Back at the Bench!

For a couple of years now I’ve been dabbling in homemade fermented foods and beverages. After we’d given up milk/casein (the third time around . . .), I was pretty bummed about it and decided we’d give raw cow’s milk a chance. Many milk-intolerant persons seem to do well with raw dairy, some even claim raw dairy healed their leaky gut and cleared them of their food intolerance(s). That’s when I decided to make my first cultured food – raw cow’s milk yogurt.

It was a daunting, yet exciting experiment.

Daunting because it was raw milk. I grew up with pasteurized milk. As a kid, I learned to thoroughly sniff the contents of the carton before each use to make sure the milk didn’t smell “funny.” (The funny thing is, it probably smelled funny from the day we bought it compared with raw milk!)

It was also daunting because I knew the effects milk/casein can have on Big O – excessive mucus production, raging ear infections, tantrums (and who wouldn’t tantrum when their head is stuffed with mucus and ear drums perforate due to the pressure of an infection?!), and, the dreaded constipation leading to the withholding cycle.

Daunting as it was, it was also exciting. Exciting because making raw milk yogurt was a new experiment for me.

I felt like I was back at the lab bench again. I don’t often miss being at the bench, but on occasion I get a little nostalgic about it. I miss seeing beautiful data appearing before my eyes. I miss pouring the perfect sequencing gel that transferred without tearing and produced tight, straight bands. I miss developing unstreaked, unquestionably clear westerns. I miss pulling out centrifuge tubes to find sweet little blobs of nucleic acid. I miss taking micrographs at 2:00 a.m. singing along with Matchbox 20 blaring and waiting anxiously for the film to be developed later that day to find that I captured sharply defined histological features. I was good at the bench and I miss the satisfaction of producing clear data.

This was an experiment at the bench (a.k.a., my kitchen counter) and I hoped I’d be good at it, too.

I read instructions from a variety of sources and came up with my own protocol. I loved that Big O could be involved in making it and sharing in the wonder of microbiology as it transpired in reused baby food jars in our oven. And, like my old days at the bench, the data produced in this kitchen experiment were good. Really good. Cream on top, tart and smooth underneath. Raw milk yogurt perfection!

But, a short while after consuming our first few bites of data, the detrimental effects that milk/casein have on us began to rear their ugly heads. I had a migraine coming on and Big O was coughing at night and started getting congested. I knew before Big O's constipation kicked in that we would not be able to continue with the raw milk, fermented or otherwise.

Disappointed as I was, I had caught the ‘bug’ for growing bugs in my own kitchen and seeing how they transformed foods was fascinating! I believe that consuming live, active cultures as the main source for probiotics in one’s life is very important. With cultured milk products out of our repertoire, I turned to other fermented foods.

First, there was true saurkraut. Again, daunting at first - it is hard, as a former germaphobe, to leave certain certain foods out on the countertop for a several days before consuming them. But, I did it and it was good, too, though future batches saw more finely shredded cabbage and slightly less salt. As for the Os and saurkraut - Little O will devour it and keep asking for more, but Big O is not much of a fan. I still make fresh, raw, lacto-fermented kraut and usually have some in the fridge, but I continued in my search for that fermented food which both Os would enjoy.

I thought pickles would be a nice choice, so we happily planted cucumbers and dill in the spring. Sadly, the dill fizzled shortly after planting and our garden cucumbers were few and far between this summer, so we haven’t tried our hand at lacto-fermented pickles.

Our garden did produce some lovely Daikon radishes and we did shred and ferment a couple of them. Palatable as it was, I think one batch was a little too salty, and neither batch was something that I could envision any of us would be eating on a daily basis.

Knowing how much the boys love homemade “soda” (sparkling water with fruit juice), and the occasional cane sugar soda, I thought I’d try making non-milk kefirs using water grains. In the beginning, it was a little questionable – water kefir grains are quite finicky and I, feeling all scientist-cocky on the tails of my previous fermented food conquests, too quickly dabbled in changing up the water kefir protocol.

One early batch smelled so terrible that I couldn’t even bear to taste a drop. I immediately went back to the recipe that accompanied the water grains and we began making super tasty water kefir! Little O drinks it down like there's no tomorrow. He actually gets very unhappy when none is left in the jar or, even worse, when he sees the full jar but I have to tell him it is not ready yet. I only wish my grains were multiplying more rapidly so I could start a second (and third!) batch and dabble in coconut water and fruit juice kefirs.

The thing about the water kefir is that, deliciously sweet-tart and fizzy as it is, Big O simply does not like it either. I’m beginning to suspect his own intuition tells him to avoid these fermented foods. They certainly do seem to have an adverse effect on him. Any sort of probiotic in his diet – either fermented food/beverage or supplement form – seems to send him down the irritability/constipation/withholding path. Hypothesizing why this is would be whole other post – suffice it to say I’m thinking mercury/candida/GI dysbiosis and we need to take it slowly on the whole probiotic thing for Big O.

As soon as I get more batches of water kefir going, I’ll start dabbling in flavoring them with fruit and/or fruit juices to see if I can get a combination going that Big O will like.

Recently, I received a lovely kombucha scoby from a good friend and have started my first batch of kombucha. Big O has liked the commercial kombuchas in the past, and seemed to enjoy my friend’s kombucha sample she gave us when she gave us the scoby. A few more days and we’ll be tasting our first batch of kombucha home-brew!

Another (I suspect) successful experiment - we seem to have avoided mold growth and our baby scoby is coming along quite nicely. What's adorable is that the baby, which I expected to develop as a disc on top of the mother, is growing in the hexagonal shape of the brewing vessel! How fun is that?