 Welcome to the Wednesday weekly webinar. My name is Julie Gardner Robinson and I will be doing part of this session today along with Dr. Clifford Hall who is a professor in plant sciences. But first I have a couple of things I'd like to share. Our last webinar of this particular series is next week, same time, same place. And it's called growing microgreens in your home. And that will be led by Esther McGinnis who is an assistant professor and for the cultural impact sciences here on campus at NDSU. So that should be a really fun one to hear because it's becoming such a popular topic. Just a couple of logistics. I think everyone's figured this out. But that's the screen that you're seeing probably in your home or wherever you are. You can type your questions in the chat pod. And I don't think we're going to be using any videos today. But we will try to answer the questions as we go. And if we miss it, Cliff and I will kind of track questions for the other person. And we'll certainly try to answer them all before we finish up in the next hour. We will have again a short survey at the end of the webinar. And I think it's just because we are funded by a grant. And I write the reports and I always have to give some feedback to the grant agency. So we will email you that link. And I also want to draw your attention to the Field to Fork website. You're always adding new resources to that. So if you're a food entrepreneur, we have an entrepreneurship website that's very complete. They also have a local foods website and then a dedicated website to this project and you're certainly welcome to print and distribute. If you're at a farmer's market or selling things, you can print anything you like from our website and use it. You don't have to get special permission. So with that, I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Hall. And he and I are working together right now actually starting a new fermentation project. So that's kind of exciting. So thanks Cliff for joining us. And I'll have you tell them more about yourself if you'd like. Okay. Well, I am a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences. My education is actually food science. And so much of my teaching deals with food science. I do a lot of food processing activities with Julie and also work with other instructors in our product development course at NDSU for Food Science Kids. And that's always fun to watch them develop food products. So I basically have a teaching research appointment. And also I am in charge of the Pulse Quality Program at NDSU in terms of the end-use aspect of that. And so fermentation is of interest to us with regards to using pulses. So with that, I think I will get started with our focus today. Really, this particular presentation will focus on just some generic information about food fermentation. It serves as really an introduction to this topic. Recognizing that a few weeks ago, I covered some of the same information. So again, I'll try not to bore you too much with some of the details. But we'll start off with a history. We'll define what fermented foods are, show a few types or give a few examples, highlight the fermentation process, and then talk about potential health benefits of fermented foods. Fermented foods actually for the longest time, we're not really thought of as necessarily healthy foods. But I think there's a lot more evidence that we have today showing that there's a lot of health benefits. So Julie will cover that aspect of the presentation. So if we look at then the history, with history, I kind of group it into three different types of history. The first is oral histories. These are history that are passed down from generation to generation. And it's not really necessarily written anywhere. So it's just kind of this verbal passing on of information. For some of us, this might include a recipe, for example, where your grandmother knew this recipe and she never wrote it down. She passed it on to your mother or father and then they passed it on to you. And so that's kind of that oral history. The second type of history would be based on this archaeological data, finding proof in a dish that was uncovered when they were digging in ruins of some sort, where you actually find pieces of food items or they can use DNA technologies or genetic type of information to kind of track some of that materials that may have been present in these dishes or plates or dumps or garbage areas of a lost civilization. And then the last one is basically a history that is inferred. I call this an inferred history, meaning that they have evidence that, for example, the nomadic tribes in Asia used to carry water in a dried calf stomach or leather pouches. And they used to use that as a way to carry their water from one location to another. Some of the first lessons we learn when we talk about food fermentation is that food fermentation happened by accident. And they always use this nomadic tribe as that kind of that example, meaning that they say, well, yogurt or cheese came about by these nomadic tribes carrying their milk in a calf stomach. And so in that particular case, there's no direct evidence that they actually carried milk in these bags. But there is evidence that they used them as maybe something to carry water or other similar beverages. And so we infer that they may have carried milk. And if they did, then there was likely that some of the enzymes in the calf stomach were still active once it was rehydrated. And so we kind of then make that assumption then that, well, that's maybe where fermentation started with regards to dairy products. Again, we don't have any archaeological data to support that. But we do have archaeological data that dates back to 6000 BC where they've looked at fermented beverages in wines and fermented cereal. So we have some archaeological data. Did it happen probably before 6000 BC? More than likely, yes. We just haven't found the archaeological data yet to show that. What's important to understand is that nearly every culture has fermented foods today. So from a historical perspective today, we find that almost every culture has a fermented food item that might be unique just to their country or to their region. And so our assumption is that historically other cultures or other peoples also had fermented products. Why do we still like our fermented products? Well, they have unique flavors. A sourdough bread from San Francisco tastes different than a sourdough bread that maybe was produced in Turkey. So there's unique flavors associated with these types of products. Even though we say sourdough bread, they may have different flavors. So the tradition, when we highlight traditions, I think most of you can think of a family tradition. And if cultured products are part of that tradition, they're probably passed down from one generation to the next. So again, tradition is a very important part of that, that reason for continued use of fermented foods. I think most of you will recognize what are fermented foods. And of course beer and wine come to mind for many people. I've already talked about sourdough breads, but one thing that you may not think about would be olives. My first encounter of a fermented olive was when I visited Turkey back in about 2005, and that was the first time I've ever consumed a fermented olive. Of course, many of you probably consume yogurt on a daily basis. So again, these are products that many of us would associate with a fermented food. Of course, sauerkraut is another one, kimchi, very similar, but a spicy version of sauerkraut. It's kind of more of a vegetable, a fermented vegetable product. But then we get into the soy-based fermented foods. Just at lunch today, we were talking about natto and how no one in the room could stand to eat natto. So even our Chinese faculty said they wouldn't touch it. And so it's a case where certain cultures, natto is a great product, and they really like it, but for others, maybe not. And so keep in mind that with these fermented products that it's not necessarily going to be universal in the consumption. So it's going to be very much dependent maybe on that culture, that tradition in the consumption of these products. Let's move into the fermentation definitions. I've highlighted four definitions for you. With fermentation, there's what we call a true fermentation and then just fermentation in general. And I will kind of differentiate those for you by the end of our time through these definitions. But what I want you to recognize is there's a lot of similarities in these definitions. The first definition indicates to us that this is a process. So you're actually making a process food. So I want you to think about process foods. And in recent years, process foods have been looked at in a negative light. But I want you to understand also that fermentation is a processing method. So if you're eating sauerkraut, you're eating a processed food. So it's important to just recognize that processing is not necessarily a bad thing. And so I think we need to stop using it in that context that it's bad. So in this particular case, the fermentation is a process and it involves this breakdown of organic substances. So it's going to break down organic substances into just generically simpler substances. So that's a very vague or very general definition here. But if we look at this in the context of what happens, oftentimes sugars are that substrate that we break down. So sugars are broken down into things such as alcohol. So that's a good example of a definition that talks about it being a process. It highlights the organic substances that are breaking down into smaller compounds. And the last part of this definition that's very important is this concept of anaerobic. So it's this anaerobic breakdown that occurs. So keep that word in mind because I'm going to use it throughout the next three definitions. In the second definition, we again have this anaerobic breakdown and it is of energy-rich compounds. And most often, these compounds are carbohydrates. But be aware that you can also have a protein. So a protein can also be an energy-rich compound. So we have those two components typically. In this particular case, again, the carbohydrate is broken down into carbon dioxide, alcohol, or organic acid. So you have specifics here that really coincide with that earlier definition. The third definition here involves now chemical reactions. So they highlight chemical reactions. But this time, what's unique about this is they really stress microorganisms. And for a lot of our fermented foods, the fermented foods is based on this concept of microorganisms. So we're using microorganisms to convert this organic substrate. So we have this organic substrate and we make it into that simple substance. So again, think of this as using microorganisms. And again, with this definition, we're talking about sugar being broken into simpler compounds. In this particular case, I want you to recognize that they once again use anaerobic as part of that definition. The final definition again says it's an anaerobic cellular process where organic foods, and really this shouldn't say necessarily organic foods, but organic substrates like carbohydrate or protein are converted into simpler compounds. So that's typically what we have here. And so with all four definitions, the word anaerobic has been repeated in every definition. And when we talk about a fermentation, a true fermentation is one that is done under an anaerobic environment. So that's what a true fermentation is. However, a lot of people just use fermentation as a general word to highlight a number of different things such as production of vinegar. So when you make vinegar, you are creating acetic acid. And that acetic acid is this metabolite that has preservative action. But when we talk about vinegar production, vinegar production is a two-step process where you have a true fermentation occurring first where you're producing the alcohol. Once this alcohol is formed, it's then transformed under an aerobic condition to vinegar. So keep in mind that a true fermentation is one that's done anaerobically. And so when you are doing a fermentation at home, you oftentimes use a fermentation lock. And a fermentation lock is something that has a little bit of water. And then you see bubbles coming up through that water. Those bubbles are carbon dioxide. And so carbon dioxide is a common byproduct of this process of anaerobic fermentation. So you know that your fermentation is occurring if you see these bubbles. So that's a good sign that something's happening. But recognizing also that in a fermentation such as vinegar, people associate that with a true fermentation. But it really is kind of that two-step process. So be able to differentiate that. And if ever asked by a client, when I tried to ferment a certain product and it tastes like vinegar so my wine didn't necessarily work, that would be a question to ask them. Did you really do this under an anaerobic condition? When you had a fermentation lock, did you see bubbles coming through and so forth? So something to remember about fermentation is that fermentations are not sterilization methods. I think for those of you who eat yogurt, you're eating live bacteria as part of that. So you know that it's not a sterile environment. We want those bacteria. So oftentimes when you have a fermented product, you have to do some sort of processing after it's gone through its fermentation period to help prolong its life. So with sauerkraut, for example, there's a number of different things you can do. But one of those is to can it. And by canning it in jars, it's a sterilization method. So recognizing that since this is not a sterilization method, you might need to process it in some other fashion. Fermentation is really a method that preserves food using microorganisms. So that's the key again, this word microorganisms. We mentioned that earlier with microorganisms. There's two ways in which the food is preserved. The first here is that the microorganisms of interest will compete with other organisms. So if you have a foodborne pathogen, that specific organism, you don't really necessarily want in that product, right? So as a result, you hope that that good microorganism will out-compete that bad one. And so that's kind of one way that microorganisms help preserve that product. The other way is that the organisms that we want in the fermentation process, they create metabolites. I mentioned alcohol before. So alcohol is a preservative. And so in this particular case, these metabolites will kill some of the other microorganisms in that system. So that's a good thing. So those are essentially how fermentation acts to preserve food products. Just to wrap up the definition part of our discussion here, remember that fermentation is a transformation of nutrients. This nutrient is typically being carbohydrate or protein. This is done by bacteria or other microorganisms, which we'll see shortly here. And enzymes that are produced by bacteria or other organisms are part of this transformation process. So again, our definition focuses on this transformation of a material. The microorganisms that are used or involved in the fermentation are grouped into three different areas or categories. We have bacteria and yeast. Bacteria and yeast are the ones that are responsible for the true fermentation processes. Remember, I said that true fermentation is a fermentation done under anaerobic conditions. So bacteria and yeast, they are responsible for these true fermentations. Molds, in contrast to that, molds require oxygen to survive. And so they never are responsible for a true fermentation. They're oftentimes secondary processes that occur in a fermentation process. One good example is demonstrating this picture where they have a blue cheese. In this particular scenario, there's a fermentation that initially occurred where the bacteria created lactic acid. The lactic acid causes the proteins in milk to coagulate. And after the cheese master has formed that into a shape, they inject mold into it. And so now this mold is considered part of this fermentation process. But what this mold actually does then is it degrades the protein. So it degrades the protein. So instead of having this rubbery cheese, it becomes dry and brittle and kind of cracks and breaks. It also then develops some flavors. So it's not necessarily a true fermentation, but that process that it undergoes is beneficial in that it helps develop good flavors. It helps to make that cheese have a different type of structure. So just recognizing then when we talk about bacteria, yeast, and molds as microorganisms in fermentations, bacteria, the bacteria in the yeast that are responsible for the true fermentation. With bacteria, the most common being the lactobacilli or simply lactic acid bacteria. And then with yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is probably one of the more common ones, but you would have similar yeast that would do that fermentation. If you look at some of the fermentation types, lactic acid fermentations are probably the most common. These are the where we use bacteria. So the lactic acid bacteria, those are the ones that convert the sugars into lactic acid. This lactic acid then serves as a preservative. So again, we're preserving that food based on the formation of this metabolite. The second type would be this alcoholic fermentation. Again, this is where we convert sugars into alcohol. And this alcohol then serves as this preservative. So remember, lactic acid fermentations produce lactic acid. Alcoholic fermentations produce alcohol. So that's the price that we get from these types of fermentation. Keep in mind that in both of these systems, we have other chemical reactions that result during this process, and it allows us to develop flavor characteristics of the different foods. So there's other reactions that are happening than just simply this conversion process. So again, it's very much dependent on what organism specifically you are using, whether or not you develop certain unique flavor characteristics. Some other important basic information about fermentation is that remember, the growth of microorganisms is really the primary goal. We want to have those lactic acid bacteria outgrowing other microorganisms in that system. So we want to enhance that microbial growth. Lactic acid is produced with fermented vegetables and milk. So a lot of the lactic acid fermentation processes would be vegetable-based products or milk, kefir, yogurts, cheeses. So these are all fermentations that are done in milk, but it's really the lactic acid that is driving the formation of that curd structure in milk-based products. But again, the lactic acid bacteria are the ones that we typically add to the milk to produce that fermented product. With fruit, when we look at fruits, they produce alcohol. So alcohol is a primary product. If you do a fermentation of, say, a fruit juice, wine being the example. But if you also look at cereal products, with cereal products, we can have the production of alcohol as well. A secondary product that might form would be acetic acid. But remember, with acetic acid, it's oftentimes involved in that oxidation part of a fermentation system. So it's not necessarily the true oxidation process. So when we essentially look at these fermentation products, again, recognizing that we try to use organisms to complement what we want. So I see that we have a question about diseased cabbage. And it's important with diseased products that you try to get rid of as much of the dead product as you can. So if it's rotten on one side of the cabbage and the other side looks good, if you're in desperation, you could probably use that. Preference would be not to use it. Because part of it is that you don't know how those organisms are going to try to compete with, say, the lactic acid bacteria. So you don't know how they're going to compete. So in the end, you may not produce sufficient lactic acid to really destroy that black rot bacteria. I don't really know if it's been investigated, but that seems like maybe a good project to think about looking at what happens. But my suggestion would be is not to use necessarily that cabbage that would be diseased in that fashion. I think that would be a good conversation to have even at the end of our presentation when we talk about sauerkraut fermentation. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Julie and she is going to then cover the benefits of fermentation. And maybe if she wants to comment on this cabbage issue of black rot, she can maybe do that before she even gets into her part of it. All right. We had a bit of a conversation about black rot and also black end rot on tomatoes, which seems to be an issue this year. And the consensus of the horticulture specialist, actually a couple of them, was the same thing you said. We don't really have the answers to know that those would be safe to preserve. So it's best to preserve the best and eat the rest. I think that's the usual thing. But certainly could be a topic of investigation because you don't know what's persisting throughout that fruit or vegetable. So some benefits of fermentation, certainly Cliff has been talking about preservation. They'll last a lot longer. The more acidic foods are the longer they last. I'm going to talk a little bit more in-depth about health benefits because one of my roles here at NDSU is as a nutrition and health specialist. I will mention energy efficiency and then we'll talk a little bit more about flavor. Certainly fermenting does lend itself to all sorts of flavor development. So some benefits of preservation in general are improved food safety, but I'll add to that. You need to follow the rules that have been established through research. I've been getting a lot of preservation questions lately myself about some unusual preservation methods using equipment that really was never intended to preserve. For example, one fad right now, so for all of you listening, I want you to be going out and telling your friends not to do this. People are canning foods in their oven instead of in a pressure canner or in a water bath canner. It is not safe to can food in your oven, to put it on a tray, set it in the oven because it does not, that food does not reach a safe internal temperature. And it's just the way that heat penetration works. And there's some devices advertised on TV. If you're an insomniac some night and you turn on the TV, like I was the other night and I saw these really interesting devices. One was about canning. You could pressure cook, pressure can, you could do anything in this device. And they even said it was USDA tested. And actually the USDA Center for Home Food Preservation came out with a statement that, no, we did not test this device. So you really need to be looking into what information sources that you use. And certainly now that it's food preservation season for a lot of our fall vegetables, follow those rules. We have them free on our website. All extension agencies across the United States also have food preservation resources. So, you know, remember that food safety is probably a primary concern right along with nutrition. But first it has to be safe before you eat it. Okay, so with preservation and particularly fermentation, it can help contribute to the food needs of the world. And in fact, you can even take some waste products and through the process of fermentation you can make them into edible food products. So they've looked at even locusts and fruit peels and hides and bones, for example. Probably not things that we typically eat in this part of the world. But the research has been done to show that maybe that is a future food source as well. One thing that happens with fermentation is that the nutrition or the nutrients in particular are more bioavailable. And that is definitely true. We also see some improvements in digestive and immune health as a result of fermentation. And fermentation can, eating fermented foods can also influence the microbial balance in our GI tract and can even remove some anti-nutritional factors. Okay, and I see I have a couple questions. So I'm going to pause for a second and answer as I've had several consumers this 2016 season doing or asking about oven canning. And this is new to my question. Yes. Not safe. The jars might break. And also, we don't get proper heat penetration, as I mentioned. People flipping jars upside down to seal instead of canner. Really, the best way to do it is use the two-piece lids, never paraffin because that doesn't fully seal the jams and jellies, and process for five to 10 minutes in a water bath canner. That's the rules. I've had people call me and tell me through years, as I've been in this role for almost 20 years, tell me that jars have blown up in their cupboards. And a lot of times it happens to be jams and jellies that were not heat processed because there can be bacteria, other organisms in the jars. They can produce enough gas to blow the jars apart. And I've heard about that in tomatoes and other things as well. So thanks for those questions, and I'll go back to fermentation. So lots of potential health benefits. So I have a little question for all of you. How many bacteria do you think reside in our body? You can type your answer in the chat box. What do you think? You are correct. A hundred trillion. And I can't even imagine really what a billion looks like and much less a trillion. But we have a lot of bacteria, and we want them to be there because they do play a role in our health and in fighting other organisms that can get inside of us. So if we weighed all the bacteria, how much would it weigh? Two to three pounds? Five to six or 10 to 11? You can type in your answer in the chat box again. If you said two to three, or if you were thinking two to three pounds, that is the correct answer. It would be nice to think that all you have to do is lose your bacteria and you drop 10 pounds, but that wouldn't work. So it's about a couple pounds all the bacteria would weigh if we were able to weigh them. So what do these gut bacteria do for us? They break down nutrients, so they help us digest our food. They also can produce certain vitamins, vitamin K for example, which is involved in blood clotting is part of a bacterial production in our body. They can help regulate energy and also energy storage. They're competitors with these pathogens or these disease-causing organisms, and they can also help us with our immune responses. So sometimes bacteria is good and sometimes we want to keep it away from us, but in this case our gut bacteria, we need to keep them at a particular balance. That's why a lot of nutrition experts are recommending the regular intake of probiotics to foods like yogurt on a daily basis or a regular basis at least. So now a few definitions. Raise your hand if you've ever heard the word probiotic prior to today. Yes. That's a popular one. We hear more and more about it. What does it mean? Well, if we split the word in half, pro means for, bio means life. So it is for life. It injures. All right. Probiotics introduce a bacterium into the body that provides health benefits to the host. And there are several natural sources, including yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, kefir, sauerkraut. Just go into the dairy section of your local grocery store and you'll see most of these products. Sauerkraut, often also sold in either the canned good section or in the refrigerated section because you can buy sauerkraut fresh. Some benefits of probiotics, it can help prevent diarrhea, can ease symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. It can help prevent stomach aches, gastroenteritis. And some researchers are showing that maybe these probiotics can help slow the development of tumors, especially those in the colon. Now, I'm going to say another warning is to look out for all of the supplements that are on the market nowadays. Soon as some research comes out and some product will follow, go for the probiotics that are in food. That seems to be more beneficial than those through supplements because whether you are aware of this or not, a lot of supplements have no research backing behind them because they're not regulated as either drugs or as foods. So it's buyer beware when it comes to supplements and some of these advertised goods and lots of different things that you might encounter on a daily basis. Just look at advertisements. So some ways to preserve probiotics. So for example, with your yogurt or sour cream or those sorts of products, be sure that you keep dairy products refrigerated. And I'll ask you another question. Into the chat box, if you want to go ahead and type, what temperature should your refrigerator keep food in degrees Fahrenheit? What temperature should your fridge be? Yes, very good. Less than 40 is a good answer. And while I looked, I saw someone else had a comment. Sheila is asking, when looking at the excess salt from sauerkraut, does it still contain a valuable amount of gutbiotics? Yes, it will. Those would be contained within the, you know, the kraut itself. But certainly you want to, you do want to rinse it off or take some of that liquid off because it's very high in salt. So very good comment. Back to our probiotics. You want to look for food products with colony forming units of 5 to 10 million. That's how they count them in the microbiology lab. I'll give you who remember taking those and using petri plates and that sort of thing. And then also talk to your doctor about taking probiotics to prevent diarrhea in case you're ever on antibiotics. Sometimes there can be interactions between calcium and the antibiotic. So that's a doctor or pharmacist type of question to be aware of any food and drug interactions. I just completed some resources for you. If you're ever interested, we have a website called nourishing boomers and beyond. And that has one section about knowing your medications. And there's some information, more information for you about food drug interactions. And there's also a section on that website about digestion. So just another resource for you. There's a lot of things in our website. So you take some time to explore that. On the other hand, we also have an item called prebiotics. Pre means before. So before life. And basically this is the food for good bacteria to grow. So here we've got my dietitian hat on. I'm telling you that try to eat a wide variety of foods because we want to get all the nutrition we need. But we also want to feed those good bacteria. And some prebiotic sources, food sources include raisins and plums, wheat and beans as indriatable beans, like kidney beans and pinto beans, onions, garlic, leeks. So all those are very good for us and they feed this gut bacteria. And some additional benefits can help with your mineral absorption and promote a healthy immune system and may even reduce risk of food allergies. So lots of benefits with probiotics and the food for the probiotics which are called prebiotics. So we're really starting to learn more in the world of nutrition just about the role of micro-organisms in our food as well as in our body. So where do you find all these? If this were an interactive slide, these little arrows wouldn't be here already. But you can see, you can find them in all the different food groups. And this of course is the choose my plate icon, which is the icon for healthy nutrition at the moment. And you know, go for a wide variety of foods, all the food groups. Best advice is moderation and variety and balance. So in some cases, probiotic therapy, so having some of these fermented foods can help you manage diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease and even cancer as well as gastroenteritis. So there's a lot of potential health benefits and again, it's the subject of current research. And always a good idea if you are suffering from any of these things, discuss that with your physician. Don't hold it in and don't, you know, not tell them when you go in for a checkup because there might be other things going on. So always, always keep notes. So going back to fermentation and some of its benefits. With fermentation, there actually is a reduced need for refrigeration, but to maintain that level of those organisms, you do want to keep it refrigerated as much as possible. So by lowering the acidity, so we get it more acidic, lowering the pH I should say, we are preserving it. And we also are reducing potential cooking time. In some cases, we can say that fermented meat and fish do not require cooking. Tempe requires less cooking time than raw soybeans. So, you know, again, when we add or when we change that acidity, we are changing the safety of the food. And finally, there's some definite flavor benefits. You can see strong, compelling flavors created. Sometimes we don't like those flavors right away, and we might take a while to adjust to those flavors. But it only takes a little bit of some of these enhanced foods to fermentation to help with bland foods. Just adding a little bit of soy sauce or whatever it happens to be. I'm going to pass it over for our little case study on solar crowd. Thank you, Julie. This particular slide is, I'm not going to go through every little thing, but this is one of the extension bullets that Julie and Ron Smith had put together is FN-433. So if you want that, just go to the NDSU extension website. And what I'd like to do then is kind of pull apart this bulletin for you a little bit and then just kind of cover the basics of sauerkraut fermentation. We won't cover every detail of it, but again, you can take a look at that bulletin that was put together. There's a few things to remember with making sauerkraut, and it's best to use the firm head and preferably disease-free. You know, we have that discussion a little bit earlier about the black rot, so it's a case where we prefer to have a very firm head disease-free. Keep in mind that if it's like half of the head is rotten, we can't take that rotten part of it and make it into some edible-like sauerkraut. That's not going to work very well. Julie had given us discussion points earlier about hide and some other things, and that might work. But when it comes to a fermentation like a head of cabbage, it's not going to work very well. So we can't take this spoiled material and convert it into something that's edible. But with regards to some of the black rot, we'd have to do experiments to really reaffirm that. Also, the reason why we want firm heads is because remember as this material is fermenting, it softens. It gets soft, and Julie had talked a little bit about some of the changes that occur during fermentation. So if you have a firm head going in, you're going to have a little bit firmer sauerkraut coming out after that process. So that's why we want to use firm heads. Another important thing to remember is that you want to use canning or pickling salt. I've done some experiments where I've used regular table salt that has iodine in it, and one, the fermentation did not occur very well. I mean, it wasn't as robust as when I would use pickling salt, but also it had a little brown tint to it. So the brownish tint probably came from some of the iodine during that fermentation process, sibilizing and attaching to some of the cabbage. So again, it's important to use again the firm head and pickling salt for this fermentation. A general rule, if you have a lot of cabbage, 25 pounds of cabbage, you would use about three-fourths of a cup of salt. So that's the kind of that ratio that's important to maintain. If you have 100 pounds, keep in mind with the 100 pounds, maintain this ratio. That's really the critical part to making sauerkraut. Just a few steps, and we'll quickly go through these. Remember to prepare the cabbage. Discard the outer leaves. The reason why you want to do this is that many of the spoilage organisms, the things that cause spoilage in a lot of our produce, are sitting out in the outer edges of that product. And so if we discard those, we get rid of a lot of those spoilage organisms that might be floating around in the air. Rinse with cold water and then drain. It's important to remember not to use detergents. So you don't want to use detergents because that can be taken up in the cells of the cabbage. You end up then with a very soapy, sour, not in a good way, sauerkraut. So it's from that soap. So it's not a good thing to do. Also, you don't want to sit there with a brush and just scrub that cabbage. One of the things is that with these organisms, they're on the surface of these leaves. And so if you are scrubbing that away, you're getting rid of some of those good lactic acid bacteria that are present naturally. And so the fermentation may not be as robust. So if you wash it in cold water and then drain it. Draining this is also important because remember we want to maintain that ratio of cabbage to salt. So if we have extra water there, there could be a dilution of that salt. And so therefore, you might not achieve sufficient fermentation quickly enough that it would knock out some of the unwanted organisms. So those are just some general hints with regards to cabbage preparation. And then also, you want to really cut this head into small slices or shreds about the thickness of a quarter. Remember surface area. As we increase the surface area, we get a better fermentation. The reason for that is we press out. It's easier to press out the juice or the liquid from those leaves. And as a result, the sugars that are in that leaf with the water is then used for the fermentation process. So it's easier to remove this water from a thin slice versus something that's thick. And then also, you would make sure you have a suitable fermentation container. So once you have your cabbage prepped, make sure you have clean hands. For this next part, it's important that as you're handling this, if you don't use your hands and you have a clean utensil, that works just as well. But the important thing to remember is that for every five pounds of cabbage, use three tablespoons of salt. And so that's important. And then mix that thoroughly. So you want to make sure you disperse that salt throughout that cabbage material. Once that's done, remember that if you pack it into a container, so if you're only going to make five pounds, pack that firmly into a container. Remember that the salt is there for the purpose of drying out juices from that cabbage. And so the thinner that slice, the easier it is to do that. And again, the idea with a lot of these fermentations is that you want to have something that helps pull out the sugars along with that water because it's the sugars that the microorganisms will use in this fermentation process. If you're making a lot of sauerkraut, it's oftentimes easier just to do it in small five pound batches following that ratio. And then using a larger container to dump all the repeated shredding and salting and mixing that you might have to do. So if you have a hundred pounds of cabbage and you add your appropriate amount of salt, it's really hard to mix that. And so it's just easier to have smaller batch sizes. But it's important again to maintain that ratio. And so as you repeat this shredding and salting, make sure, again, you pack it tightly into that container that you will be using. And then finally, you want to make sure that you have about four to five inches above that cabbage because you'll need to make sure that you have liquid above that cabbage. But also you're going to need something to kind of provide a little bit of weight to that cabbage. So the cabbage is not floating around in that solution. You want all the cabbage to be underneath that liquid layer. What are suitable containers? Well, you can use a gallon container for every five pounds of cabbage. So that's kind of a general rule. A five-gallon stone crock has been a traditional method for a lot of people to make sauerkraut because you can ferment about 25 pounds of cabbage, fresh cabbage. But a lot more people have been going to food grade plastic containers or glass containers just because they don't have a stone crock. But those are acceptable materials. The one thing that I do want to caution you about is that you want to make sure that it's food grade material. You don't want to be using a garbage bag or a trash liner. These are not food grade materials, and so they're not good for the fermentation processes. And so again, recognizing that user-correct material will always lead to more successful production of the sauerkraut. In this particular case, just recognizing again that in some cases there's some newer systems where they have plastic containers that have fermentation locks attached to them, or you can attach a fermentation lock. So that's another type of container that can be used. But just remember that regardless of your container, that you want to keep that cabbage one to two inches under the brine surface. So you want to maintain that under the brine. You also want to place a glass dinner plate or a pie plate inside this container. This will help keep that cabbage from floating to the surface of that brine. And you also then want to cover that container with a clean towel. So if you're not going to use a lid on your like a five-gallon bucket with a fermentation lock, make sure you cover it with a clean towel. And then allow that to ferment at 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit for a given amount of time. And so again, it depends on your sauerkraut. But keep an eye on it. Ideally, I've had sauerkraut five, six weeks for fermenting and it seemed to turn out all right. So again, just pay attention to the bulletin that Julie has put together. So once that sauerkraut has fermented for the given amount of time, it's important then that you would transfer this in a covered container in the refrigerator. And that will last about seven months. So remember that this is not a sterile product. It still has active cultures growing. So you have to basically put that in the refrigerator. You can also freeze the product. With freezing it, as long as you could prevent freezer burn, it would probably last upwards to nine months to a year. And then one of the more common approaches is to actually use hot or raw pat canning methods with the idea of being in that. You can then take that sauerkraut and put it on your shelf. So it doesn't have to be in the refrigerator. It doesn't have to be in the freezer. You can put it in the cupboard. So that is essentially then ways that you would preserve that sauerkraut at the end of that process. And again, there's USDA processing time, so go ahead and if you're doing a hot pat versus a raw pat, you have pints, cords, you have different processing conditions. So that would be a way to help determine, do you want fresh sauerkraut? If you do, then you have to refrigerate it. If you want something that can sit on the shelf and you pull it off in the middle of January, you want to then do that canning approach. If we look at vegetables, it's very similar to sauerkraut in the sense of the fermentation. The concept is essentially the same. One of the things is that we want to increase the surface area. Always remember that the more surface area you have, the easier it will be for you to withdraw or take out that moisture from that vegetable piece. So a thin piece means higher surface area. That's important because you pull out the sugars. You pull out the liquid. There's more fermentation that can occur. Salt, by salting this, remember that the salt helps to pull out the water from the cells of that vegetable. And so, again, using the proper ratio of salts is very important. There's some information on the extension websites for this, but the idea is always remember that you have to use salt because that's what helps inhibit some of the food pathogenic organisms, but lets our lactic acid bacteria grow with no problem. And then there are some options for you with regards to salt. Salt's typically the preferred method. I'll admit that to me. It's a preferred method. It slows that fermentation process and it slows enzymatic processes, especially those that affect the texture. So pectin is a fiber material that if we can prevent enzymes from breaking it down, it helps retain that crunchiness or crispiness in that vegetable so you get a firmer fermented product. It also slows the growth of the bacteria and mold. So it's a case where you're going to have to have that product sitting there longer at room temperature per se than you would say if you have a no salt. One of the problems with no salt is it ferments in two to three days. So you have to pee on the ball and be ready to do something with it, otherwise it's going to go from a fermented to a spoiled food very quickly. We want to add spices and spices remember will inhibit molds. And then finally we have the need for starter culture sometimes because it's such a fast fermentation process that we want to make sure that we have the appropriate starter culture present. So again when we look at vegetables, keep in mind it's very similar to sauerkraut, but you can have options in some cases where no salt, but you have to be very careful about that type of fermentation. And then you want to make sure you pack it so the key here again is to pack it correctly. So even if you use salt or not, you still have to produce this anaerobic environment because remember it's this anaerobic environment that's going to allow for the production of lactic acid and syslactic acid that really helps preserve that product. And then fermentations again two to three days for no salt, it could be as long as a year for others. So it all depends on what vegetable, the size of that particle, etc. that you will be producing. And with that I will turn it over to Julie again and she can wrap it up. Sure. Thanks so much Cliff for joining us today. This is a book. If you're really interested in this topic, I'm looking at it on my shelf. It's about an inch thick. It's available on Amazon. I don't get any cuts or anything from it, but it's a very interesting book if you want to explore this topic. It has lots of different formulations and so on. And we are going to do some additional or do some fermentation work here at NDSU. Lots of references. We didn't make this up. Again I'd like to thank you for attending our session and there is a survey at the end and we will take some time for questions. And Anne is asking if we agree with all of Sanders' methods of fermentation. I don't know Cliff have you read? I have not explored all of them. No I have not either. I'll have to take a look and see. Yes. You have to watch out again with finding things online. Go with the most reputable sources, university sites. Colorado State is in the midst of getting some fermentation resources posted online. I don't think they have them up yet. But hopefully maybe in the future we'll have some additional fermentation resources. Ron Smith and I a few years ago, along with Steve Sagas, put together a wine making guide which is the type of fermentation. And so that is available on our site as well. But currently the only things we have are wine making and the Sauerkraut guide. Oh okay. Anne is saying she met him and said he could use any kind of salt even table salt. Well I think for the reasons that Cliff told us, I would use canning salt. You're going to get a much better product. If you use table salt in say pickling, you're going to get a very cloudy product as well. And it could discolor your vegetables and even give odd taste. So any other questions? Yes, and I want to agree with you Julie on that salt issue. I really think that we eat with our eyes. And so after I had made that, it's been probably a decade ago that I did that experiment. That it wasn't something that I probably would have eaten. And so I think that to me, it's not worth the risk considering how cheap pickling salt is. Diane had great success. Yes, I grew up on a little bit German, eating some Sauerkraut made in a crock. I mean basically it isn't going to hurt you. I mean using table salt, we all need the iodine, but all of the USDA recipes do call for canning salt. Okay, well I think I will draw this to a close and for a little bit over time. Thank you again. I hope that you join us next week for the session on microgreens. Thank you very much and please take the survey.