Problems with Food Preservation

By Leda Meredith
Published on September 16, 2015
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Lacto-fermentation is one of the oldest forms of food preservation. It is the process that turns cucumbers into classic deli dill pickles and cabbage into sauerkraut.
Lacto-fermentation is one of the oldest forms of food preservation. It is the process that turns cucumbers into classic deli dill pickles and cabbage into sauerkraut.
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There is no end to the magic of food preservation, and in “Preserving Everything,” Leda Meredith leads readers – both newbies and old hands – in every sort of preservation technique imaginable.
There is no end to the magic of food preservation, and in “Preserving Everything,” Leda Meredith leads readers – both newbies and old hands – in every sort of preservation technique imaginable.

Leda Meredith has been preserving food since she was a child at her great-grandmother’s side, and she covers all aspects of the many styles of food preservation in her book Preserving Everything (The Countryman Press, 2014). In this excerpt from chapter 13, “Troubleshooting,” she addresses the many issues that one may encounter when lacto-fermenting, canning, pickling, making jams, dehydrating and cold storing.

You can purchase this book from the MOTHER EARTH NEWS store: Preserving Everything.

Lacto-Fermentation Foes

Fermentation never begins, or the food spoils even after fermentation seemed to start

If after 1 to 3 days at a room temperature (somewhere between 60 and 85°F), your ferment still hasn’t started fermenting, you may have to compost it and start over. Definitely if the food smells bad (it should have a lightly sour smell when fermenting, not a rotten one), or if there are strings of cloudy muck in the liquid, the batch has spoiled and should be discarded. Note that mold is not necessarily a reason to abandon your ferment (see below).

Two things that can help prevent both a non-starting ferment and a spoiled one are adjusting the amount of salt according to the ambient temperature, and/or including a live culture starter from whey (such as that from strained yogurt; see the Dairy chapter).

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