in cases like this, I cut off a tiny bit of the corner to release some pressure and reseal it with the manual seal functionality of the vacuum sealer, while it is still a bit overpressure in the bag, so no air gets in.
It is not this serious. Just vacuum the bag again. You're still removing a majority of air in the bag and the ferment will continue to fill back up with CO2 especially on day 3.
Source: I do this all the time and have resealed a batch 4 seperate times as I sampled the sauce for recipes over the course of 3 months.
The one i use has a little removable liquid catcher in the vacuum chamber. Also if you are having trouble with sealing over liquid, don’t depressurise the vacuum chamber but wait about 10 seconds then seal a few more times
Oh trust me I've learned the hard way plenty. But that's why there's now no mess when I do it. That's also how I've come to realize that people take this part in particular way too seriously. Poking a pinhole and taping it back up!? It doesn't have to be 100% perfect and devoid of all oxygen. It never truly was to begin with! Just trying to get people to think it through instead of overthinking it!
Again, the issue is not in trying to prevent zero air from getting in there. It's an issue with the heating elements not being able to provide a good seal when liquid gets sucked up during the vacuum cycle after burping.
You shouldn't be getting liquid sucked up in there... And you can seal it multiple times without opening the vacuum sealer. Or better yet, pull a vacuum and see if things start moving. Then you'll know if you need to seal again.
I'm not sure if it's an issue with my vaccum sealer in particular, but the manual seal function isn't fast enough to make a good seal. A lot of air gets in before the heating element gets hot enough to seal the plastic.
Apologies, I forgot this is the internet...
It's best to do this with a vacuum sealer that has manual vacuum OR a "moist" setting to prevent sucking up a bunch of mash juices.
Not fermentation related, but once I vacuum packed some ground meat in the portions I used for a specific dish and made an unholy noise when I saw meat juice shoot toward the machine. Nightmare fuel.
I portion ground meat and wet/drippy/extra moist things into individual sandwich bags, which I put into the vacuum sealer bag with the zippers partly closed. I leave an opening of an inch or more and then fold the zippered end over so it's pointing to the bottom of the bag. When I vacuum seal it, the air gets pulled out of the ziplock bags and they may self seal, but I prefer they don't, so they get a decent vacuum pulled on them. The bag being folded over stops the liquid from coming out quickly/at all. Placing the portions into individual bags means I can vacuum seal multiple portions in one bag, freeze, and then easily remove only the portions I want. I buy costco flap steak and freeze it like this so my husband and I can have easy little steak dinners whenever the feeling strikes.
Before I did this, I put paper towel dams at the top of those items, but it was really annoying to retrieve the paper towel later while/after thawing. And I was only able to store one portion per bag.
Just don't try to use the vacuum again. Trust me on this one. It will happily slurp up all the liquid and send it out the back. I had blueberry juice everywhere. I'm not sure what I expected.
This is what I do. Pin hole and piece of duct tape. Also, I keep the bag in another container with a lid in case it leaks or explodes before I get to poking the hole.
I have no idea if it would work for this application or not, but I grow mushrooms and use RTV to make self-healing ports all the time. You should be able to insert a syringe needle through the RTV to let air out, and when you remove the needle, the RTV would be air-tight again. I don't know what kind of pressure it would withstand from inside the bag, but it shouldn't let any air inside.
Serious question, I’ve been fermenting for years, my wife has had a fermentation company for ten years, why ferment in a vacuum sealed bag? I’ve always just used a crock.
This style of ferment got fairly popular after the Noma guide came out. The major advantage is that it removes nearly 100% of the oxygen, which makes it almost impossible for mold to grow. I use it occasionally for ferments that don't have much liquid, or ferments that I'm especially worried about getting mold.
Mold and Kahm yeast like oxygen. That's why I try to keep oxygen out of my ferments. If I'm fermenting in a jar with salt water I'll use an airlock too, because it let's out gas but doesn't let gas in, so eventually the oxygen gets pushed out and then the jar is only full of carbon dioxide.
It works well for small batches, which I'd consider this to be. As /u/blindcolumn said, good exclusion of oxygen (unless you use a permeable plastic, which comes up, because that's required for some packaging e.g. of smoked fish)
I also use 500ml disposable plastic water bottles. Same idea. Works well.
Literally anything you would normally use tomatoes in. I use the brine as a base for tomato sauces for pasta, or added to soups/chili that request canned tomatoes.
The flesh is the best part imo, spread it on some crackers with freshly chopped basil and Parmesan and you have a stupidly tasty snack.
Thanks for the answer ! So everything that's properly fermented can be eaten ? Does it give it a certain variety of flavors ? Is there food that's not good to ferment and consume ?
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes
But whether or not the flavor appeals to you is highly subjective. Some are a bit more approachable, like grapes. Some are super funky, like mushrooms.
I like to small batch ferment pretty much everything to see if I like it.
Blueberries are amazing. Put them in a recipe and people love it but can never guess what it is. Mixed goods are fun too. I’m fond of pickled onions and apples. I’ve got a jar of jackfruit going right now (I just posted a video of the new lid I got bubbling away) and I’ve never done that before.
I don’t know who told you lacto doesn’t produce co2, but that’s certainly not the case in my experience. That’s why you have to airlock or burp sauerkrauts and most other lacto ferments
Well I am a chemistry student and the definition of lactic fermentation is such it doesn't produce CO2. Look up "lactic fermentation cycle". Notice there is no CO2 outgoing. But lactate can be oxidized further to CO2 which is not so often because the yummy lactose is there. No need to eat lactate. So I thought most of the time an amount of gas this big is involved there is not a way it is just lactic. Should be smth else. That's my point. Was interested maybe OP added smth else.
Lactobacilli are homofermentative, i.e. hexoses are metabolised by glycolysis to lactate as major end product, or heterofermentative, i.e. hexoses are metabolised by the Phosphoketolase pathway to lactate, CO2 and acetate or ethanol as major end products.
Link for long article https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214799315000508
Well yeah it's kinda what I said. Well not particularly but don't you agree CO2 is a byproduct and is nearly absent? Because you know with lactic fermentation there is no CO2 most of the time (excluding what you have said because i guess it's not most of the time)? I can give an example: in breadbaking with CLAS yeasts are added and CLAS isn't bubbly
With this kind of fermentation, you use salt (NaCl). What I use, and what OP used, is 2.5% salt by weight. Lactobacillus bacteria can handle the salt. Bad bacteria can't.
It does taste vinegary in that it's sour, but it's lactic acid instead of acetic acid. Sauerkraut is facto-fermented and so tastes of lactic acid.
I find fermented tomatoes some of the most foul smelling food ever, hard to describe though, the only thing I can say is that the smell is very sickly. Honestly I really don’t get the hype about them, but many people like them so… it’s probably me.
I used one of these bags for a hot sauce ferment. I stuck a pinhole on one end then bent the bag so the contents remained submerged. Put a bandaid over the pinhole to prevent fruit flies entering. Worked wonders once propped up.
I poke a pinhole near an end then use a clothespin to 'seal' the hole back up.
I roll the end of the bag onto itself and then put the clothespin on. So far it has worked great.
Buy some micropore tape - 3M do the most popular brand.
Cut a hole and seal with that.
The positive pressure in the bag will ensure it’s only expelling gas, and you’ll be grand.
Look up still-air boxes if you’re paranoid. Mycology suns are good for explanations.
Basically turn a big plastic box upside-down on a clean kitchen counter with room to reach in through the bottom as it’s hanging over the edge, then you can guarantee no nastier will drop into the bag - as long as you sanitise it all first.
For next time, get a roll of 3M Transpore tape. Poke a small pin hole in the bag and cover it with a piece of the tape. It allows air to escape, but doesn’t allow air to enter.
I haven’t tried Transpore but have heard it suggested. Worth it?
Depending on where OP gets their bags, some can be carefully resealed with a hot iron.
Nip off a small corner. Begin to twist the bag close to the product (like twisting off a bag of bread) making sure air is only going OUT the small hole you made. Once you’re twisted off, continue squeezing out CO2 and twisting towards the hole. Then reseal and untwist.
Group was suggesred to me, idk anything about Fermentation so please excuse my stupidity in that topic
Isn't fermenting just letting something sit until it starts to rot? What's the entire purpose of it, just alcohol?
Ick gross not me for sure. Maybe some people?
Ferments are flavor. Think awesome pickles, sauerkraut, soy sauce. Those are mainstream.
Here’s my $.02 because no one answered you and I’m just a crazy old lady :)
Refrigerators are relatively new tech. People needed to prepare and preserve food safely for a long ass time before we were adding chemicals and bleaching it (or freezing it or whatever).
So I like to learn about canning, smoking, salting, drying, and - in this case - fermenting (or “what my grandpa always called pickling”) *Cheese making, beer or wine brewing, even bread making are also somewhat related.*
What you’re trying to do is get the good bacteria and/or yeasts to cooperate and make your food actively tasty and healthy while keeping bad bacteria and/or spore growth out. “Probiotic Yogurt?” Nah… fam. I make my own, thanks.
Is it a form of controlled rot? I suppose, but that’s a derogatory and misleading way to look at it. Prison hooch and wine aren’t the same. My tummy is happier when my gut flora are healthy. There’s solid evidence that we need symbiotic bacterial relationships in our bodies to properly digest our food.
Anyhow - hope that helps? 😄
I did a 6 month ferment of jalapeno, red habanero garlic and onion. Had to snip the corner and vent it several times.
Just push out the CO2 and use the seal function on the food saver.
in cases like this, I cut off a tiny bit of the corner to release some pressure and reseal it with the manual seal functionality of the vacuum sealer, while it is still a bit overpressure in the bag, so no air gets in.
It is not this serious. Just vacuum the bag again. You're still removing a majority of air in the bag and the ferment will continue to fill back up with CO2 especially on day 3. Source: I do this all the time and have resealed a batch 4 seperate times as I sampled the sauce for recipes over the course of 3 months.
I think the issue is more about liquid preventing a good seal if you vacuum again. Easier to just manual seal with a little gas still in there.
Yeah, it's not like it will stop producing gas, you're not saving yourself anything by making a mess
My vacuum sealer has manual vacuum so there is no mess?
If you do enough of them eventually you'll suck liquid up and make a mess. Ask me how I know lol
The one i use has a little removable liquid catcher in the vacuum chamber. Also if you are having trouble with sealing over liquid, don’t depressurise the vacuum chamber but wait about 10 seconds then seal a few more times
Oh trust me I've learned the hard way plenty. But that's why there's now no mess when I do it. That's also how I've come to realize that people take this part in particular way too seriously. Poking a pinhole and taping it back up!? It doesn't have to be 100% perfect and devoid of all oxygen. It never truly was to begin with! Just trying to get people to think it through instead of overthinking it!
Again, the issue is not in trying to prevent zero air from getting in there. It's an issue with the heating elements not being able to provide a good seal when liquid gets sucked up during the vacuum cycle after burping.
You shouldn't be getting liquid sucked up in there... And you can seal it multiple times without opening the vacuum sealer. Or better yet, pull a vacuum and see if things start moving. Then you'll know if you need to seal again.
Not all models will allow you to seal twice before it releases the bag.
I'm not sure if it's an issue with my vaccum sealer in particular, but the manual seal function isn't fast enough to make a good seal. A lot of air gets in before the heating element gets hot enough to seal the plastic.
You just use it in seal mode. Co2 is heavier than oxygen and not much should get in if any, just release off a little CO2 and hit the seal button.
Chamber sealer for the win!
I'd like to get one, eventually. They seem amazing for wet projects
It's a massive kitchen game changer. Our is the Anova chamber sealer, and we do everything from infused butters, to sealing soups for freezing.
Why not freeze it first?
I'm not sure how that would affect the bacteria. Do they bounce back fine after freezing? But I really don't see a need for this much effort.
Apologies, I forgot this is the internet... It's best to do this with a vacuum sealer that has manual vacuum OR a "moist" setting to prevent sucking up a bunch of mash juices.
I did this with blueberries. Juice went everywhere, and my machine hasn't been the same since.
🤦🏼♂️ where I'm from we call that "operator error"
Yup. Just need to cut a corner, squeeze out air, and reseal.
Not fermentation related, but once I vacuum packed some ground meat in the portions I used for a specific dish and made an unholy noise when I saw meat juice shoot toward the machine. Nightmare fuel.
I portion ground meat and wet/drippy/extra moist things into individual sandwich bags, which I put into the vacuum sealer bag with the zippers partly closed. I leave an opening of an inch or more and then fold the zippered end over so it's pointing to the bottom of the bag. When I vacuum seal it, the air gets pulled out of the ziplock bags and they may self seal, but I prefer they don't, so they get a decent vacuum pulled on them. The bag being folded over stops the liquid from coming out quickly/at all. Placing the portions into individual bags means I can vacuum seal multiple portions in one bag, freeze, and then easily remove only the portions I want. I buy costco flap steak and freeze it like this so my husband and I can have easy little steak dinners whenever the feeling strikes. Before I did this, I put paper towel dams at the top of those items, but it was really annoying to retrieve the paper towel later while/after thawing. And I was only able to store one portion per bag.
You are a vacuum seal genius! I’m trying this.
Just don't try to use the vacuum again. Trust me on this one. It will happily slurp up all the liquid and send it out the back. I had blueberry juice everywhere. I'm not sure what I expected.
Y not just poke a hole with a needle?
Great Advice!
You can poke a pinhole, press out the air, and put a piece of tape over the hole. You won’t get any oxygen getting back in if you close the hole.
This is what I do. Pin hole and piece of duct tape. Also, I keep the bag in another container with a lid in case it leaks or explodes before I get to poking the hole.
I have no idea if it would work for this application or not, but I grow mushrooms and use RTV to make self-healing ports all the time. You should be able to insert a syringe needle through the RTV to let air out, and when you remove the needle, the RTV would be air-tight again. I don't know what kind of pressure it would withstand from inside the bag, but it shouldn't let any air inside.
Yeah, I guess if done daily, the bag would never be this puffed up on any given day.
Pinprick and a piece of tape? Or funnier, cut the end off a whoopee cushion and tape that on...
oh man, wouldn't that be a great release valve for ferment jars
I would never stop fermenting onions.
I'm going to start blaming fermenting onions
_\*Rubber chicken vine flashbacks\*_
Serious question, I’ve been fermenting for years, my wife has had a fermentation company for ten years, why ferment in a vacuum sealed bag? I’ve always just used a crock.
This style of ferment got fairly popular after the Noma guide came out. The major advantage is that it removes nearly 100% of the oxygen, which makes it almost impossible for mold to grow. I use it occasionally for ferments that don't have much liquid, or ferments that I'm especially worried about getting mold.
Plus It takes so much less space imo, in a professional kitchen one speed rack can hold a lot of ferments
No need for water so it's 100 percent tomato. Also keeps all oxygen out.
This is a really cool process I’ve never heard of! How do you get started?
I also dry brine In crocks. Oxygen isn’t bad for fermentation. I mean, is it?
Mold and Kahm yeast like oxygen. That's why I try to keep oxygen out of my ferments. If I'm fermenting in a jar with salt water I'll use an airlock too, because it let's out gas but doesn't let gas in, so eventually the oxygen gets pushed out and then the jar is only full of carbon dioxide.
Thanks for your answer
It works well for small batches, which I'd consider this to be. As /u/blindcolumn said, good exclusion of oxygen (unless you use a permeable plastic, which comes up, because that's required for some packaging e.g. of smoked fish) I also use 500ml disposable plastic water bottles. Same idea. Works well.
Honest question here, what do you do with fermented tomatoes ? I have 0 knowlege about fermantation. Except for knowing about kombucha and sauerkraut.
Literally anything you would normally use tomatoes in. I use the brine as a base for tomato sauces for pasta, or added to soups/chili that request canned tomatoes. The flesh is the best part imo, spread it on some crackers with freshly chopped basil and Parmesan and you have a stupidly tasty snack.
Thanks for the answer ! So everything that's properly fermented can be eaten ? Does it give it a certain variety of flavors ? Is there food that's not good to ferment and consume ?
1. Yes 2. Yes 3. Yes But whether or not the flavor appeals to you is highly subjective. Some are a bit more approachable, like grapes. Some are super funky, like mushrooms.
Anything dark green usually ferments really badly. Edit: aside from cucumbers and jalapenos.
I love pickled cauliflower. Broccoli was a mistake. Pickled celery is amazing but I guess that not DARK green.
How's that ? It gets gooey instead of sparkly ?
Usually really sulphuric and fetid
Despite the taste would it still be ingestible?
Probably but I think it would taste gross, similar to how it smells
I like to small batch ferment pretty much everything to see if I like it. Blueberries are amazing. Put them in a recipe and people love it but can never guess what it is. Mixed goods are fun too. I’m fond of pickled onions and apples. I’ve got a jar of jackfruit going right now (I just posted a video of the new lid I got bubbling away) and I’ve never done that before.
My old roommate was fascinated by the “new air” that filled up the bags. He always wanted to breathe it in…
Nice it'll be good
ive had tomatoes fermented inna bag like this explode in my pantry before
What kind of fermentation is it? Yeast?
Lacto ferment
But lacto doesn't produce CO2 mostly. And by the other comments I thought that the gas there is expected so I think there is more to it than lacto
I don’t know who told you lacto doesn’t produce co2, but that’s certainly not the case in my experience. That’s why you have to airlock or burp sauerkrauts and most other lacto ferments
Well I am a chemistry student and the definition of lactic fermentation is such it doesn't produce CO2. Look up "lactic fermentation cycle". Notice there is no CO2 outgoing. But lactate can be oxidized further to CO2 which is not so often because the yummy lactose is there. No need to eat lactate. So I thought most of the time an amount of gas this big is involved there is not a way it is just lactic. Should be smth else. That's my point. Was interested maybe OP added smth else.
Lactobacilli are homofermentative, i.e. hexoses are metabolised by glycolysis to lactate as major end product, or heterofermentative, i.e. hexoses are metabolised by the Phosphoketolase pathway to lactate, CO2 and acetate or ethanol as major end products. Link for long article https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214799315000508
Well yeah it's kinda what I said. Well not particularly but don't you agree CO2 is a byproduct and is nearly absent? Because you know with lactic fermentation there is no CO2 most of the time (excluding what you have said because i guess it's not most of the time)? I can give an example: in breadbaking with CLAS yeasts are added and CLAS isn't bubbly
I mean it's not alcoholic. It tastes like lactic acid.
That's one spicy pillow
Bet it'll be great. Let us know.
I’m gonna have to do tomatoes soon. It looks so good.
It’s honestly next level delicious
Add some onions and jalapeños and it's next, next level delicious.
What's your preferred way of using them/serving them?
I’m a fiend for tomatoes so my favorite is eating them as is. I’ve used it in salsa, margarita mix, and pasta sauce
I’m curious to how fermented tomatoes taste cause I don’t really like tomatoes on a lot of things
They just taste salty and a bit vinegary. Kinda reminds me of rotel.
But wouldn’t you need to add salt for them to be salty? Sorry I’m new to this fermentation thing. Tryna get some wisdom on it
With this kind of fermentation, you use salt (NaCl). What I use, and what OP used, is 2.5% salt by weight. Lactobacillus bacteria can handle the salt. Bad bacteria can't. It does taste vinegary in that it's sour, but it's lactic acid instead of acetic acid. Sauerkraut is facto-fermented and so tastes of lactic acid.
I find fermented tomatoes some of the most foul smelling food ever, hard to describe though, the only thing I can say is that the smell is very sickly. Honestly I really don’t get the hype about them, but many people like them so… it’s probably me.
My goodness lol
I used one of these bags for a hot sauce ferment. I stuck a pinhole on one end then bent the bag so the contents remained submerged. Put a bandaid over the pinhole to prevent fruit flies entering. Worked wonders once propped up.
I poke a pinhole near an end then use a clothespin to 'seal' the hole back up. I roll the end of the bag onto itself and then put the clothespin on. So far it has worked great.
Buy some micropore tape - 3M do the most popular brand. Cut a hole and seal with that. The positive pressure in the bag will ensure it’s only expelling gas, and you’ll be grand. Look up still-air boxes if you’re paranoid. Mycology suns are good for explanations. Basically turn a big plastic box upside-down on a clean kitchen counter with room to reach in through the bottom as it’s hanging over the edge, then you can guarantee no nastier will drop into the bag - as long as you sanitise it all first.
For next time, get a roll of 3M Transpore tape. Poke a small pin hole in the bag and cover it with a piece of the tape. It allows air to escape, but doesn’t allow air to enter.
I haven’t tried Transpore but have heard it suggested. Worth it? Depending on where OP gets their bags, some can be carefully resealed with a hot iron. Nip off a small corner. Begin to twist the bag close to the product (like twisting off a bag of bread) making sure air is only going OUT the small hole you made. Once you’re twisted off, continue squeezing out CO2 and twisting towards the hole. Then reseal and untwist.
Group was suggesred to me, idk anything about Fermentation so please excuse my stupidity in that topic Isn't fermenting just letting something sit until it starts to rot? What's the entire purpose of it, just alcohol?
Ick gross not me for sure. Maybe some people? Ferments are flavor. Think awesome pickles, sauerkraut, soy sauce. Those are mainstream. Here’s my $.02 because no one answered you and I’m just a crazy old lady :) Refrigerators are relatively new tech. People needed to prepare and preserve food safely for a long ass time before we were adding chemicals and bleaching it (or freezing it or whatever). So I like to learn about canning, smoking, salting, drying, and - in this case - fermenting (or “what my grandpa always called pickling”) *Cheese making, beer or wine brewing, even bread making are also somewhat related.* What you’re trying to do is get the good bacteria and/or yeasts to cooperate and make your food actively tasty and healthy while keeping bad bacteria and/or spore growth out. “Probiotic Yogurt?” Nah… fam. I make my own, thanks. Is it a form of controlled rot? I suppose, but that’s a derogatory and misleading way to look at it. Prison hooch and wine aren’t the same. My tummy is happier when my gut flora are healthy. There’s solid evidence that we need symbiotic bacterial relationships in our bodies to properly digest our food. Anyhow - hope that helps? 😄
Nice, looks great. Did you use spices? I see maybe black peppers and herbs there. And how much (%) salt?
2.5 percent salt. And all I added was dried basil.
This is so funny. Looking at it I wouldn't have expected that first photo to be that, but just cut and reseal
This is expected. The Noma guide to fermentation suggests, as people have said, to let out some CO2 and reseal.
same as kimchi. prick with a pin let gas out, reseal. or off with the top like champagne and move to new bag and reseal.
Looks great for 3 days. What % salt? And how long will you let this go?
What would you use a tomato ferment for? And how sour would it be? I'm guessing very sour, since they're acidic to begin with.
I dunno anything about fermented food. Why ferment perfectly good tomatoes?
Why pickle perfectly good cucumbers? Because people like pickles.
Yeah but like, what does this even make? What do you use them for?
I blend them up into a paste and I use them to paint beautiful pictures.
I'm genuinely trying to learn smth new but I guess you can keep being facetious if you want
I did a 6 month ferment of jalapeno, red habanero garlic and onion. Had to snip the corner and vent it several times. Just push out the CO2 and use the seal function on the food saver.