Food for Thought

Welcome back to this eigth installment in my essay series about fermentation – and what it has to offer you, both in edible and in non-edible ways…

Last time, we enjoyed the wonderful tale of the Mead of Poetry, and we touched on quite a few of its aspects: The role of scholars and poets, for example, or how fermentation can turn a person into one of these. Divine aspects of fermentation. The difference between the base product of fermentation and its end product. And the missing fourth element, Water, which had been hiding in plain sight within the process of fermentation all along.

But there is also something else hiding in plain sight within that tale of the Mead of Poetry, and it’s something we’ll get back to later in today’s essay. First, though, there is some other glaring gap to fill – and filling it will keep us well busy for the next few essays.

Looking back at our work in the last couple of essays, we have had a closer look at fermentation’s base product first, i.e. whatever it is which is going to be fermented. We then turned towards the other end of the equation, and had an equally close look at its end product.

The glaring gap is, quite obviously, right between the two. What happens to turn a nice, normal, bland base product (like, say, a head of cabbage) into a tasty, zingy, and interesting fermented end product (like, say, sauerkraut)?

Or, in other words: How do we get from here to there? And what happens in between?

As I said, these questions are going to keep us busy for the next few weeks. There are several different aspects to this middle part of the fermentation equation, and they are all well worth looking at individually.

For today, we’ll start out with what is, in a way, the most important one of these aspects – as for without it, fermentation couldn’t even happen…

I’m sure you’ve heard of the adage that it’s possible to survive for two minutes without air, for two days without water, and for two weeks without food.

While the actual numbers in this wisecrack are somewhat questionable, it’s usually used to underscore the importance of clean air (in environmental contexts) or of access to potable water (in survival or outdoor contexts). Food, as per this thinking, is third-important at best.

Well, there is certainly something to be said for having access to breathable air and potable water. 😉 But without diminishing their importance, food shouldn’t be underrated either! In fact, once we’re talking about fermentation, the priorities do shift a bit: Sure, Air is relevant for fermentation – but sometimes it can also be counterproductive.

(Remember the air locks we talked about last time in order to reduce content with air for well-matured mead? Well, that.)

And water… for fermentation, water isn’t so much a necessity for survival (well, that, too, in some cases), but more of a state.

Anyway, air and water have their grand appearances elsewhere in this series, both in their elemental form and in other ways. For today, though, we’re going to focus on food.

At this point, some of you might be scratching your heads and wondering who, exactly, it is we’re going to feed? Of course, some fermented goodies like sourdough bread are food for us. But is this really what we’re talking about here?

Nope, of course not. What we’re talking about isn’t food for us, much as fermentation provides it in ample and diverse ways. Instead, we’re talking about nourishment for the tiny beings who do most of the work… What we’re talking about today is food for the fermentation critters.

Hm, so the point of today’s essay is that the wee fermentation critters are living beings more or less like us and they also want to eat, right? After all, they’ve got a tough and demanding job, fermenting all these goodies for us, and they need to be in top shape in order to get on with it!

Well, not quite. Or rather: yes, that, too. 😉

You see, the whole thing is a bit more complex than this – and at the same time much simpler.

Yes, these tiny fermentation critters do need to eat, too. But they don’t eat in order to be able to ferment. Instead, their digesting actually is fermentation.

(Yep, the implication is that by eating fermented goodies, we actually eat what amounts to their poop. And yep, this is kinda gross when you think about it. Which is why I suggest we stop thinking about it, and instead turn our thoughts back to our main avenue of exploration… 😉 )

Hm. So these tiny critters eat and ferment at the same time, and this certainly makes them an important component of the process of fermentation. But if their digesting turns our base material into the (fermented) end product, and if this end product is somehwat different from, but still remarkably similar to the initial mass… then it’s obviously not the base product which they eat.

So what, pray, do they eat?

Let’s consider something simple: wine. In order to get wine (the end product), one starts out with grape juice.

(Technically, it’s not grape juice, but a mash of squashed grapes, which, at some defined point earlier or later in the process, is sieved or filtered to remove the particles and only leave the liquid for further fermentation. But calling it “juice” is close enough for our purposes.)

I’m not sure if you’ve ever had some grape juice, but it’s some rather sweet stuff. Granted, not as sweet as some soft drinks, but sweet nonetheless.

Wine, in turn, is a lot less sweet. In fact, compared to grape juice, it’s downright sour. Not as sour as vinegar, though – but then vinegar had once been some fruit wine which then kept on fermenting further. As you might already be aware, there is a very distinct difference between the fermentation of vinegar and that of well-matured wine – and we’ll explore this in more detail (and hands-on 😉 ) at a later point.

For today, the general pattern is all we need: The more fermentation, the more sour. Or, from another point of view: The more fermentation, the less sugar.

You have experienced the same with sourdough (well, I hope you have, by diligently following along with your Hands-On Homeworks!). It starts out mild, with a rather bland taste of flour – and depending on how long you leave it to ferment, it can turn rather sour.

There is quite clearly a rise in acidity during fermentation. But there is also a loss of sweetness.

(Otherwise wine would be like a lot of softdrinks, filled to the brim with sugar or artificial sweeteners not just to appeal to our sweet teeth, but also to counterbalance all the artificial acidity which is also being added.)

Instead, in real, live fermentation with real, living fermentation critters, more and more sugar disappears during the process. And this disappearing sugar is what the fermentation critters eat.

I’m calling the fermentation critters’ food “sugar”, btw, although this is a bit of an oversimplification. Just as your body can process certain carbohydrates, starches, etc in ways similar to pure sugar, so can these tiny beings. For example, the flour you use for sourdough contains very little actual sugar, but a lot of other carbohydrates e.g. in the form of starches – enough to feed an army of fermentation critters.

Admittedly, flour and grape juice aren’t your average base product, as they contain quite a bit of sugar and similar foodstuffs for the wee critters.

So what about other base products which are less sweet and less starchy. Cabbage, for example, or lemons?

(In case you’re wondering, yep, lemons can be fermented, too, and with delicious result… Stay tuned!)

Well, cabbage or lemons might not be as sweet or as starchy as grape juice and flour, but they still contain more than enough food for the fermentation critters to do their work and live happily within them.

In short, without suitable food for the wee critters, there is no fermentation. Which, incidentally, also explains why certain things can’t be fermented…

At this point, you might be scratching your heads a bit. I mean, we all know that sugar isn’t a healthy thing for us, and too much sugar will cause us all sorts of issues. So what about the fermentation critters? Will they get a toothache if the ferment they live and work in is too sweet?

Fortunately not – although too much sugar and other carbohydrates can cause their own issues in fermentation. More for us than for the fermentation critters, though.

You see, besides not having teeth which could ache, these tiny little things also abide by some rather simple rules of living. For example, if their living conditions suit them, they multiply. And if their living conditions suit them very well, they multiply a lot, and fast.

Thus a ferment with a lot of sugar will “boil” more and faster than a ferment with less sugar. If you have followed along with the last Hands-On Homework, the difference will have been obvious to you:

In the first batch of the Homework, the plain young mead, there wasn’t that much activity (in the form of foaming and boiling), especially if you used heat-treated honey. This is due to the fact that heating it killed off most of the fermentation critters which are present in raw honey, thus you needed to stir in more of them from the surrounding air (and also from your hands and other surfaces). They then had to multiply to sufficient amounts first, in order to get the fermentation going at all.

All of this takes some time, i.e. even though honey is rather sweet, the actual fermentation was slow and sluggish.

In the second batch, the critters were already present – at least if you followed my advice and did not rinse or clean your vessel in between batches! That, and the additional amount of both sugars and critters added to the mix with the fruit, really ramped things up.

The third batch, the herbal mead, might have gone a bit more slowly again, at least in comparison to the fruit mead batch. It should still have boiled a lot more and faster than your very first batch of heat-treated honey, though, as by now you had a well established culture of fermentation critters to eagerly jump into the work for you.

Thus what makes a difference is, quite clearly, the amount of fermentation critters present at the beginning – but also the amount of food available to them in the form of sugar or other carbohydrates.

Just how much the amount of food matters will become even more obvious when you do today’s Hands-On Homework… 🙂

So more sugar is good, right? And even more sugar is even better then?

Well, yes and no. It does speed up the process, that much is clear – but this has its pros and its cons.

A more speedy fermentation can be an advantage, and not just because you’ll get to enjoy the end result sooner. It will also prevent other, undesirable cultures from developing in and on your ferment, like e.g. mould. They simply don’t stand a chance against the fast pace of digestion within a well-fed (and well-established) fermentation culture.

On the other hand, if your ferment contains loads of sugars, it will ferment much faster, and also reach the tipping point much faster, i.e. the point where things have fermented too much for your taste, or start to tip over into other, unwanted states.

For example, if you ferment very ripe and sweet fruit (like over-ripe melons or bananas), you need to really stay on your toes and check the process several times a day. If you leave it for just a tad too long, it might have turned from “amazing” into “yikes” within just a few hours.

(Today’s Hands-On Homework will give you the chance to explore the timing of ferments a bit, albeit on a much slower pace. We’re wading into the kiddie pool first, so to speak…)

Ferments with loads of sugars also have other effects, by the way. They boil not just faster, but also more – leading to much more foaming, and to more explosive potential, as we will explore in a later essay.

But there is even more to this process, as we will see in a second…

First, though, I want to harp on a point which is important, and which some people tend to get hung up on when they explore fermentation: Sugar and health.

For us, too much sugar isn’t healthy. For the fermentation critters, sugar is what they live on. In simple terms: Less sugar equals less fermentation.

Thus it won’t do you any good to add less sugar (or honey, or flour, or …) to a ferment in order to make it “healthier”. You will simply make it less fermented – or, worst case, there won’t be enough critter food to get the fermentation process going at all, and your ferment will spoil or rot.

(There can be other reasons for spoilage, of course, and we’ll have a closer look at the most important ones and how to prevent them later on. But not feeding the very guys and gals who are supposed to do the work for you is a somewhat silly mistake, and easily avoided.. 😉 )

Generally, you can get away with somewhat more or somewhat less sugar, as fermentation is rather flexible that way. But there is a lower limit of critter food beyond which you won’t get a pleasantly fermented result anymore, and also an upper limit of critter food beyond which you won’t get a pleasantly fermented result anymore.

I’d very much encourage you to play with the recipes (and my Homeworks!) and to explore these boundaries. Experiencing the influence of sugar amount firsthand will help you gain experience very quickly, and the more experience you have, the less you will need fixed recipes in order to produce great ferments.

But please don’t fall into the trap of thinking “sugar = bad, thus adding a lot less of it makes for a healthier ferment”. It won’t – the healthy stuff about a ferment are the critters and their output, and with too little sugar, you’d deprive them of their food and their basis of existence, thus depriving yourself of their healthy effects.

So. Sorry about the rant, but I’ve had this issue come up with some people in the past… The programming around sugar seems to be strong in our society! 😉

Anyway, let’s turn back to the actual topic at hand: sugar as food for the fermentation critters. Throughout this essay, I’ve talked about “food”, “eating”, and “digestion”. But if fermentation is a process of digestion by the fermentation critters, this kinda raises the question: What comes out their other end?

I mean, these tiny critters don’t actually digest in the same way as we do. But if there is digestion, there might also be some sort of excretion, right?

Well, yes, there is, and in various ways. One of them, on the Fiery and Airy end of things, we’ll explore next time. But two other “outputs” of fermentation have accompanied us throughout today’s essay, and one of them has also hidden in plain sight in the story of the Mead of Poetry…

Thinking about our earlier examples again, about grape juice fermented into wine, and flour fermented into sourdough, it’s rather obvious that two things appear during digestion fermentation which haven’t been there before:

The sourdough is a lot sourer than plain flour (as indicated by the name… 😉 ). And the wine isn’t just more sour (or less sugary), but also alcoholic.

Thus, during fermentation, the little critters digest sugars and starches into acids and alcohols.

Come to think of, this really is a wonderful process, isn’t it? Fermenting on purpose, we sacrifice some of the sugars (which aren’t that good for us anyway), only to get an amazing range of flavours as a result, some with a sour and enlivening zing, and some with uplifting, tasty and community-building alcohol.

And lo and behold, as you can easily verify yourself e.g. by fermenting a few more batches of mead with different ratios of honey and water, when a ferment initially contains more sugar (i.e. more food for the critters), the end result will also be sourer and/or more alcoholic. The fermentation critters simply have more to eat and to digest, and they make eager use of it.

This is also the reason why ferments can go past a tipping point into “meh” territory – sometimes if the fermentation process runs for too long, we end up e.g. with too much acidity, and the taste suffers. Well, from our point of view. I’m sure the little critters enjoyed their extra share of food! 😀

So the amount of critter food in a ferment gives you a lot to play with. By adjusting it, you can adjust alcohol content, acidity, overall taste, timing, the risk of spoiling, and the amount of fermentation (and of the resulting live fermentation cultures) to begin with.

Not bad for something which is supposedly unhealthy, isn’t it? 😉

There’s one final thing to note before we move on to the Homework: Throughout this essay, I have separated the food from the base material, by assuming that you’ll add more or less sugar to your base material to adjust the avilable amount of critter food. Of course, in real life ferments, the two of them aren’t always distinguishable.

For example, in flour or cabbage, the food (sugars and starches) is part of the base material. Nature has arranged this in quite a wonderful way, so that these things contain just the right amount of whatever is needed for tasty and healthy fermentation, hasn’t it?

I.e. adding more sugar to them is most likely not going to improve the results (although you’re most welcome to try, but I suggest trying only in small batches… 😉 ). For other ferments, it’s fully or partially up to you how much food you add to your base material.

But either way, knowing about these processes and connections (and having gained some experience with them!) can make the difference between a great ferment and a lousy one, and between successful trouble-shooting and a ferment gone off the rails.

Thus even if all you ever ferment is sourdough, it’s worth understanding these relations and concepts – and of course, they are also going to come in very handy in our Homework…

Inner Fermentation Homework

Any Inner Fermentation needs a reasonable amount of food, just like any fermentation in the material world does. It’s called “Food for Thought” for a reason, you know… 😉

Thus your Inner Fermentation Homework today asks you to explore the issue of “feeding” your processes of Inner Fermentation with the right kind and the right amount of food. During the next two weeks, contemplate the following questions as much as possible, and do your best to apply them to your life:

1. Too much food:

   Have you ever experienced issues which fermented too much inside of you? Maybe they boiled over. Or they produced a lot of foam and bubbles, but not much substance. They might have kept you over-excited, or caused spillage which you had to clean up. Or they even tipped over into something entirely undesirable or fermented too far for your taste.

   Either way, the cause for this was most likely an excess of “food” for your Inner Fermentation. Can you identify this excess of food? What would have been a reasonable and productive amount of it?

   Did the base matter already contain that much food, and if so, how could you have diluted it to suitable levels?

   Or did you feed the process yourself, or allowed somebody else to feed it? And if so, how could you have fed it less (but not too little), or prevented others from feeding it, in order to regain control of the process again?

2. Too little food:

   Have you ever experienced issues which festered inside of you, but a productive Inner Fermentation never really got going? Maybe old, stuck emotions or habits. Grievances you couldn’t let go off. Stuff which never really got to the surface, or which you kept pushing off or away. In short, things which never reached a state of productive Inner Fermentation, despite there being seemingly enough material for the process.

   In such cases, the case was most likely a lack of “food” for your Inner Fermentation. Can you identify this lack of food? What would have been a reasonable and productive amount of it?

   Did the base matter not contain enough foood, or if it did, what happened to it, and why was it not used for fermentation?

   What kinds of food would have been the most suitable for this fermentative process? How could you have added such food in a reasonable amount? And why did you not do so?

3. Resulting acidity:

   A well-working process of fermentation doesn’t just digest sugar, it also adds a healthy and tasty acidity to the ferment, giving it an interesting, stimulating and exciting zing.

   Have you ever experienced such a zing, such excitement, interest and stimulation, after a process of Inner Fermentation? How did it feel like? Or how could it feel like?

   How could you recognize it if an Inner Fermentation went into the right direction and started to produce such desirable acidity? How could you support this process?

   And when your Inner Fermentation reaches this stage, how could you put this zing to good use?

4. Resulting alcohol:

   Some fermentative processes don’t just digest sugar, but also produce a (sometimes considerable) amount of alcohol in the process, making the resulting ferment more uplifting, insightful and expanding, and also a wonderful basis for sharing and community-building.

   Have you ever experienced such an alcoholic result of Inner Fermentation, with its uplifting and community-building effects? How did it feel like? Or how could it feel like?

   How could you recognize it if an Inner Fermentation went into the right direction and started to produce such desirable alcohol? How could you support this process?

   And when your Inner Fermentation reaches this stage, how could you put these effects to good use?

Hands-On Fermentation Homework: Flower Lemonade

Today’s Hands-On Homework will give you some delicious and refreshing home-made flower lemonade – although certain family members inist I shouldn’t call it a “lemonade”, as the name is misleading: It doesn’t taste like store-bought lemonade, and in particular it’s much less sweet (although you can certainly sweeten it to taste right before drinking!).

They are right, of course – it doesn’t taste like store-bought lemonade. Still, it’s a very nice and refreshing drink. Besides, I don’t know how else to call this fermented drink, so “flower lemonade” it is! 😀

Another thing which is a bit dicey about this Homework is its timing. In order to ferment the lemonade, you’re going to need edible flowers. But when and how they are available outdoors depends very much on factors like your local climate and the weather in each particular year. Thus it’s next to impossible to get the timing right for everybody in a Homework like this.

In fact, as of me writing this a bit in advance, over here we’re still somewhat early for most of the flowers I love to use for this lemonade. Things like elderflower, for example, have yet to show in sufficient amount – the very first ones are just about opening up. On the other hand, some of you might live in warmer climates, and a lot of wildflowers might already be over and done with where you live.

(And for my readers in the Southern Hemisphere, I’m afraid you’re out of luck with this one and will most likely have to wait until next spring – although there is a store-bought option, see notes below, which would allow you to follow along right away…)

Still, I wanted to include this recipe, and it’s a great fit for today’s essay – it illustrates the effects of “sugary foods” for the fermentation critters quite nicely, in particular because it uses so little sugar (or rather honey). When you enjoy the results of this Homework, keep this in mind and feel free to ponder about the effects of “food” amount on your resulting ferment! 😉

Anyway, so here we go. If the recipe comes a bit early for your local seasons and flowering times, you might have to wait for a few days or weeks before you can try it. If you’re way earlier than we are, you might have to hurry to find some useable flowers at all anymore. Plus, as I hinted at above, there is a store-bought option as well, just in case.

Either way, it’s very much worth doing. The result is delicious and refreshing, very healthy, and a great treat in late spring and early summer…

Stuff you need

What you’ll need for a refreshing and unconventional flower lemonade is

• roughly two handfuls of edible flowers (see notes below)
• 2-3 tablespoons of honey (see notes below)
• roughly 1.5 Litres of water
• a pot or bowl big enough to hold and stir everything
• a tea towel or similar to cover the vessel
• a fine-meshed sieve
• some bottles or so for storing the lemonade

And a quick reminder: For the water, as usual it’s best not to use heavily chlorinated water for fermentation. See my notes on water in the Sourdough Starter Homework in case you should have forgotten… 😉

Flowers

For one batch of lemonade as per the recipe, you’re going to need about two handfuls of fresh flowers. (And yep, you can make larger batches at once!)

The actual amount isn’t that crucial. Flowers vary in intensity, and of course people’s hand size varies, too! 😉 Just pick roughly this amount, and use common sense. E.g. when picking rosemary flowers (which are rather small and also have a strong flavour), a smaller amount will go a long way and you might not even need two handfuls.

It should go without saying, but as usual, make sure your flowers are actually edible! This is doesn’t just mean that they aren’t poisonous, but also that they haven’t been sprayed with anything toxic, haven’t grown alongside major motorways, or in that one patch where all the neighbourhood dogs go to pee… 😉 Again, use common sense.

When you harvest wild flowers for this recipe, I trust you know what you are doing. Umbellifers in particular are a great choice for this lemonade, as they will give you two handfuls quite quickly from just a few flower heads. Umbellifers are also a great plant family to choose from, as they have interesting and very varied flavours, and a lot of them are used in the kitchen anyway. Unfortunately, umbellifers also contain some very poisonous plants like hemlock, so please be sure you know what you pick!

Besides being edible, it helps if the flowers for this lemonade actually taste good. 😉

What amounts to “good” is a bit hard to define for the purpose of this drink. Some flowers taste nice or at least ok when you eat them, but won’t give you much flavour in your lemonade, besides some general “green” taste. Some others have an underlying hint of bitterness which not everybody will enjoy in their lemonade.

While it’s thus smart to actually eat a flower or too beforehand to check how much you like them, sometimes the taste of the lemonade might surprise you, both for the good or for the bad.

What I haven’t tried yet and thus can’t comment on are cruciferous plants, i.e. flowers with the sharp flavours of mustard or cabbage, as it simply doesn’t tickle my fancy for this lemonade. If you’re interested, though, give it a go and report back!

What works well in my experience are a. very flowery, fruity flavours (like elderflower = Sambucus nigra), and b. interesting tastes, as from umbellifers (e.g. wild carrot = Queen Anne’s Lace = Daucus carota), or a lot of the mediterranean herbs.

My personal favourites, for what they are worth, are elderflower and (the absolute bestest flower lemonade ever!) oregano (Origanum vulgare). As added bonus, they both have reasonably large flower heads and thus make collecting them easy and quick… 😉

Of course, you can combine more than one kind of flower per batch of lemonade. Whatever you use will depend on what’s in season at this time anyway. And in any case, there is only one way to find out what you like: By experimenting to your heart’s content.

If you should love the lemonade so much (or have no other way of getting suitable flowers and are determined to give it a try) that you want to homegrow some flowers for this purpose, your best choice is to grow annuals with reasonably large (or abundant) flowers.

Annuals because they flower in the same year they are sown, unlike biannuals which will flower the second year, and unlike most perennials which tend to flower only in later years. An exception would be buying a full-grown plant in spring which is likely to flower that season, but for this you need to know your plants well enough to know which will.

And large flowers because it’ll require much less plants to fill your two handfuls.

Workable choices would thus be some annual umbellifers like coriander or flowers like calendula. (Although, seriously, if you’re into homegrowing edible flowers for awesome recipes, plant an elder and an old-fashioned variety of rose!)

And if, for whatever reason, you absolutely can’t get any fresh edible flowers, there is an option, too: dried elderflower (Sambucus nigra). In most places, it should be available (or possible to order) as lose ingredient for tea.

Please note that I haven’t tried making a flower lemonade from dried elderflower yet – but I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work. Worst case, i it might take a tad longer for the fermentation to get going (remember to stir frequently!). And keep in mind that you’ll need less of dried flower than of fresh (see explanation in Cream Cheese and Herbal Mead Homeworks).

One final important thing: Wherever you get your flowers from, whether fresh or dried, do not wash or rinse them! You’d only wash away the best things – those which give flavour and which contain the treasured fermentation critters which will turn flowers and water into awesome lemonade…

Honey

For the lemonade, other than for last Homework’s mead, it doesn’t matter whether you use raw or heat-treated honey. In this recipe, the honey is mostly “food” for the fermentation, and not so much about the flavour – and the fermentation critters are added in abundance by the flowers.

In fact, if honey is hard to get by or if money is tight, you could easily replace it with another sugar source (e.g. plain and cheap white sugar will do just fine) without losing too much in terms of taste.

Instructions

1. Prepare your flowers

For most kinds of flowers, there isn’t much to do in this step, if anything. In particular do not wash or rinse your flowers – use them as they are (another good reason not to pick alongside busy roads…).

For flowers with larger green parts, I recommend removing some of the green.

E.g. if you use calendula or dandelion, it’d be best to pick out the actual flower leaves, and remove the green bottom in which they sit. Otherwise your lemonade will get a rather green, grassy taste.

For elderflower in particular, it is generally recommended not to eat the green parts raw, as they can give you indigestion. (Although why you’d eat them cooked is beyond me! 😀 ) This doesn’t matter much in the flower lemonade, as we’re not using whole twigs, just the flower heads with a bit of green attached to hold them together. I.e. you don’t need to remove all the little stemlets.

If you’re worried about it, trim the larger stem of the flowerhead back to where it branches into the smaller stemlets. Although I usually don’t do this, and the lemonade tastes just fine and nobody has ever had any issues from it – it needs more elder than a few twigs soaked in a litre of water to cause indigestion…

2. Mix things up

Put water and honey into your bowl or pot, and stir well until the honey is dissolved. Add the flowers and stir them in, too. Cover losely with a tea towel to keep insects etc out.

3. Keep stirring and tasting

If possible, stir your lemonade several times a day (e.g. whenever you pass by it) – and remember to lick the spoon each time you do, to get a feeling for how it develops!

The stirring both adds more air and also keeps the plant parts from spoiling and from developing mould.

How longs this phase takes depends on your taste and on the environment. On hot summer days, two days might already be a tad too much. In a cooler spot, and if you like your lemonade a bit more well-fermented, it might take a few days. Either way, the lemonade is ready whenever you enjoy its taste!

Pro tip: If you try it and think “well, this is good, but maybe it’ll get better”, then nope, it won’t get much better – it’s best to proceed to the next step now and not later! 😉

If for whatever reason you missed the sweet spot and your lemonade turned out a tad too sour (and thus not quite sweet enough anymore), you can always add more honey or sugar later. This will also kick-start fermentation again, though – something to be aware of! It’s thus best to add more sweetness right before drinking, or only once you store your lemonade in the fridge.

4. Sieve and enjoy

Either way, once you’re happy with the taste, sieve it to remove all the plant material, and put your lemonade into empty bottles or other vessels, and store it in the fridge.

Important: Do NOT close the lids tightly, or your bottles might explode! Only put the lids on very losely to keep stuff out.

The fermentation process will continue, although cold storage in the fridge will slow it down considerably. How long the lemonade “keeps” is thus up to your taste: In theory, a long time – although it might ferment a bit too far for you to enjoy it at some point (adding some more sweetener might ameliorate this, though).

Some final notes

Due to its very low sugar content at the beginning, this lemonade will not contain much alcohol, although the actual content will of couurse vary with the amount of honey you put in and with the grade of fermentation. In any case, the result of the fermentation is more tartish than alcoholic.

Whether you consider it safe to give to kids is up to you – please use your own common sense, try a few sips and decide for yourself.

Also, again, this is not in any way like store-bought lemonade! It’s also not like most home-made lemonade, which has a much higher acidity and has to mask this with a much higher sugar content. It’s simply a nice, light summer-y drink, best enjoyed cool, with wonderful (and sometimes myterious and exiciting) flowery flavours.

The actual taste will vary from batch to batch, and not just because you might use different kinds of flowers, and slightly different amounts each time. Natural, “wild” fermentation isn’t standardized in its results. That’s one of its appeals, and what makes it exciting, tasty and also healthy – but we’ll get to this later in the series… 😉

Conclusions and Outlook

We have, again, covered a lot of (sweet 😉 ) ground today, and some important things to boot. We have also touched upon several other rather important concepts which we’re going to explore further in later essay.

For now, I’d like to encourage you to actually do the Homeworks – both the Hands-On one and the Inner Fermentation one are very much worth it!

(And if you should be able to get oregano flowers from somewhere, trust me and give them a try.)

In any case, I hope you’re going to enjoy the flower lemonade – and I hope this essay gives you some valuable food for thought!

Next time, we’re going to look more closely at another digestive output of these little fermentation critters – an output which will lead us straight back into the territory of Fire and Air…

The next essay will go up on on Sunday, May 24th. And as usual, I’m looking forward to your thoughts, questions and comments below! 🙂

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Image: Myriam Zilles on Unsplash