Tips for fermenting blueberries, gooseberries, currants, and other whole berries. Don’t think that this will be like a jammy preserve – more like a sweet and sour, a blueberry meets an olive.
Fruit can be tricky to lacto-ferment because of the high amounts of sugar, yeast is the microbe that is most likely to control a sweet ferment. This is why fruit makes good wine. In a lactic acid ferment this can come off as funky flavored, or fizzy. Not always a bad thing but not something everybody loves. Blueberries or currants or other whole round berries have the advantage of a skin to keep the sweet fruit from coming in contact with too much yeast too quickly. For this reason, we aren’t crushing the fruit, and we are fermenting it for a short period of time.
This isn’t a recipe as much as some guidelines for brine pickling some berries.
Quantities here are for a 1-quart or 1-liter jar
1 Tablespoon (15 ml) unrefined salt
2 cups (480 ml) filtered water
3 cups (720 ml) blueberries, or any other intact berry fruit
Optional herbs and spices.
1. Make a salt brine by dissolving the sea salt in filtered water.
2. Tuck any optional herbs or spices in the jar and then place the blueberries into the jar.
3. Pour brine into the jar until it is one inch (2.5 cm) above the top of the ingredients
4. Place the lid on the jar and tighten.
5. Allow to ferment for 5-7 days in a cool spot, away from direct sunlight. The best fermenting temperature is between 65F to 75F (18C to 24C). Every day you will give the lid a quick twist to open slightly and release any pressure. The berries will be done when the brine starts to look cloudy and tastes pickly (sour).
6. Store in refrigerator.
Would love to hear your experiences with lacto-fermenting berries.