salsalady
eXtreme Business
I think POTAWIE is on the right track about cabbage -vs- peppers. Cabbage does ferment very easily.
Just a couple suggestions-
one of the biggest hazards to making kimchee is contact with fresh air so bad bacteria can get into the stuff and wreck it. You can use the air trap as suggested or make your own. Using a glass jar of appropriate size, make sure the peppers are covered with liquid, put a doubled plastic bag filled with enough water to create a seal around the neck. Not over the top of the jar. Ziploc bags might work, but I have a supply of food service bread bags, strong, no leaks, flexible. This will allow the gas to escape and keep the air out.
That also reminds me- use glass containers or crocks for fermenting, QUALITY SS or plastic for mixing, NO ALUMINUM, and be careful what tools you use. Wood, Stainless, and be very CLEAN about you work surfaces and tools.
When I make kimchee in the summer when fruit flies are present I also cover the whole set up with cheese cloth. Might want to consider that also for fermenting mash.
There are a ga-zillion recipes for kimchee, some with salt, some without. Some refrigerate the whole time, others leave it out for the whole time, and others leave it out for 12-24 hours and then refer it for 5-7 days. But as noted before, cabbage ferments much more easily than peppers.
Another trick that is used for Kimchee is to use a bit of the previous batch in the new batch, similar to sour dough starter. I don't know if any of the previously mentioned starters leave any kind of taste, but maybe if you save a bit to start the next batch, it would loose the starter taste after a couple batches. Of Course, this doesn't help the "one batch" mash makers, but it's something to keep in mind.
What about, if you added a few whole cabbage leaves (traditional Korean kimchee uses Napa cabbage) to the pepper mash to get it going and then threw out the leaves when the fermentation was complete? You could probably use less salt doing it this way since the cabbage would help get things cooking.
Anyway, sounds like lots of fun. Good Luck....looking forward to pics...
Just a couple suggestions-
one of the biggest hazards to making kimchee is contact with fresh air so bad bacteria can get into the stuff and wreck it. You can use the air trap as suggested or make your own. Using a glass jar of appropriate size, make sure the peppers are covered with liquid, put a doubled plastic bag filled with enough water to create a seal around the neck. Not over the top of the jar. Ziploc bags might work, but I have a supply of food service bread bags, strong, no leaks, flexible. This will allow the gas to escape and keep the air out.
That also reminds me- use glass containers or crocks for fermenting, QUALITY SS or plastic for mixing, NO ALUMINUM, and be careful what tools you use. Wood, Stainless, and be very CLEAN about you work surfaces and tools.
When I make kimchee in the summer when fruit flies are present I also cover the whole set up with cheese cloth. Might want to consider that also for fermenting mash.
There are a ga-zillion recipes for kimchee, some with salt, some without. Some refrigerate the whole time, others leave it out for the whole time, and others leave it out for 12-24 hours and then refer it for 5-7 days. But as noted before, cabbage ferments much more easily than peppers.
Another trick that is used for Kimchee is to use a bit of the previous batch in the new batch, similar to sour dough starter. I don't know if any of the previously mentioned starters leave any kind of taste, but maybe if you save a bit to start the next batch, it would loose the starter taste after a couple batches. Of Course, this doesn't help the "one batch" mash makers, but it's something to keep in mind.
What about, if you added a few whole cabbage leaves (traditional Korean kimchee uses Napa cabbage) to the pepper mash to get it going and then threw out the leaves when the fermentation was complete? You could probably use less salt doing it this way since the cabbage would help get things cooking.
Anyway, sounds like lots of fun. Good Luck....looking forward to pics...
