in my spare fridge. For pickles, I remove the grape leaves and dill and strain the liquid before I store them. I am also experimenting with separating the garlic from the pickles to see if the pickles stay crisper longer. I heard from a friend that they will, so I'm trying it on some of my jars. Kimchi does not store well long term so I make small batches.

[Gutted]

Thank you both for sharing your experiences and how you store your ferments.

The reason for this topic is that fermentation is meant to be a way of preserving without the use of fridges or other means. We are all so used to using a fridge to preserve at low temperatures that it becomes common practice to "stick it in the fridge". I was about to purchase a larger fridge as I am about to increase my fermentation usage, moving to multiple fermentation crocks so that I have a constant supply. Yet, there was a question of what I do with it after the fermentation is complete. Put it in the fridge is what I have done but only with small jars. The current fermentation is in a fairly large jar and the crocks are much larger and there won't be enough room in my fridge to store a 10/15 litre crock of ferments, let alone multiple and yoghurt and maybe kefir plus herbs I use and soups to heal my digestive system..... A larger fridge seemed necessary but I wondered whether there was another way. Maybe a larger fridge is the only answer and I can release my finger on the purchase button..... unless anyone else has other ideas.

[Christopher Weeks]

Remember that using fermentation in lieu of refrigeration also assumes you have a root cellar or something. I think a crock of kraut or kimchi will keep for a really long time if you can reduce the temp to 50F, which is much warmer than the fridge.

I also found something Tibor said interesting. I once lost a jar of kimchi in the back of my fridge and found it a year later. It was totally fine. Good taste and decent texture. The top half inch of it had dried out and was yucky, but it was otherwise fine after more than a year.

I currently have garlic in miso in a small Fido, jalapenos in brine in a canning jar with a cheesecloth cover and lemon-peppers in brine in a medium Fido --t hat have both been on my kitchen counter for 15 months and don't seem to be spoiling.

[Cosmic Frog]

I think back in the day ANY ability to extend the shelf-life of food was valuable. I bet there was a mix of long and short term ferments going to meet different needs. Mixing up flavors was probably important too, since folk ate a lots of the same things, year in and year out.

I'm into things that can last unrefrigerated for as long as possible, too.
I just tried making some poor man's cheese that is supposed to last up to a year packed in olive oil! It'll be fun to see how it turns out.

I had an "ah-ha" recently about brined foods. We brined some cuckes and then put them in vinegar, which seems to stop the fermentation process. I wonder if they can be kept long-term out of the fridge in vinegar? Any thoughts on this?