Goals
A lot has been written and said in the English-language world in the last 10-20 years about fermentation. There are now a multitude of books from varying perspectives that will teach you how to ferment just about anything you can imagine. Most of the authors of these books have many years of experience fermenting, as well as teaching and writing on the subject. I am nowhere near as experienced as many of these authors, so what exactly is it that I am trying to bring to the table here?
Despite the wealth of resources available, there are still many techniques that one can't easily find and questions that one can't easily answer from books and the internet. Since fermentation is still seen as reasonably "fringe" in western culture, most resources tend to be reasonably beginner-focused, with the goal to get people interested in fermentation, rather than teach people who already know a bit. As a further complication, fermentation has a seemingly infinite supply of folk knowledge on how one "should" do everything. I very frequently find two experts from two different resources contradicting one another, and sometimes even a single resource giving two pieces of conflicting information on the same topic!
These are the kinds of topics I would like to write about. For the moment, I'm interested in answering the following kinds of questions (among others):
What can basic science experiments teach us about common fermentation practices?
If two commonly-referenced sources provide conflicting information, who is right? Is either of them right? Does it even matter?
Are there "rules" underlying all different kinds of fermentation? As an example, if one increases the heat during beer brewing versus during soy sauce brewing, will the effect on each be similar? Can one draw any sort of general principles of this type?
Is it possible to easily identify common types of spoilage and/or pathogens?
What sorts of wild fermentation are possible, and how do the results differ from "conventional" starter cultures?
How can a modern understanding of science allow us to re-work and improve traditional fermentation practices?
I hope that you are able to find something of use here. If you see anything interesting or have any questions, don't hesitate to drop me a line!