New to Fermenting: is salt, veggies all I need?

Love to eat them, new to making them. So do I really need some sort of additive to get veggies to ferment? Or can I just use simple ingredients and sea salt and let nature take its course? Thanks in advance!

You really can use just vegetables and salt. Some people add whey from yogurt of cheese making, or a purchased starter culture, or the juice from a finished culture. The whey gets the culture going faster, so you can use less salt.

Thanks! I'm vegan so most of the starters use dairy cultures. Funny, some say that once combined, it's a low trace of animal. But for we vegans, that's just not the way we roll. Last year I tried with cucumber slices in a salty brine. But it got covered in mold. Now I come to find out that it just part of the process. Sheesh! To think, all those cukes wasted on fear. Good thing they're easy to grow.

Is pickling and fermenting a similiar process?

Michele Gila wrote:Thanks! I'm vegan so most of the starters use dairy cultures. Funny, some say that once combined, it's a low trace of animal. But for we vegans, that's just not the way we roll. Last year I tried with cucumber slices in a salty brine. But it got covered in mold. Now I come to find out that it just part of the process. Sheesh! To think, all those cukes wasted on fear. Good thing they're easy to grow.

I'm not trying to be snotty but I have a question about being vegan. At what point on the evolutionary ladder do you draw the line as to what critter you eat and what you don't? I mean, Bacteria are just as much alive as a cow or chicken right? So it's ok to harvest bacteria from the air and farm them on your food veggies (also living) then kill them and eat them?

I'm not trying to argue here, I genuinely want to know. It just seems a curious thought process to me.
Thanks in advance.

Michele Gila wrote:Love to eat them, new to making them. So do I really need some sort of additive to get veggies to ferment? Or can I just use simple ingredients and sea salt and let nature take its course? Thanks in advance!

Salt and veggies is all.

If you ferment fruits, you need a starter culture.

Victoria Ciani wrote:Is pickling and fermenting a similiar process?

Old-fashioned pickling is fermenting. Today's pickling is not. Today's pickling involves heat and vinegar, instead of room temperature, beneficial organisms and salt brine.