Summer is pretty much here, my apartment is getting oppressively hot and stuffy and I'm already planning escape away from here. Which means I gotta start my brews now! I haven't given a project update lately, so here's a quick rundown of where I'm at.
1. Chhyang started, 4 gallons as usual, one of which is red rice wine. It hasn't gone bad yet after four or five days which means it'll be fine. I'm eager to check out how this weird batch will turn.
2. I started a new batch of kombucha like 3 weeks ago, and bottled 6 small bottles yesterday. Mixed them with apple juice and have left them out to carbonate, will fridge them in two or three days. I'll talk more on this later.
3. Milk kefir had been dying basically, added a bunch of milk in there, waiting until they get nursed back to health and then getting back to my routine.
4. Water kefir I haven't started because ants everywhere, but starting soon on that too!
I'll take the rest of the post to discuss batching philosophy and how my opinion is evolving. In the past I've been 'bigger is better' kinda guy. As in make one large batch with multiple large jars, bottle them all at one go, dozens of bottle at a time, and drink them over many weeks and months. That's the batch philosophy.
It's great because the amount of work gets amortized over individual bottles to basically nothing. I get a massive batch to share with friends and family, and can maintain a consistent routine.
The downside is I'm left with large undrunk batches of ferments that take forever. The turnaround time of my batches is limited not by fermentation time now but by consumption which means I don't ferment as often. The consequence of that is actual testing and experimenting opportunities go down. Plus I usually don't know what flavor I want to be drinking four months from now, but with large batches I don't have an option.
The alternative is to 'sneak ferment'. Make fermentation an easy 'side activity' while I'm cooking or doing other things and do small batches. While it'll take more time in total ammortized, the time per batch is going to decrease considerably, and it'll feel like much less of a hassle to get started. My ferments will be more aligned with my consumption cycle, my pace of experimenting will pick up, and I'll get to choose the flavors I actually want to drink, instead of waiting for months. It's a much quicker way to learn.
The cost in terms of extra work is worth paying for, I think.
Something worth considering for all.
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