I nearly poisoned myself making kombucha at home, despite careful sanitizing and careful monitoring of pH and temperature. As a result I'm really not fond of casual recommendations to brew kombucha. Seems easy to mess up.
I ferment a lot, and know of only a few dangers: some rare fruits or veggies can produce toxins when fermenting, but non that I can easily buy in a European market. Spices and some herbs can be dangerous too, but the quantities needed for toxin levels that pose a danger, are insane.
Fungi are more dangerous. If something starts growing hair, it's out.
Dairy fermentation is more dangerous ¹, and quite hard, so I avoid that.
Alcohol is obviously a toxin too, and rather common in fermentation ;)
In nearly all cases, I'll trust one of the best fine tuned measurement devices to protect humans from toxins: my taste and nose.
(Q: how do you know the milk is beyond it's expiry date? A: Smell it! Far more reliable than a date printed on some package)
Edit: another thing to be careful with, are kernels, pits, seeds and peels. Peels can often contain lots of sprayed on chemicals that will probably kill your fermenting bacteria. Pits and kernels can contain insane amounts of toxins that we usually won't eat because they are enclosed. But crushing/long fermenting might release them
America's Test Kitchen had a very recent video on Kombucha, and in one portion[1], after showing the viewers the recipe and tools they used, show us how they gave their colleagues the exact same setup but ended up with varied results.
If people whose day job IS testing food recipes, all end up with different results from the master recipe made by their colleague, then it indicates certain external factors need to be controlled to ensure consistency.
The factor they narrowed down to, was consistency of temperature, and the solution they offered was to suggest a temperature-controlled box to ensure best results.
AYBABTME|1 year ago
depressedpanda|1 year ago
When I make kombucha I am quite careless in the process, but it always turns out fine.
dekken_|1 year ago
berkes|1 year ago
Fungi are more dangerous. If something starts growing hair, it's out.
Dairy fermentation is more dangerous ¹, and quite hard, so I avoid that.
Alcohol is obviously a toxin too, and rather common in fermentation ;)
In nearly all cases, I'll trust one of the best fine tuned measurement devices to protect humans from toxins: my taste and nose.
(Q: how do you know the milk is beyond it's expiry date? A: Smell it! Far more reliable than a date printed on some package)
¹https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356804/
Edit: another thing to be careful with, are kernels, pits, seeds and peels. Peels can often contain lots of sprayed on chemicals that will probably kill your fermenting bacteria. Pits and kernels can contain insane amounts of toxins that we usually won't eat because they are enclosed. But crushing/long fermenting might release them
ryzvonusef|1 year ago
If people whose day job IS testing food recipes, all end up with different results from the master recipe made by their colleague, then it indicates certain external factors need to be controlled to ensure consistency.
The factor they narrowed down to, was consistency of temperature, and the solution they offered was to suggest a temperature-controlled box to ensure best results.
[1]: https://youtu.be/_e9ejoiLNlo?t=558
RamblingCTO|1 year ago
bongodongobob|1 year ago
lp4vn|1 year ago
ametrau|1 year ago