Lacto-Fermentation: The Next Best Thing Since Sourdough

Story by Britany Adorno-Alicea, photos by Luz Serrano

 An attendee works on her jar of beets, with the hopes that they will turn into fermented beets.

If your immediate thought upon seeing that title was to think about milk, then you wouldn’t be the first. Despite its deceiving name, lacto-fermentation doesn’t necessarily involve milk or lactose. Although similar to pickling, lacto-fermentation has a different end result with different flavors and processes.

A workshop titled “Unlock the Ancient Art of Lacto-Fermentation”, was a new addition to the list of workshops available to the public to attend put on by the Alaska Harvest Collaborative. Hosted Wednesday Sept. 3 by the botanical garden’s manager Mallory Smith, the lacto-fermentation workshop is a new project started by the forestry department here at UAF.

These workshops originally began as schooling to teach students vegetable growing and general farming skills.

Mallory Smith discusses the history of Lacto-fermentation and advertising the book “Wild Fermentation,” by Sandor Ellix Katz.

“We hope to grow and expand to hopefully grow orchards and include bee keeping, as well as extend to the general public with these workshops,” said Smith on her goals for the workshops. We got a chance to walk through the Reindeer gardens where the vegetables and herbs that were used during the workshop are grown. 

Before beginning the hands-on portion of the class, Smith gave us a chance to taste some samples of fermented vegetables— including beets, carrots, pickles, jalapenos, and kimchi — which were all made by student employees. They had varying tastes due to the different herbs that were chosen to fermentate the different vegetables, and depending on the hardness of the vegetable it changed the duration of how long they need to marinate.

“Fermentation is as old as humanity is. Humans have been doing this since they’ve been wanting to save food a little longer,” said Smith. 

The lacto in lacto-fermentation comes from the lactic acid bacteria that is found in many of the things we eat, belonging to the lactobacillus genus. The most common foods to be lacto-fermented include pickles, kimchi, sauerkraut and even yogurt.

Other things mentioned that involve fermentation but use different bacteria are alcohol and sourdough. Alcohol fermentation and sourdough both rely on yeast as their dominant bacteria to fermentate and, in the case of alcohol, if it were to fail, it would result in vinegar. One process that is fascinating to consider is kombucha, which relies on both lacto- and yeast bacteria to fermentate.

Fresh vegetables grown from the Reindeer Garden were used for the hands on portion of the workshop.

Part of the fermentation process is to create a brine using water and adding salt, which helps to create an environment that allows for bacteria to do its job of opening up the pores of the vegetables to release juices while also preventing other bacteria and mold from growing. The amount of salt that is applied to the brine is important; oftentimes it can make the vegetables saltier but it will have more of a crunch. 

It’s also important to be aware of the kind of salt used because it can change the taste slightly. It's recommended to only use table salts, but it’s always encouraged to experiment with other salts if desired. The process of lacto-fermentation is a process of trial and error to see best what works and what doesn’t.

Similar to the changes that can occur by simply changing the salt, the kind of water used also affects the way the vegetables ferment. Filtered water would lack the natural minerals in the water so it's best to use water that still has those healthy minerals in it, such as spring water.

Smith recommends that you always use fresh vegetables, when possible, to avoid using vegetables that could easily go moldy or rot during the process. The class engaged in a debate about regular store bought vegetables versus locally grown organic ones.

 The ideal conditions for fermentation according to Smith is 60 to 80 degrees. The temperature also determines the time it will take your vegetables to ferment and can make the time longer or shorter. At 80 degrees, such as the summer weather we had this year, set the fermentation wait time to five days. “You want to stay below 90 degrees, because going above or being at 90 degrees, some bacteria will die off at that temperature.”

Taste testing vegetables made by student employees. Pictured is sauerkraut, squatch, pickles, carrots, beets and kimchi.

The best time frame to let your vegetables ferment is five to 10 days, but that does not mean that you couldn’t leave it for longer. The more time it spends fermenting, the more variants in the taste. But be careful not to let them sit for too long as oftentimes certain vegetables will become too mushy or lose their firmness if they ferment for too long. Yet going longer on the fermentation period causes it to be better for the gut health.

The lacto-fermentation workshop was a good blend of educational and entertaining, learning about the exact process of fermentation and how simple it is to do at home with basic kitchen essentials like salt and vinegar. The hands-on activity of creating from resources grown right in the Reindeer Gardens really brought the community together.