Fermented Foods PART 3 | SALT vs WHEY vs STARTER CULTURES

This post I will share my experience with this rather controversial topic.I must give credit to some lovely ladies who first brought this to my attention, The Holistic Chef and the Pinkfarm ladies. I came from the paradigm of adding whey from raw milk to most of my ferments. After years of doing my ferments this way the above mentioned ladies kindly shared their experiences with fermenting without adding whey and questioned the need for it. This inspired me to go and research this somewhat controversial field of fermentation. It’s always difficult when your preconceived beliefs are challenged, but that’s what makes us grow and evolve into more educated and knowledgeable beings instead of being stuck in a dogmatic construct. So I thank you ladies for challenging me and inspiring me to expand my knowledge base. So here are my conclusions around the controversy that exists with the topic.

Whilst I never had any failures with using whey, I have now converted to using just salt for my sauerkrauts, kimchi and curry carrots, but I still use whey for Beet Kvass, Salsa and Tomato Ketchup. The basic theory goes, there is enough lactic acid forming bacteria on and in the vegetables that you are fermenting and introducing another strain of bacteria (ie whey, starter culture) is unnecessary. Sandor’s Art of Fermentation book covers this in good detail. Using whey as opposed to just salt will change the flavour of the product to some extent. Whilst it’s been a while since I last did a whey-kraut ferment I did have some at my good friend Dr Ryan Coster’s not too long ago and I must say it was very delicious! For those who are dairy intolerant whey and starter cultures are probably not an option anyway.

The scientific community and researches who have done the studies on starter cultures promote the starter cultures as providing a safer ferment by inhibiting the growth of pathogenic (bad) bacteria. This is due to starter cultures speeding up the fermenting process, they cause the pH of the ferment to drop more rapidly in the initial phase (days 1-3). They are also suggested to yield more consistent tasting ferments. I have experimented around with a few different packet starter cultures and have found them to be more problematic, I have never had any issues wild fermenting (just salt & vegetables) but have had mould issues with starter culture ferments. If Captain Cook could get away with just salt then I’m happy sticking with that. The research on the other hand does support them particularly for consistency with flavour and more predictable outcomes. You can refer to Part 4 of this series where I go into much more of the nerdy science of fermentation and have reviewed the scientific peer reviewed articles on starter cultures.

As I mentioned I have found raw whey still works best with Beet Kvass, Salsa and Tomato Ketchup. Making raw whey also leaves you with delicious probiotic rich cream cheese/curds. A batch of whey will also last in the fridge for up to 6 months in my experience. Just a quick note the Pinkfarm ladies have a large national database of contacts who are sharing cultures such as kombucha, kefir, sourdough starters etc, and can be found here: http://www.pinkfarm.com.au/cultured-community/