Why your favourite foods wouldn’t taste the same without fermentation

FROM sourdough bread, to coffee, cheese and chocolate — how your favourite foods wouldn’t exist without fermentation.

Ferment the Festival director Kris Lloyd, Deviation Road winemaker Kate Laurie and Jessie Spiby of Jessie Does Food at Electra House Hotel. Picture: Dylan Coker

WHILE it’s true that the little microbes associated with products such as kimchi and kombucha have many claimed benefits, they are only a small part of the fermentation story.

The facts are that your fridge and pantry is most probably full of food and drinks that wouldn’t be possible, or taste nearly as good, without this process.

Make a sandwich and the bread, the butter, the cheese, the salami and the pickles all will have undergone some form of fermentation. What would you like to drink with that? Beer, wine, gin, coffee ... it’s the same story. Something sweet? Yes, even chocolate is included on the list.

Ferment the Festival is a celebration of all these foods and the microscopic magic that makes them possible. Starting next Friday (October 20) Rundle Park will be bubbling over with tastings, masterclasses and demonstrations.

The festival has been created by master cheesemaker Kris Lloyd, who was fascinated with a process that is so important to her craft. She has pulled together a like-minded bunch of locals and special guests, with the help of the festival’s inaugural patron, Jock Zonfrillo.

We asked some of these experts to explain, in simple terms, what fermentation means to them.

ISOURDOUGH BREADI

Emily Salkeld (Small World Bakery)

THE PROCESS

Fermentation is as a key which unlocks the gate to a flood of biological activity in a food, releasing enzymes, nutrients, gases, acids and sugars. The process starts with adding warm water to flour and a sourdough, or leaven culture, then allowing time for the bacteria and yeasts in the culture to consume the sugars in the flour, thereby growing in numbers, and releasing the byproducts of gases, mellow lactic acid, tangy acetic acid and ethanol.

This process also allows gluten bonds to form in the dough, allowing water absorption and acid production to eventually build a net to trap air bubbles in the crumb while the loaf bakes.

While the dough rests after mixing, gases build under the skin and it grows! The skin is still sticky and pulls at your fingers while the first stage of fermentation is underway. When you grab a handful of dough to stretch it upwards out of its bowl, there are small air bubbles through the dough mass, and it can feel like a slack muscle before an exercise session.

The baker knows it is ready when he/she can slap the skin of the dough and it wobbles firmly like a baby’s bottom, a little piece of dough on the tongue is tangy and the aromas are complex with sweet sour fruits.

The dough needs to be shaped for its second fermentation, or proof. After the dough piece has proofed fully it will feel evenly light throughout the piece when in the hand — it may feel like an inflated pillow. If there seems to be a dead weight within the piece the dough needs longer to proof, or better fermentation.

THE BENEFIT

Fermentation is the most elegant vehicle for us to get the most out of a mix of flour, water and salt. A longer, slower fermentation gives the loaf complex flavours of spiciness, orchard fruit, sour cream and tang. The crust becomes caramelised, burnished, and sweet. Underneath is a tender loose crumb, staying moist and yielding for days. The aromas of toasted corn, roast spices and caramel will seduce most people.

OOPS!

The most common mistake in baking, which can be irreversible, is forgetting to add the salt. We always taste a tiny amount of dough right after mixing to check, as it’s pretty hard to fix after fermentation is complete. The dough ferments way too fast, loses its strength and the baked loaf tends to be dry and tough — which is a similar result to adding too much salt.

There was also the occasion when all of the starter culture was tossed into the bin, and a proving loaf had to be sacrificed to make a another culture for the following day’s mix … or was that the time we had to scrape a skerrick of starter culture from underneath a tub’s lid right before it went into the wash-up?

OTHER FERMENT FAVOURITES

We culture kombucha, fermented vegetables, and miso, and love to drink wine, eat yoghurt, cheese, chocolate and salumi! Actually, a day without some consumption of fermented foods is unthinkable in our house — think about it ... those foods and drinks are EVERYWHERE.

Bastien Verslype and Katia Vincon from Les Deux Coqs

I KIMCHI/KRAUTI

Sharon Flynn (The Fermentary)

THE PROCESS

We ferment all of our food and drinks using existing bacteria and minimal intervention — no added yeasts or manufactured starter cultures. For vegetables this means using salt, the right vessels and temperature to ferment rather than rot it.

When fermentation is underway, there is always a cacophony of bubbles from airlocks and, depending on the day, a strong, garlic, ginger and chilli smell for kimchi, and a fresh sour smell from krauts.

For all ferments you are looking for a sour but fresh flavour. Bacteria’s and yeasts eat up the natural sugars, so if your kraut is still sweet then it’s not ready yet. There is always going to be a certain amount of batch variation in wild fermentation — so you happily rely on logic and your senses. It’s ready when it tastes good!

THE BENEFITS

When you preserve vegetables by fermentation they remain raw which is pretty miraculous in itself. On top of that the resulting food is easier to digest, has different and enhanced nutrition and is a fully living food that supports myriads of bacteria and yeast. You don’t get these sour flavours and amazing textures any other way really.

OOPS!

One mistake was fermenting on a really hot day and not leaving enough head room in the vats — two things that together created a volcano like explosion when we opened them. Calculating the salt percentage incorrectly and not adding enough salt was also a big one and wasted a whole day’s work.

I CHARCUTERIEI

Katia Vincon (Les Deux Coqs)

THE PROCESS

Saucisson is the national food in France, a fermented sausage that is a great entry point for the novice to charcuterie. They are all made with free range pork and the best fat but we like to play with many assorted flavours such as provincial herbs, pastis or chilli. Starter cultures are mixed with filtered water then added to the meat and spice mix, which also contains dextrose to get the fermentation process going.

The mixes are then a fed into sausage casings and then left in a primary fermentation room for the “etuvage” (stewing in English) process with a specific temperature and “high” humidity. That is when the ferments kick in and do their main job of taking over the potentially harmful bacteria present in the meat. The saucisson stay in this room for six days and, when they are sufficiently dry, are moved to a secondary fermentation room where they stay for another five weeks. Mould will form on the outside of the casing. This is normal and desirable.

THE BENEFITS

At the end you will have a firm salami-like sausage with balanced flavour and a sour tang from fermentation. The smell is very special and represents perfectly the French charcuterie. The saucisson must be not too dry, not too soft or not too fat. French salami making is as difficult to learn as speaking French.

Fermentation brings a more intense flavour as when you dry the saucisson you remove the water content in the meat and allow the flavour of the spices to come out. Moreover, it helps make digestion easier.

OTHER FERMENT FAVOURITES

Hmmm, some cheese with a slice of fresh baguette and a glass of wine! This is So Ferment and So French! And also beer, chocolate, butter, viennoiseries, cornichons … so much products are fermented and they come from many horizons.

Ferment the Festival director Kris Lloyd with a wheel of her Woodside Cheese Wrights cheese, at Electra House Hotel. Picture: Dylan Coker

ICHEESEI

Kris Lloyd (Woodside Cheese Wrights)

THE PROCESS

Cheese is fermented milk — through the process of fermentation the lactose in milk is converted into lactic acid which changes the whole composition of milk from a liquid to a solid. But perhaps most importantly it give the milk a deliciousness that has so many forms across the world.

When this fermentation is underway, soft, glossy curds of white or creamy yellow (depending on the milk) form and you hear an orchestra of drips as the curds gently cry until there is no more to cry and the form is solid. The process continues through the life of the cheese as the cultures and moulds are still alive and at work

THE BENEFITS

The fresh, acidic notes that we find in a lactic ferment, for instance goat or buffalo curd, are the perfect example of fermentation in a fresh cheese. At the other end of the scale is a cheese called “Harvest”, a cows milk, washed rind, semi-hard we have steeped in grapeskins and wine for months to undergo a secondary fermentation. It will make its debut at Ferment the Dinner.

OOPS!

How long have you got! When I am always creating different chesses I see dozens of fairly ordinary looking and tasting efforts but when you crack one ... oh my!

I COFFEEI

Brad Nixon (Elementary Coffee)

THE PROCESS

Coffee is actually the seed of a cherry-like fruit. Fermentation is a way of breaking down sugars to produce acids which add to the overall character of the coffee.

Mostly this process is not seen by coffee roasters, as it takes place at the coffee farm or processing mill. There are multiple ways of fermenting coffee. In the washed process, for instance, the outer layer of skin and majority of fruit pulp is removed, then the bean is placed in a tank with water for up to 48 hours. The sugars start to be eaten by natural bacteria and yeasts, making the seed water into something reminiscent of wallpaper glue.

THE BENEFITS

Fermentation in coffee brings the fruit characteristics, the acidity, sweetness, most of the good stuff. Timing is critical: over-fermentation can lead to “stinker beans” developing, giving a sour, unpleasant taste. Under-fermentation can give the coffee a lack of depth and character.

OTHER FERMENT FAVOURITES

Chocolate, wine, beer ... all the good things in life.

I OLIVESI

Mark Lloyd (Coriole)

THE PROCESS

Fermentation in olives, like most fruit, is a natural process that renders the fruit palatable, and preserved. It is spontaneous and naturally triggered by the presence of salt in a brine

The fermentation is completed by a wonderful soup of naturally occurring microbes including yeast and bacteria. The balance of these microbes changes as the fermentation takes place. The microbes act on the sugars present on the fruit and produce acid — commonly Lactic Acid. This may take place over weeks or months.

THE BENEFIT

Olives as fresh fruit are so bitter that they are inedible. This bitterness is associated with a sugar so in the fermentation process the bitterness is lowered as well. As well as making the olive edible, the textural effect in the mouth is also improved and the flavours are enhanced. In a sense the fruit has been “cooked”.

OTHER FERMENT FAVOURITES

Tea, particularly, coffee and chocolate are some of my favourites. We want to experiment with kimchi as a Korean visitor recently described this as a way of extending vegetable consumption into the winter.