askchapo

Sourdough:

Day 1:

Levain - 8:00am

• 37g starter
• 37g bread flour
• 37g whole wheat flour
• 74g water

1. Mix all ingredients in a clean jar and leave out at 74-76°F for 5-6 hours. In the oven with the ONLY the light on works well.

Autolyse - 12:00pm

• 907g bread flour
• 641g water

1. Mix flour and water by hand until flour is completely incorporated and leave next to levain for 1 hour.

Mix Dough - 1:00pm

• Levain
• Autolyse
• 50g water
• 18g salt

1. Add the levain, water, and salt to the dough mix. Combine by pinching, pulling, and folding until well incorporated. Place some place warm, around 76°F.

Bulk Fermentation - 1:10pm to 5:10pm

1. At 1:40pm, 2:10pm and 2:40pm, stretch and fold the dough. Pull from the north, south, east, and west across the dough ball.
2. After the third set of stretch and fold, continue to bulk ferment until 5:10pm

Divide and Preshape and Shape - 5:15

1. Flour your work surface and scrape the dough out onto the work area. Cut the dough in two even halves and pull each into a ball. Let rest for 25 minutes
2. At 5:35, shape each ball. Working with the floured surface, dust the dough balls with flour and carefully turn upside down so the floured side is on the bottom.
3. With floured hands, pull the side of the dough closest to up and ⅔ across the top of the dough.
4. Stretch the left side out and fold over. Repeat for the right side.
5. Finally pull the top down across the dough
6. Flip the ball over and pull the dough towards you in a circular motion to form the ball.
7. Once the ball is formed, place dough in a heavily dusted, towel-lined bowl, seam-side up. Cover with a damp towel or plastic shower cap, etc. and leave it on the counter for secondary rise.
8. Repeat this for the second dough.
9. Leave dough to proof overnight in fridge.

Day 2:

Bake – Next Morning: Preheat oven at 8:30 a.m., Bake at 9:30 a.m.

1. Place dutch oven in oven and preheat for 1 hour.
2. Take out first loaf and flip it out onto parchment paper using cutting board/flip trick from website.
3. Score top however you want. I use my half wheat design.
4. Carefully take dutch oven out of oven and take lid off.
5. Carefully place bread into dutch oven, replace lid and put back in oven.
6. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove lid and set next to dutch oven in oven and bake for 15-20 more minutes.
7. Repeat for second loaf.

Saurkraut:

• cabbage
• salt
• spices(optional)

1. Fresh cabbage is best as it will be crisper and have more water in it. Shred the cabbage into ribbons.
2. Put shredded cabbage into a large bowl.
3. Add 2% salt per cabbage weight. Measure by getting weight of bowl first, then weight bowl with cabbage, subtract bowl weight, and mulitply by 0.02. That will be your salt amount.
4. Toss and massage cabbage/salt and let rest for 1 to 4 hours. Massage occaisonally until brine starts to pool at bottom of bowl.
5. Pack tighly using kraut pounder into jars. Make sure kraut is fully submerged. Leave abuot 1 inch of space at top of jar and put airlock on.
6. Ferment for 4 weeks on a baking sheet to collect any overflow.

Spices: Caraway seeds, mustard, dill, etc will all work. Between a tsp and a tbsp depending on spices. 1 tbsp for caraway per head of cabbage, for example.

Baechu Kimchi:

ingredients

• 2 pounds napa cabbage, cored and cut into 1-inch pieces (one large cabbage)
• ¼ cup sea salt
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 1 bunch green onions, sliced white and chopped green
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, sliced ( 2-3 disks, peels ok)
• 6 cloves garlic, whole
• 2–6 tablespoons Korean-style red pepper flakes (gochugaru)
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 teaspoons sugar

instructions

1. Cut cabbage and place it in a bowl with the salt and toss. Add enough cool water to cover the cabbage and stir until salt is dissolved. Keep the cabbage submerged with a plate over the bowl and let stand at room temperature 6-8 hours (giving a stir midway through if possible) or overnight.
2. Drain the cabbage, saving the brine. Rinse cabbage, drain, squeeze out any excess water and place it back in the bowl, adding the carrots and scallions.
3. Place the ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, fish sauce and sugar in your food processor. Process until well combined, pulsing, until it becomes a paste.
4. Scoop the paste over the cabbage and using tongs or gloves, mix and massage the vegetables and the red pepper mixture together really well, until well coated.
5. Pack the cabbage into a large, two-quart jar (or two, quart jars) or a crock, leaving 1-2 inches room at the top for juices to release. Add a little of the reserved brine to just cover the vegetables, pressing them down a bit. Add weight and airlock.
6. Ferment for 3 to 14 days.

My kimchi recipe has been compared to "the real deal" from Korea from vets in the past. I'm tried several store bought ones but, and not to toot my own horn, but mine really is good shit. I do want to modify it to be vegan sometime maybe this summer but we will see. So if she doesn't wanna bother searching, I got you covered. My recipe IS modified to be a bit easier to make in the States so I use carrots instead of daikon radish. I'll post it as a separate comment to not clog this one.

My saurkraut is really simple to make but also hits it out of the park. It took me a few batches to figure out the crunch but I got it. I will post that separate too. The main trick is to make sure to use the weight percent of salt related to cabbage, and also save a few outer leaves to put on top before that final press and adding weights. This part is crucial to getting that legit crunch. If you don't you risk soggy.

For most veggies, a 3-4% brine and just submerging is all you need. I do this with hot sauce when I get a bug up my butt to make it. I have a whole fridge drawer of artisan sauces so I never have room for my own and super hots are only available a few weeks out of the year here. For a hot sauce, 3% brine, a medium onion, or half, a bunch of peppers of your choice, and some garlic, and maybe a carrot if you want that orange style, and especially if you are going for a hab sauce. Let it sit for 3 weeks up to 3 months. The longer it sits, the more yeasty flavor it gets. After it's done, toss it all in a blender, reserve the liquid so you can adjust the thickness. If you want you can cook it down but this kills all the yeasty boys and bacteria.

My Kombucha never carbonates on it's own but literally if you dump a bottle of GT's into an extra sweet gallon of tea, you have kombucha in 2 weeks. That thing that floats on top is not the mother. This is a isconception and you can literally throw it away. People call it a scoby and make "hotels" for them but it's just a byproduct. The swirly cloudy stuff at the bottom is the mother and that's the good shit. That is the living culture that feeds off of the sugar and stuff.

I can also share my sourdough recipe. I had a small cult following when I was making it during the height of the pandemic but I got busy and got rid of my starter.

Sourdough starter:

• whole wheat fluor
• water

1. Day 1: mix 100g flour and water in jar, let set for 48 hours, covered loosely with a jar lid.
2. Day 3-10: Scoop out 100g of starter into a new jar and add 100g flour and water. Mix well and cover.

You can probs use bread flour once it's healthy and going, King Arthur OO or Peter Pan bread flour is what I use for both starter and bread, I forget what I used for the wheat.