Over the years, I’ve seen that after a change in environment, kefir grains can behave irregularly, in some cases not setting the milk at all, or causing a highly separated frothy top layer and clear whey on the bottom. The flavour may be off, too – in some cases almost tasting bitter, or excessively farmyardy. This is particularly prominent when a small amount of grains are put into a large volume of milk. Sometimes it happens for no apparent reason – it’s as though the yeasts in the culture become overly prominent, causing unnecessary froth and fizz and reduced sourness, and the lactobacilli aren’t as active as they should be.

If you already make your own milk kefir you might well have experienced this yourself – and will have wasted several pints of milk along the way, sometimes leaving it for a few days to see if it sorts itself out (which it certainly sometimes can), then throwing it away as it doesn’t smell /taste / look right.

Changes of Environment include:

· Being packaged up and sent to you through the post

· Being frozen or dehydrated

· An alteration in the type of milk used – from homogenised to unhomogenised, or from animal based to plant based milks, or from supermaket quality to artisanal small producer.

· An alteration in the size and shape of the vessel (They can set milk more easily in a shallow flat container than a large deep one, and in a vessel with an existing microfilm, from the previous batch).

· Seasonal changes – each year in April and October I’ve regularly noticed that cow’s milk is hard to set. I have put this down to differences in what cows are eating at the different times of year – maybe a change from grass to hay, from inside to outside…

· Changes in temperature. Also extremely common in spring and autumn – when the heating goes off for the summer, or before it comes on for the winter, houses can be colder than usual

· When they’ve been left in old kefir either on the side or in the fridge for a few days/weeks/months.

Kefir grains can contain anything between 25 and 40 distinct types of microbe, whose interactions are symbiotic and complex, and we simply don’t have much intel on this yet. I imagine it goes something like this; they produce compounds that each other need to thrive, and perhaps these are easier to find in a smaller volumes, especially when the microbes might be in a state of dormancy induced by change.

Sometimes the cause is obvious – for example having absolutely masses of grains can lead to very rapid fermentation, increase the likelihood of separation, and make a very strong lactic acid flavour, which is fine if you like it, but if you don’t reduce the amount of grains or don’t let it ferment for as long.

If this isn’t the problem, whether setting up kefir for the first time, from being frozen or dehydration or if your grains are misbehaving, one very simple strategy can fix everything. Let me introduce…

The tiny jar trick.

It couldn’t be simpler. I have discovered that by putting your kefir grains in a tiny volume of milk, it becomes easier for them to find what they need to “come-to”, without wasting pints along the way.

Quantities

This isn’t critical – just cover your grains in a little milk in a tiny jar, but to give you a vague idea, a ratio of a teaspoon (approx 5g) of kefir grains, and 20 ml of milk works well.

The best vessel

This depends on how many grains you have. If you have a couple of teaspooons, use one of these little hotel-breakfast-sized jam jars. For best results, you are aiming to have a jar that is full, with about a 0.5- 1 cm gap of air at the top. A low oxygen level ( but not NO oxygen) is ideal for helping lactobacilli regain their status in the culture.

For larger quantities of grains you can also use a flat sandwich box, with just a cm or two of milk in, so the grains are evenly distributed throughout. For some reason, the amount of oxygen present matters less in this sort of set up ( I really don’t know why I’ve racked my brains but no solution has presented itself, answers on a postcard please).

Leave the grains for a day or two, or even three if resuscitating from frozen or dehydrated, until the milk has set. If it doesn’t after 72 hours, drain and repeat.

Scaling up

When the milk has set, it’s time to scale up. There is, again, no precise formula needed, but you might like to think about doubling up the quantities you’ve used. If you’ve used 30 ml of milk, transfer the grains to a larger pot or ramekin that you can cover, with 50 ml of milk. When they’ve set that, use 100 ml, then try 200, 300, 500. If at any one of the stages, the grains don’t set the milk, repeat with the previous quantity. Within a week of daily culturing, you will have your grains back to making a pint a day that hopefully will look something like… this!

Hope this helps! Caroline x

I became a kefirvangelist because after years of being ill and exhausted all winter, with annual tonsillitis, bronchitis, the works, since I started having milk kefir I haven’t needed a single dose of antibiotics. Clearly I can’t PROVE it’s the kefir, but annual antibiotics from ages 21 to 42, then none 42-58 ( in September) with the only thing that changed being the addition of kefir and other fermented foods makes it an attractive supposition). When I noticed I had stopped wanting to binge on cheap and nasty chocolate too I thought hmmm could this be another benefit?

Fermented Foods ARE good for you!

Remember that in almost every case ( except the booze), fermentation enriches foods into enhanced versions of their non-fermented selves, so you’ll likely be finding some benefit even if you don’t Feel it. Hidden benefits could include a reduction in systemic inflammation and enhancement of various Very complex metabolic processes, including things like liver function, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar management.

Tradition! (Tradition!)

One of the other things I love is that every time we make milk kefir we’re carrying on a tradition that began 2000 years ago in the Caucasus - an interaction between goat skin bags and the sheep’s milk they contained. All kefir grains in the world today are descendants of the original grains; they’ve never been artificially created in a lab. All that history, all that microbial evolution right there in a jar in front of you.

So you can make a choice. You can eat new-fangled things, food made in factories, protein powders in plastic bags, tubs of creatine, faux bacon, follow the fads be it protein, fibre, low fat, low sugar, etc.. or you can just be a human and do it the old-fashioned way. You can also combine the two - but don’t leave it behind altogether.

Cheap as Chips

Once you’ve got your kefir grains, the cost of kefir is the cost of milk, and if you’ve a friend making already they’ll surely give you some grains so there is little financial gain to be had from those of us who think they’re worth it ( I am not making my fortune selling kefir grains to those who can’t find any locally believe me I wish I was - but they don’t grow fast enough). So even people think it’s all psychological, placebo, wishful thinking, it’s not like one is being encouraged to buy collagen supplements…..

Let’s do some research

So I thought let’s do a little research. Are you a milk kefir consumer? Or water kefir? Do you feel it’s doing you good? Do you think the benefits are hidden or tangible/visible? I’d love to know - please tell me in the comments, and please share this article as the more people that respond, the more meaningful the pool of responses will become!

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Please share this with anyone you think might like it!

James Bayliss-Smith, AKA Nania’s Wildbrew, is a Bristol based real kombucha maker ( by which I mean he actually really makes kombucha the traditional way then cans/kegs it without mucking about with it AT ALL which is no mean feat).

He’s also the owner of one of Bristol’s 3 (as far as I know) vineyards, in Montpelier Bristol.

He had the excellent idea of bringing together some of Bristol’s most prominent fermenters for a day of fermentation masterclasses, actually in the vinyard, which you wouldn’t know was there - and homemade sourdough pizza too!

The programme is incredible, and includes all the below which makes it literally the BEST VALUE fermentation workshop you can possibly do.

Both James and I suffer from a condition known as acute procrastination, so we have not marketed this as effectively as we ought to have done. But at £99 for one ticket or £178 for two, if you’re here it’s a no brainer. It includes all of this…..

Learn to brew kombucha & kefir with @nanias.wildbrew and @every.good.thing

Make your own hot sauce & kraut with @eastonchilli and @eatmuti

Sourdough pizza straight from the cob oven

Allotment wine tasting all afternoon

Go home with your creations + your own kombucha culture and a sourdough starter

Here is the link to book a single ticket or a double ticket

and here is a link to a wee video on the subject on the instagram!

Do come it will be apparently not raining and it’s unusual to get such a concentration of fermenters all together in one go! Any questions do get in touch

Caroline x

I hope this newsletter finds you well and that you are not spending too much time contemplating the insanity of the world as we find it currently. If so, it perhaps you need a distraction - and here’s one that could fit the bill.

A Demo and Tasting

I’m doing a Fermentation Demo and Tasting session at lovely posh kitchen showroom Neptune Kitchens on Whiteladies Road in Bristol on Saturday 18th April. It’s a conservative £25 for a full into to all the best that fermentation has to offer, and there will tasters too, and an opportunity to ask any questions about your own ferments, or even bring them along if you’d like a second opinion! We will cover all sorts of things - from kefir to kombucha to fermented vegetables to miso to vinegar, so …… even if you think you’ve heard it all before there might be something new for you…

Tickets are available here….

Please do come - I’ve not had the opportunity to organise many workshops lately and it’s so nice to meet people in real life instead of on a screen. Bring your friends - it’s short notice because I am the worst marketeer and can’t workout also how to add things to my website eeek!

Pimp my Pink Sauerkraut

This is a most vulgar slang expression but if anyone remembers a few years ago there was a television programme called “pimp my ride” where old bangers (cars not sausages) were “customised” in most imaginative ways, and so I feel it’s applicable to this particular preparation of sauerkraut ( well maybe not that imaginative but definitely delicious which is a sort of food equivalent).

More of a suggestion than a recipe!

You don’t need pink sauerkraut to do this ( which I make by fermenting 3/4 white cabbage mixed with 1/4 red cabbage); any old sauerkraut will do.

Any old sauerkraut will do, white, pink, red, flavoured, plain…..

Simply take two large spoonfuls of sauekraut (balance as much as you can on a dessert spoon), put them in a bowl. Stir in one heaped dessert spoon of soured cream. I used regular soured cream from sainsbo’s but I am sure you can use crème fraiche if you prefer. Chop up a tablespoon of fresh dill, and sprinkle over the top, with a sprinkle of black pepper. You won’t need to add salt because there’s plenty in the sauerkraut.

You can of course use kefir instead, or yoghurt, but to me the acidity of either of these is a bit excessive, and the mild sour creaminess is what’s needed here.

To make more, just double, or triple, or quadruple up - not really a recipe more a suggestion! I had mine on toasted rye bread which I absolutely love, and is a very easy way of increase the amount of fibre you eat in a day, as there’s lots in it ( and remember your gut microbes love a variety of different fibres to help them generate short chain fatty acids which can help to maintain a healthy gut lining and reduce systemic inflammation!).

Rye bread - I love it. Butter essential.

As always, your comments and suggestions are most welcome and hope to see you on the 18th

love, Caroline x

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you are making a recipe that contains milk you can enhance it by adding some kefir instead. This is most certainly true when it comes to pancakes, where it adds a delicious sourness that makes normal pancakes taste terribly bland in comparison…

As you probably know, your kefir is full of micobes, including Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) and helpful yeasts, known for their ability to produce all kinds of health-promoting metabolites with complicated names like exopolysaccharides, fructooligosaccharides, short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), conjugated linoleic acids, bacteriocins, and selenoproteins.31 What you might not know is that recent research has shown that even if these microbes are dead – ie you’ve cooked them - their little protein coats and heat stable metabolites they’ve produced are still good for you. You might have heard the term postbiotics to describe this. so now there’s nothing to stop you from using your kefir both cooked and raw. The jury is still out on whether all of the effects are retained so use this as an extra add in rather than as a substitute for your daily kefir.

Buckwheat pancakes

Have you ever made these? I love them. There’s a slight nutty flavour provided by the buckwheat and it’s something more interesting for your gut microbes to enjoy – and although usually used for french savoury galettes, they are perfectly delicious with lemon juice and sugar too. Buckwheat is not actually wheat at all. In fact it’s not even a grain! It’s a seed from a plant related to rhubarb, (Fagopyrum esculentum)which makes it gluten-free, thus perfect for anyone who’s avoiding gluten. It’s often grown as a cover crop, to benefit the soil; reducing soil erosion, improving water retention and increasing biodiversity. It’s also got a label as a functional pseudocereal; a “nutritional powerhouse”, with plenty of protein, fibre, minerals, essential amino acids and antioxidants.

I use Doves buckwheat flour, Which you can find in most supermarkets. it’s easy to use for pancakes as it doesn’t go lump

y easily. You can put kefir in any pancake where you would be adding milk, but buckwheat kefir galettes are my favourite….

This recipe makes 4 medium sized galettes.

80g Buckwheat Flour

1 large egg

Pinch of salt

175 ml milk

100 ml kefir

1 tbsp melted butter

Put the buckwheat and salt in a bowl and make a little well into which you crack the egg. With a fork start to incorporate the flour into the egg. Then gradually start to add the milk, then the kefir, until you have a smooth batter.

I do tend to let it the batter rest for about 10 minutes as it seems to thicken quite a lot. Now, if you’re using kefir that is quite thick and kefiran-y you might have to add another splash or two of milk to loosen the mixture; it rather depends on the consistency. You’ll realise if your first spoonful of batter is rather hard to tip around the pan.

As Delia suggests, I always stir in a tbsp melted butter before I cook them.

Pour a scant ladleful into a greased, hot frying pan and tip to coat. Let it cook properly before you try to turn it over – it should release when done. Flip and cook on the other side – probably about 3 mins in total. Put to one side on a plate and do the others too. Then assemble as you with.

My favourite savoury way to do these is as follows:

Onto each galette put some Smoked salmon, a spoonful of bechamel sauce, break an egg in the middle, fold in the sides to make a square, grate some Gruyère over the top, cook in the oven ( I use combined oven and grill setting), for about 10 mins until those eggs are just perfect.

And Now… LENT begins!

As a confused person brought up by a Jewish Mother and a Catholic Father, I always have done lent. I love it. I love a bit of abstinence – I find it’s good for the soul to not be able to have whatever one wants whenever one wants it - especially if it’s right there in front of you! So no chocolate or sweeties or crisps rubbish until Easter (though a special treat on Mother’s Day half way through is allowed according to my late Papa!). Are you doing Lent? What will you give up?

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In the quiet brown darkness of my crazy-Korean kimchi box, something miraculous is unfolding. Three kilos of finely shredded, salted and squeezed cabbage are slowly transforming themselves, with a little microbial help, into Sauerkraut. Meanwhile, at a far greater pace, my jar of milk and kefir grains conveniently kefirises itself within a mere 24 hours, and my jar of salt, koji rice and soybeans, will take several months to evolve into the into the complex flavors of miso.

This is my attempt to convince you that Fermentation is much more than the latest “health” buzzword to be uttered in the same breath as Collagen or Protein, Ice Baths or Magnesium. Hopefully I will succeed and you’ll finish this feeling that this ancient process that’s sustained us for thousands of years —offers all of us more than nourishment.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it provides a sound metaphor for some of the most essential aspects of humanity; good things come to those who wait, putting in a little effort for great reward, personal empowerment in terms of taking control, and converting struggles into strength. I shall be stopping short of making the comparison between your journey of transformation from something good into something better, as if you were a batch of saukerktaut I am far too prosaic for that!!

Take a little time.

Do you remember life without a mobile phone? before the birth of “Instant Gratification I must have it NOW” apps like Deliveroo and Just Eats and Amazon?. I’m finding it harder and harder to remember what life was like before the Internet.

The fermentation process teaches those of us who’ve forgotten, or haven’t had a chance to yet experience, that profound changes occur not in dramatic moments, but through daily practice, or days weeks or even months of watching and waiting. A bit like how we change as people - either for the better or worse it rarely happens quickly, nor does failure instantly change into success, but given time it can.

I often think about the production of Balsamic Vinegar. Most of what you buy in the shops isn’t it - it’s a summary of short cuts. To make ACTUAL balsamic vinegar is a microbial process of acetification and evaporation that takes between 12 and 25 years, involving a transfer of vinegar between barrels of different woods of decreasing capacity. So if I get some set up now, I’ll be almost 70 before it’s even slightly ready. The process cannot be hurried without compromising the final product. But this makes it special! I truly believe that patience is an attribute that is rather undervalued in our rushed existence.

Learn to be a Facilitator.

When you’re fermenting something, you’re merely a facilitator of the process - introducing some control over those microbes - adding some salt, excluding some oxygen in our sauerkraut for example - we need to have a little faith. Faith is also an unpopular concept these days - here in the UK there’s precious little of it - certainly from the perspective of this lapsed Jew/Catholic! I thinks it’s lovely to be able to trust the process - those rules are simple and if followed are almost foolproof!

Here’s a failsafe Mantra for making any type of sauekraut ( or shredded vegetable ) ferment.

Control feels like something that we’re out of in the world at large - bring some control back to your kitchen!

FOR HEAVEN’S Sake take back the power people!!

What if I told you that in the UK over 53% of the average persons’ shopping basket is made up of foods that aren’t really. There’s been a lot of talk recently about the fact that not everything ultraprocessed or in a garish packet is bad for you - and if you look at the back of the packets this can be found to be true…

Tropical Sun Coconut Milk - just coconut milk.

Yataka organic tamari - just soyabeans, salt ( and a little alcohol)

Brown rice noodles from the Chinese supermarket -

Sainsbury’s ready made lasagne ( not the taste the difference one)

Markas and spencer have brought out a range of items with no additives

Bold bean co jarred beans

But these things are massively in the minority. If you actually do a tiny bit of fermenting yourself, it’s a kind of empowerment. It’s sending a message: No Mr Tesco, I do not need you to tell me that I must eat THIS MUCH PROTEIN, No McCain, you are not my future. And from that, from these small changes, larger changes can happen.

If these reasons aren’t enough to tempt you, would this?

Fermented foods (except for booze), are nutritionally enriched - so fermented cabbage knocks the socks off normal cabbage, and kefir is like milk on speed! A natural unflavoured yoghurt to which you add your own fruit etc.. is another very good start ( though you might want to check it contains some live cultures, evidence is now emerging that even killed microbes in pasteurised products can have benefits). So something fermented is accessible to everyone. Besides I know a million tricks to get people who think they don’t like fermented foods to have them - mango kefir icecream anyone?

Take a bag of Frozen Mango chunks. Add about-300 ml kefir ( you can add more, or less - the more you add, the harder it will set, and then you can just pop it in the fridge to soften before eating). Blitz in a high speed blender. Eat. Your’e welcome.

Are they good for you? Yes. Is there lots of evidence to support this? Well…. Some. But it’s complicated. But it’s very likely to be beneficial. I think we’ll do a deep dive into the evidence or lack in another edition. Do I believe it? Yes I think we’re barking up the right tree.

“Fermentation isn’t for me. I don’t have any dungarees And I am not a vegetarian”.

Without even meaning to, fermentation has gone and got itself a bit of a reputation for being “brown” and “worthy”. Has this put you off?

Do you think it’s the preserve of sandal-sporting dungaree-wearing vegetarians? Not that there’s anything wrong with sandals, or dungarees - there can’t be as I own both of these items. OR Vegetarians. Some of my best friend are vegetarians 🤣 ( no really!) !

So ask yourself - are you eschewing fermentation because you think it’s…not your cup of tea? It’s definitely time to get over that.

You can ferment in Pleather and a feather boa - honestly the cabbage or kefir won’t mind.

I think this has come about because the processes of fermentation, gardening, allotmenting and foraging are deeply inter-connected; people that produce or forage their own vegetables are more likely to make sure that they don’t waste them because of the effort involved - and preservation by fermentation is definitely a worthwhile goal there, so they’re ahead of the curve. But it isn’t just for them, it’s for you too, even if like me you are a slave to the supermarkets ( though I am trying not to be!).

It’s worth remembering that All of these foods are made using the fermentation process - even if the microbes aren’t present in the final stages - for example chocolate pods are left to ferment as an essential stage before they can be processed ( though your dairy milk is NOT sadly seeing much of the benefit of this).

You don’t have to jump straight in and start making kimchi ( which although it is ostensibly chopping vegetables is a bit of a commitment). You can buy some sauerkraut or kefir, and get used to normalising it as part of your regular shop before you start making it.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE SHELVES THAT LOOK LIKE THIS…

You can start anywhere. If you’ve never had anything fermented - that is, transformed by microbes, it’s extremely likely that you have - check the list above! So you’ve already made a start. You don’t even have to make your own.

Every supermarket these days sells various brands of milk kefir; my sainbos also has a couple of varieties of fresh sauerkraut and kimchi, and kombucha. Watch out for the shelf-stable varieties though; they can contain additives and preservatives.

JOIN ME LIVE ON INSTAGRAM on WORLD FERMENT DAY 1ST FEB at 6 PM for

FERMENTATION SHOW AND TELL!

AND ON SUBSTACK at 7 PM!

I’ll be live in my kitchen just dying to see what you’re up to at home - just click on “join the live” and we will share screens and you can show everyone what you are up to and we can do some troubleshooting too!

Obviously, if you’ve never fermented anything before, tune in to see how even busy and very disorganised people like me manage to make this part of our everyday lives.

NB this is 2 hours later than i said in my last newsletter because……

OUR CULTURED LUNCH - SECOND SITTING IS NOW LIVE!

As we sold out or first sitting of cultured lunch at Goodfellows in Wells, we’ve opened a second one - do come it would be lovely to see you! But I won’t get back in time for 4 pm so made my show and tell later.

BOOK BY CLICKING HERE!

I‘ve met many wonderful people since I started working in the field of fermentation - and one of those is Jo Webster. We work together sometimes, running workshops, organising and broadcasting the results of various experiments - like “which kombucha can you grow a new scoby from” and “can you cure poorly water kefir grains?” etc…

We are very different. I am comparatively chaotic - the info is all in my head and I prefer a last-minute “it’ll be alright on the night” approach. She is meticulous in her organising - loves a spreadsheet and when I popped in for coffee the other day she presented me with an agenda 😄.

Also turns out it wasn’t coffee - it was a “delicious” (her words) blend of Reishi mushroom, turmeric and very dark chocolate. This is my cup when I left. It’s an acquired taste and 2 hours wasn’t long enough. In my defence I had thought it would be more mushroomy and less… farmyardy.

Anyway, I digress. Jo and I met in 2018 when, with fellow fermenter Katie Venner, she organised the Sauerkrautathon as part of the Wells food festival.

This was a Guinness world record breaking endeavour to make the biggest batch of sauerkraut EVER - 359.6 kg it was. 150 volunteers helped to prep the cabbage, and Jo approached me, as a local fermenter, to be one of the many helpers on the day. It was a great success and many people got their first opportunity to make sauerkraut.

So now this crazy powerhouse of a woman is at it again. “I think there should be a day” she said. And so just like that, February 1st was registered and ( not just a national occasion why stop there?) WORLD FERMENT DAY was born.

I don’t even know how to make a day - never gone to the effort of finding out - so the very least I can do is make sure that everyone knows about it because it is a fine idea.

WHY IS WORLD FERMENT DAY IMPORTANT?

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you are already ahead of the curve. You know what fermentation is. You know about guts and microbes. You know that eating more fermented foods and fibre and less of the junk is where you should be headed. Assumably quite a lot of you are putting this into practice, and getting something out of it - whether it’s feeling better in some context, or enjoying learning new (8,000 year old) techniques and discovering new flavours.

But in our cosy echo chambers ( for example my Instagram account, where people I follow and who follow me share common interests and it seems like everyone is fermenting - or crocheting - or whittling spoons) it’s surprisingly easy to forget this, and so the great divide of the informed and the not-informed persists. Fermenting also seems to have got itself a bit of a reputation for being “worthy”, which seems off-putting to some; we’ve got to lose this pronto; to normalise it, so it becomes part of everyday cooking practice.

Fermentation, though, isn’t just about fermentation. It’s bigger than that, because as the practice spreads, it represents a change in attitude; an acknowledgement that not all human progress is worth having, and that sometimes looking backwards can teach us something. It’s an opportunity for us to reclaim some of the skills we’ve lost, and without wanting to sound over-dramatic, to take back just a little bit of the power from Big Food and Big Pharma who just love so much to get us to blindly follow their narrative - that we are helpless and they are the ones to help us. Actually, we really can help ourselves.

So World Ferment Day is an opportunity to close the knowledge gap by sharing in whatever way you can, and also to celebrate how far we’ve already come. With almost every supermarket now stocking proper fermented foods, including kefir, kombucha and even live kimchi and sauerkraut, with more and more peer reviewed research, it’s all beginning to sound a bit less woo-woo and a bit more… real.

In Jo’s own words

“The scientific spotlight on gut microbiota has revealed their vital role in digestion, immunity, metabolism, mental health, and beyond. But here’s the thing: while awareness is growing, too many people stop at the headlines and never take the next, vital step of altering their behaviour.

That’s why I founded World Ferment Day — to transform theory into practice and empower you to improve your food enjoyment and your health by incorporating fermented foods and drinks like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir and kombucha (and more!) into your life one way or another. Over time, consuming these foods on a regular basis may give you the best guts you’ve ever had!

How to DO SOMETHING on World Ferment Day!

• Jo and I are hosting a Cultured Lunch at Goodfellows restaurant in Wells, where there will be much merriment, fermentation chat, demos and a delicious lunch prepared by chef Adam Fellows There are just a couple of tickets left - if there’s more demand we’ll do a second sitting, so do email Jo if it’s full. Click here for more info!

• If you’re not local, click here to check the map to see what is going on near you. - scroll down to the bottom of the page to see it.

• If there’s nothing close to you, don’t worry - at 4-5 pm on INSTAGRAM I shall be hosting WORLD FERMENT DAY SHOW AND TELL LIVE! The idea is that I’ll share my screen with anyone who wants to come on and show what you’re fermenting at home -we can do some questions and trouble-shooting too.

• At 6 pm on SUBSTACK I shall be doing something similar, but only if I can get the tech to work, otherwise it will be a general “what’s fermenting in my kitchen”, but with questions and trouble-shooting also.

• Alternatively, why not set up something yourself? Click here to get a host pack and then you can put your event on the map!

• Or if you don’t want to go public, keep it small - have your friends round and give them all sauerkraut or milk kefir grains or Scobys - or if you’ve not yet got started, make this the day to have that first mouthful of sauerkraut, or make your first batch.

• Post a picture of you and whatever fermenting thing you’re trying/making with hashtags #WorldFermentDay and #HaveYouGotTheGuts

• If you’re in the hospitality business why not branch out for the day and include something fermented on the menu?

• If you’re a shop, why not organise some tasters of ferments for your customers to try?

See you on WFD!

Caroline x

Well here it is: Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun, which for many of us is enhanced by large quantities of booze - choose your poison ( oh how accurate a saying that has turned out to be)!

Often, this seasonal increase in drink-fuelled bonhomie is an enjoyable interlude that can easily be compensated for by dry January.

But a growing number of us seem to be permanently changing our relationship with alcohol. According to the latest Drinkaware Monitor Report (2025; based on interviews with 7000 adults), we’re drinking less frequently and more moderately than in previous years. The report also highlights the growing influence of social circles on drinking behaviours. It seems 20% of us know someone actively trying to cut back, and more than half of these say it has affected their own habits; those with moderating peers are nearly twice as likely to have reduced their own alcohol intake in the past year.

You may not know this; I rarely drink anything other than tea, coffee, kombucha and water (pref sparkling if you’re offering, though what I really want is a cup of builder’s tea with a splash of whole milk). So apart from the rite of passage night of too much Malibu and coke in the eighties, and the odd blood-orange moscato slushie ( invented by Elliot at Box-E and very delicious indeed), I’ve had the last thirty years as a non drinker in a drinker’s world to have inured myself to the comments, and the non-drinker’s penance of “splitting the bill”, aka contributing to everyone else’s wine consumption when you eat out.

But if drinking has been part of your life for a long time and you now find yourself wanting or even needing to cut back (lets face it, the links between ill health and booze are robust and many but I’m not going to go on about that here because you know that already), in a culture obsessed with alcohol it’s not easy. Especially now, in peak seasonal drinking territory.

I’ve become particularly aware of this lately. Six months ago, my husband, Markas, after 40 years of moderate edging toward heavy drinking ( he doesn’t mind me saying) decided to stop - not reduce, but completely give it up. Following the alcohol-induced death of his best friend in the world ever, I think he wanted to be sure that he was in control of it, not it in control of him.

It’s been hard. Markas loved drinking; especially excellent wines with food, and beer after football, and it was a deeply ingrained habit. After so long, detangling your real self from the person you are when you’re drinking can be like pulling apart congealed strings of spaghetti, and he’s had to relearn how to be again, without the booze to take the edge off. For at least the first 3 months he felt dreadful ( tired, sick, grumpy, headachy, though I suspect this was heightened by grief), and it was the 4 month mark before he was able to eat a good meal without missing the wine to go with.

The struggle is real. At Strangebrew in the city centre, when he asked for a fizzy water, the barman asked “ is that by Wiper & True? I don’t know that one” ,

then there’s the Edinburgh pub where he watched the football one night, and the landlord almost threw the pint of coke he ordered at him in disgust! Servers have brought alcoholic beers by mistake, thinking it doesn’t matter - yes I’m looking at you Las Iguanas and Brisol City.

Good friends have been supportive and kind; the one who loves a drink but who opted for a non-alcoholic beer to make him feel more comfortable at dinner last week and those he’s previously thoroughly enjoyed getting wasted with who’ve really cut back when he’s with them.

But there’s no doubt, some people are mega “triggered” by the teetotallers and sober among us (see definitions below); we may be met with suspicion or even derision, so I thought I’d outline how we can all get along, from both sides of the coin:

Teetotallers and Sober people

For many years, I admit it, I thoroughly enjoyed a pious superiority complex as a non-drinker, gleefully pronouncing “ no thank you I DON’T DRINK” when asked. God I was unbearable - I see this now. In fact I would want to slap me. I have realised there is only one answer to the question “ would you like some wine/champagne/beer/what can I get you to drink?” And that is

“Thanks, but have you got something soft?”.

Especially If you’re newly teetotal or sober, the temptation to be in evangelist mode is strong, but you can resist this by using the above phrase; your not-drinking behaviour will itself speak volumes, actions speak louder than words etc…

If you say “ I don’t drink, or I’ve given up drinking”, people often don’t know how to react and will probably ask you why to get out of an awkward silence ( you may not want to tell them, and they may not really want to know anyway). You may see the disappointment on their faces that you’re not “joining in”, making them feel left out of some secret club and defensive, perhaps about their own relationship with alcohol. Annoying as it maybe, if someone keeps egging you on, or infers that you are a dull spoil-sport, this might be at the root of it - definitely time to kindly change the subject.

If you’re going to a party, or someone’s house, why not take something non-alcoholic with you? That way your host won’t have to feel guilty if they haven’t catered for you (because they haven’t read this article!), and you’ll have something you know you like. You never know, especially these days, someone else might enjoy some Real or Old Tree Brewery posh kombucha or Guinness zero too (p.s. apparently Guinness zero cans need to be completely inverted 180 degrees to make the froth form properly because of the widget).

Drinkers

If you offer someone an alcoholic drink and they demur, don’t ask twice, even if you think it’s the polite thing to do, just say (guess what’s coming!)

“can I get you something soft instead? We’ve got… Guiness Zero, Clearhead or some delicious kombucha… or TEA”

Don’t ask twice because if they’re teetotal they’re never going to say yes and you’re wasting your time, or if someone is trying to cut down or stop drinking, they might only have the resolve to refuse once, and if you’re trying to persuade them, why are you?

If they announce ( because they haven’t read my article) “ Oh no thank you, I don’t DRINK”, it may be because they’re like old Caroline who can’t understand why anyone would want to drink that stuff and has to let everyone know, but it may also be because they’re feeling bloody proud of themselves for being able to say that now. In either case, you’ve to suck it up. Further enquiry is not necessary, you could simply respond with

“Let me get you something soft, We’ve got… Guiness Zero or some delicious kombucha… or TEA” .

If your friends’ not drinking is making you feel uncomfortable, and you’re trying to persuade them otherwise, it might be worth thinking that over at some point after the festive season. Is there a conversation you need to have with yourself about your own relationship with drinking? Click Here to find out more.

Eating out and managing the bill.

From a teetotaller/sober perspective - this can hurt, especially when each bottle of wine can add upwards of bottom end £30 to the bill and the cost of drinks can often exceed that of the food . Markas has spent the last 30 years telling me “there’s nothing like quibbling over the bill for spoiling a good night out, don’t overthink it, just pay your share - have the lobster”. This is a valid point, and I’ve always grinned, soberly, and bared it, wishing I liked non alcoholic cocktails. In any case, as the wine flows, the assembled company become less interested in the bill and it’s never really appropriate to bring it up.

But now in his non-drinking state, it’s as though the scales have fallen from his eyes and he’s had a complete volte face - Good god, how much?! I think it’s crystallised by the fact that there are now two of us, and we have in the past few months on occasion ordered separately, though I always feel rather uncomfortable about it.

It’s a tricky one. No-one wants to be seen as a spoil sport. Where do you stand on this? What do you do? From a drinker’s perspective, if you know you’re going to eat out with moderating friends, you could make things easy for them and say at the beginning of the night, as your’re not drinking do you want to order separately? That way they won’t feel like whingers and everyone can enjoy themselves.

Topping up.

Now, it’s definitely true that if you’re not drinking to get drunk, you need less to drink. Eight pints? I’ve seen loads of people drinking pint after pint but - no non-drinker wants to drink eight pints of lime and soda I can tell you! But that doesn’t mean you want to be completely left out of the topping up - a friend recalled at a recent party, the champagne was flowing but non drinkers got one glass of fake fizz at the beginning and were ignored from there on-in.

There is, however, nuance to this topping-up thing. It’s supposed to be the definition of a good host, making sure that people’s glasses are full, but on the other hand, you could be inadvertently responsible for people drinking much more than they want to - and the drunker you yourself are, the less you’ll notice. I have observed that if someone is physically covering their glass with their hand, they really don’t want any more! If you’re hosting a party, why not have booze in one hand and non-booze in the other; that way people can easily choose to moderate if they’ve had enough. At the dinner table, make sure there’s plenty of sparkling water or kombucha actually on the table for your guests to instersperse alcoholic drinks with.

Catering for everyone

Given the proportion of folk cutting back on the booze, and that I am suggesting you offer them “something soft” do make sure you’ve catered for the non-drinkers. Sparkling water is the obvious go to for most of us (even though I’d prefer a cup of tea!). People in recovery from alcohol addiction may well not be interested in non-alcoholic substitutes, preferring to avoid the association altogether.

The posh kombuchas are pretty good fizz substitutes and have an interesting vinegary edge, and of course, there’s no need to stop thinking about your gut just because it’s Christmas you know!! If you make your own kombucha in continuous culture, it will have a very low alcohol content ( mine was 0.3% when measured) - add some mulled wine spices and orange spices and warm it up, it’s delicious!

The number of good alcohol free/very low alcohol beers and gin-type things is actually staggering these days. The aforementioned Guiness zero seems to have taken the world by storm, with sales doubling year on year as no one can taste the difference.

This handy little book by wine writer Fiona Beckett How to drink when you’re not drinking covers all bases and has lots of ideas for drinks that are considerably more interesting than sparkling water.

Oh and finally, if your pals turn up with non alcoholic stuff, don’t think they’re cheapskates - people avoiding alcohol might also be trying to avoid buying it. You could even use it as an opportunity to sample some.

Unofficial definitions around drinking behaviour (as I have used them in this article)

Teetotal - doesn’t usually drink alcohol; might be for religious reasons or reasons other than recovery from addiction ( ie health, or from my perspective because it mostly tastes vile 🤢).

Light drinker - drinks a bit, within the government guidelines

Heavy drinker - drinks to excess regularly and often; might binge, no physiological dependency

Alcoholic - drinks because they have to; uncontrollable craving for alcohol; withdrawal symptoms if they stop.

Sober - not drinking, reserved for those in recovery after addiction (nb there’s this new term sober-curious going around, and some non drinkers especially younger ones are describing themselves as sober, but alcoholics in recovery I have spoken with feel that teetotal is a more appropriate term there…..)

Check out your own personal relationship with booze

Here.

Have you noticed how some people are always deeply immersed in a project or hobby of some sort? Maybe like me, you’re one of them - with multiple copies of the “I can do that “ gene. The effects are additive - the more copies you have, or the more the gene expression is amplified, the more ambitious your projects are likely to be. So it works on a scale and I’m nowhere near the top end; for me the effects are quite moderate - moderate goals, moderate achievements, but I’m happy with that!

Possessors of the gene will often exhibit behaviours such as choosing DIY over PSE (paying someone else), but - it’s just as relevant in terms of doing your own probate or cooking. My own list of things I frequently make, but could more easily buy, includes mayonnaise, miso, chilli sauce, bread, kimchi, kombucha, sauerkraut, chicken stock, chocolate hobnobs, flapjacks, all cake, vegetable crisps, cheese, jam, vinegar, butter, easter eggs and of course milk kefir.

I will make them myself, no matter how time consuming or fiddly the process. Sometimes this is because there’s a clear health / financial advantage. On other occasions it’s because it’s a challenge, or fun, or I’m just being bloody-minded and difficult. And sometimes it’s because I wonder what will happen when the revolution comes if some of us don’t know how to do these things?

When I first “discovered” fermentation (obviously I didn’t discover the whole thing, I mean for me personally), without the “I can do that” gene, I wouldn’t have even got started. In the UK at the time, there wasn’t a choice - you couldn’t PSE. Not yet was there kefir in Sainsbury’s or readily available kimchi. Being a “have-a-go-hero” was the only way.

Milk kefir was my entry ferment - given to me by a well meaning friend who was concerned that I was always ill. “ It’ll make you feel better” she said. The foetid curdled mass I made in those early days did, within 3 weeks seem to have quite a profound effect on my health - I was whizzing around with more energy than I had had in years. But it tasted horrible. Acidic, yeasty, sharp, wince-making.

In my dim and distant past, lies a PhD in microbial genetics, so I dug deep and did a little research, and started to experiment. By understanding the microbes in the kefir grains, I began to alter certain parameters trying to improve the way it tasted. I settled upon using whole milk, and filling the jar, reducing the oxygen and thus the activity of the acetic acid bacteria and yeast elements of the grains, and allowing the lactic acid bacteria to proliferate. Also, I found fewer grains ( a teaspoon in a pint of milk), gave me a creamy yet not too flavoursome brew. And that refrigeration and a bit of citrus zest greatly improved the flavour.

“I can do that” Caroline started experimenting left right and centre, with water kefir, kombucha and vegetable ferments too, I soon became convinced of my invincibility and equating having a go with expecting immediate success.

Life isn’t like this though, and on my journey I met mouldy vinegar, overly salty sauerkraut and gloopy carrots on my journey, And then there was the incident when I attempted to ferment kale, in which i was quite convinced I was going to die. Turns out that chlorophyll can inhibit lactobacillus fermentation, and thick dark green leaves contain a lot of it. After a week or two on the side, even though it didn’t smell right, instead of checking the pH to verify that it had dropped below pH 4.6, which is an indication of successful fermentation, I tasted some instead. Well it was was definitely very wrong indeed. I felt so stupid and managed to give myself psychosomatic palpitations, but I didn’t get botulism and lived to tell the tale.

At least from this I learned an important lesson; being a have a go hero is much better if you have carefully considered what you’re having a go at, have gathered as much information as you can, and have a plan.

And so I found myself committed to an overhaul of the 60 stairs and four landings of our Georgian house. Goodbye 40 year-old Brinton’s carpet, with your underlay that has turned to black rubber dust! Goodbye appalling dado rail of cheap Wickes architrave, peeled paper and Hugo’s scribblings!

Other Motivators for DIY-ing, apart from this genetically determined self belief, included the potential to reduce costs, not having to choose a contractor, or have workpeople in the house. Besides that the last professional painters we used did such a poor job of our windows I cannot believe that we paid them for it without making an enormous fuss. I mean, just look!

Below are 28 things to think about / lessons I learned along the way.

1. Is everyone in your household on board?

   My long-suffering-and-beloved husband would have happily paid someone else to do the job, and full credit to him for letting me indulge myself. But he didn’t always feel like he wanted to help me, and there were many occasions when I needed him - for example as chief ladder-holder, clean-up-cloth-passer etc…. I wondered at the time whether he did certain things SO badly on purpose, so he wouldn’t be asked to do them again, using his own brand of weaponised incompetence. I now realise that he was actually motivated by speed - trying to hurry painting things (badly!) so I’d get finished. In short, don’t expect every one else to be interested in your hare-brained schemes - if your partner hasn’t the enthusiasm don’t imagine they’ll develop it as you make chaos, and be prepared that in the main you might have go it alone.

   

2. It doesnt’ have to be perfect.

   If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough!

3. Choose your project wisely.

   If you are unskilled in the fields of electrics or plumbing, I recommend leaving these to the experts. Decorating and simple carpentry are better bets - you can’t kill someone with a poor paint job or crooked architrave and you don’t need certification to carry it out. That isn’t to say that everyone will be good at it. Patience and the ability to troubleshoot are massively important attributes - a steady hand, and reasonably good eye-sight and decent level of fitness help too.

   How complicated do you need to make it? I could just have replaced the stair carpet to the edges, but my heart’s desire was an edged stair runner. The difficulty was, this meant that an 20 cm border of every one of the 56 treads and risers and 3 landings would need to be filled, sanded and painted, increasing the workload considerably.

   

4. Define a starting point and an endpoint for the project, so it is becomes a discrete piece of work. That way you can congratulate yourself when it is done. It will also add a modicum of manageability to it. I decided to write mine down for clarity:

   ‘To move the letter box in the front door, paint the entrance lobby, hall stairs and landing, to remove the old carpet, mend floorboards, to prep all the woodwork on all stairs and landings for a runner, repair wallpaper, to paint the ceilings, walls, including some long drops, to replace the dado rail and add architrave detail, and to strip and re-wax the bannister.”

5. Identify the tricky bits. If you have an old house, there will bedamaged floorboards, odd holes, gaps and cracks and if you try and remove any wallpaper the plaster might come off too! If you’re doing anything to the floor other than re-carpeting, lift up the carpet to see what’s going on underneath. We found some real horrors; some of which were beyond my pay grade, including this enormous gap between the floor and the skirting boards, a mass of electric cables where the old burglar alarm was, and holes in the wallpaper where old thermostats had been. Work out which professionals you will need to do which jobs. Identify whether parts of the project are difficult to access (eg long drops in stair wells) and work out how you’ll get around this.

6. 

7. Identify what you have and what you’ll need to buy. I used a plethora of tools - most of which I’d gathered over the years, including, Paint spray machine, four different types of sander (including my own hands!), pliers, screwdrivers, chisels, hammers, electric drill and screwdriver, wallpaper scrapers, flexible filling knife… and still needed to buy - masking tape, impermeable dust sheets, new brushes, caulk, paint, primer, fillers, paints. The bottom line is, you’re going to save yourself at least 100s, depending on the size of your property, maybe 1000s of pounds. Therefore assign some of this saved money to purchase the right tools for the job and make your life easier and give you a better results.

8. Get a couple of quotes. Not to waste tradespeople’s time but to determine whether it really is a worthy DIY project, or if your time could be better occupied elsewhere. The “I can do that” gene can cause problems here sometimes; undertaking something for the sake of it isn’t always a good idea - as discussed above there will be costs incurred even if you DIY which you need to take into account against any quotes. Also well worth having identified the tricky bits before the quotes come in- that way you will minimise nasty surprises and cost implications thereof, should you appoint someone to do the work.

9. “Prior Planning and Preparation Prevent’s P*ss Poor Performance”. A friend of mine who was in the marines taught me this motto.Have some sort of schedule, or order of events. I recommend the ol’ spreadsheet for this This will help you to work out when you’ll need to get professionals in - ie no point sealing floorboards or painting walls if an electrician will need to disrupt them. Nathaniel the carpenter moved the letter box in the front door, organised the bespoke dado rail, fitted this and also the architrave ( I would probably do this myself next time) and sorted the more serious floorboard repairs ( I did the simpler ones). Tom the electrician re-jigged the front doorbell, removing old phone cables and defunct transformers and reattached one of the chandeliers that had been hanging solely from its cables for years probably…

10. If it’s a big project, zone it. That way the whole house won’t be in chaos at the same time. If it’s a single room, clear it if you can. If not, remove what you can and either pile everything up in the centre and cover with a dust sheet so you can work around the edges, or move it all into one half of the room and do all of the other half first.

11. Cover, cover cover. Yes it’s boring but You’ll be so pleased and smug that you put the effort in. Masking tape for sticking down dustsheets if you decide to use a spray machine is also essential - I opted for Frog Tape for surfaces that were newly painted or fragile plaster, and cheapie cream stuff where it didn’t matter. Dustsheets of all kinds will be a good investment. Don’t think because you’re decorating upstairs the rest of the house will be safe. I managed to get paint all over the hall pennant slabs because I thought they were far enough away, which I then had to try and remove with a paint scraper. Old sheets and towels, big bits of cardboard, groundsheets, disposable plastic on a roll, all have their roles. The plastic is necessary as ultimate spill protection, but again you can use old plastic that things have come wrapped in, or old groundsheets, we even used some spare pond liner.

12. Lighting matters, especially if you’re old like me. Use tasks that need Daylight during the day ( I know this sounds obvious but….). Or invest in one of those portable work lights…

13. Colours. ‘There is only one way forward here; you do you. It’s your home. Decorating “fashion” can draw you in, and I have indeed been tempted - we nearly painted the stairwell woodwork dark grey, but every morning when I faced it, it made me feel gloomy to the bottom of my soul. Turns out what is fashionable and works in other people’s houses, doesn’t work for me. So dulux Gardenia and Little Greene Mirror were my chosen combination. Testers are definitely worth the money, especially if you’re painting a large area where you could make an expensive and time consuming mistake…

    

14. How are you going to reach the high bits, or get a big ladder through the narrow bits? I was considering an internal scaffolding tower, but in the end settled for this lovely ladder platform. Upon this i could balance one of my three various ladders to cover the required distance.

    

15. Safety Equipment. There would be potential for the most awful embarrassment if you were to damage yourself for the sake of saving a few pounds DIYing. With this in mind, I swapped my trusty crocs for tightly laced trainers when up the ladder, bought safety specs for sanding and using paint stripper, and proper respirator masks for sanding and spray painting. I also wore a bicycle helmet up the ladder - not sure that it would have offered much protection had I plummeted from a great height but it made me feel better. Under safety equipment also comes a “ladder buddy”. You need someone to hold you, even if just to make you feel safer, and to pass you things, and to watch that you don’t over-stretch. I have to say that even as someone who is not a lover of heights I became remarkably comfortable up there with time.

16. Brushes. I recommend middle ground. I’d avoid the ones in the Aldi aisle, whence the thick black bristles seem to shed with abandon, and treat them as a semi-disposable item. they should last you a job or two but when they start to frazzle it’s time to say goodbye.

17. Paints. We are spoilt these days to be able to decorate with incredible paints that are water based, quick drying and not smelly. Not being able to breathe while painting woodwork is a thing of the past. The finish isn’t in my opinion as smooth or glossy as oil based paint, butI am happy to sacrifice this for the price of breathing.

18. Wallpaper. Before that wallpaper comes off, think carefully. Does it need to come off? What’s the surface like underneath? Are you likely to also dislodge the plaster? Can you paint over it? It might be easier to do a patch repair instead of stripping the whole thing. Clearly this doesn’t apply to wood chip which must be removed at all costs; after all it’s not 1980! I learned an excellent trick from Instagram, whereupon a patch of paper can be almost invisibly applied, and I replaced several damaged patches on walls I was considering stripping. Now the work is complete you can’t see the joins.

    Cut a piece of replacement wall or lining paper larger than the area you are replacing. Using some low tack masking tape, stick it over the damaged area. Using a Stanley blade, cut through both the old wallpaper and the new replacement piece in an area bigger than the damaged piece, so that you score right through both layers. Remove the cut-out piece and put to one side. Remove the masking taped piece and now work gently to remove the bits of paper around the hole till you meet the scored edge from where you cut through both layers. When this is done, paste up, and the cut out and the existing wallpaper whole will be exactly the same.

19. Painting the woodwork. If your house is old, there could be many layers of paint. Stripping it back to the wood can be done and can also look glorious, but if you’re planning on keeping it painted, consider whether it’s another job you need to add to the list. Given the size of this project, I opted to fill in deep chips ( and there were many) with wood filler, and sand back shallow chips for simply priming. The point at which stripping back can make a difference is with tightly fitting door or window frames, when even a coat of paint or two could make the difference between a door shutting or not, or if there are so many coats you’ve lost all of the gorgeous Georgian or Victorian detail. I have in the past removed paint from ornate cornice using that paint stripper stuff you slather on for exactly this reason.

20. Learn to love the prep. Indulge yourself, take your time, as this is what is going to make the difference. It can be messy work and even if it seems endless, it’s much better to get it all out of the way. Wash down ( some people use sugar soap, I just used cloth, hoover, duster to get rid of the cobwebs), fill cracks where surfaces meet with painter’s caulk. Fill cracks in continuous surfaces with surface filler like toupret or polyfilla. Patch wallpaper if necessary. Prime bare surfaces with 10% diluted matt paint, or some other primer.

21. The order of painting… I always do the ceiling first, then the walls and then the floor.

22. Masking vs freehand painting. There are two schools of thought on this. If you have a steady hand and nice sharply defined edges betwixt wood and wall, you can just … paint by hand. If on the other hand, the skirting board is bumpy and jagged, if you paint exactly to the edge of the wall you’ll end up with a bumpy line. Here you can do worse than masking a straight line at the bottom of the wall and painting the woodwork to follow this - there will be some wood paint on the wall, but the line will be straight iyswim. Same goes for bumpy cornice where it meets the wall. Tape a straight line as near to the cornice as possible and paint above it the same colour as the cornice.

    

23. Troubleshooting. If something doesn’t work there’s always another way. The bannister is an example here - I thought I’d use paint stripper as I’d seen on instagram. However, whatever this varnish was, it wasn’t coming off with the eco-friendly easy to use stuff. Sanding was the only way. And to do the underneaths, the iron-shaped sander wouldn’t fit so I had to invest in a special file sander which was long and thin to do the Job.

    Another example - some of the gaps in between my floorboards were just too thick to fill directly with caulk. I just happened to have some corn starch packing pebbles to hand, and wondere what would happen if I dampened them and shoved them into the gaps. It worked wonders is what happened - forming a secure surface when dry onto which the caulk could rest. Seems to be fairly durable too, as the first tranche of work was finished about an eighteen months ago now.

24. Beg Borrow and Improvise. Tools - you don’t want to buy things you’ll never need again, and it’s always worth asking your friends if there’s something you’ll only need once, like a wallpaper stripping machine, or electic mitre saw. Whilst I’m all for proper tools, a degree of improvisation is to be encouraged - my favourite filling implement is a round ended butter knife whose bone handle I ruined in the dishwasher…

25. Products. Do use the correct compound for the job. Flexible filler is good for cracks in between meeting surfaces but not as effective for filling holes in woodwork for example. For wood work filling, there are two major groups of product - epoxy based or ready mixed water based. while the epoxy based is a more durable product, i found the water based stuff so easy to use I opted for this in areas where heavy use wasn’t likely to cause much damage, or where multiple layers of paint would keep any repair product in place.

26. Spray painting machines. These are marvellous for rooms where it is easy to mask off areas you aren’t painting, or where you want to paint the whole thing one colour. Also where you can shut a door and prevent the spray from going everywhere. I quickly learned that masking off a stairwell was nigh on impossible so put the sprayer away. When spraying, the actual painting takes mere moments, but masking takes a considerable amount of time. Yellow or green frog tape and plastic sheeting really are invaluable here, as masking ceilings you need something light and easy to manage. For painting my Georgian windows, I used paper cut to size and edged with masking tape. Spraying was a very easy way to paint these. If the light is really bad, when covering up windows use clingfilm instead of paper.

27. Sanding. An electric sander is certainly useful for big areas, but they are not always best. Sometimes, the peace and quiet of sanding by hand is a welcome relief from the noise and the mess. IF you’ve a helper, they can hold a hoover nozzle nearby while you sand, this definitely helps; electric sanders, even if they have collection containiners, make massively more mess.

28. Paint. If you hire a decorating professional painter hewill not be using B&Q value range paint. He will be using one of the trade brands. Are trade paints better? Yes. Or premium paint brands? Yes, some of them. I am a fan of little Greene paint company, and dulux trade. The coverage is excellent and st I actually ended up with far too much little green paint left over, as the coverage was so good, I over ordered. I gave everything two coats. I’m an eggshell fan for woodwork, and prefer washable vinyl Matt for walls.

29. Feelings - not a discussion strong point for me, but expect to go through a whole series of emotions from gung-ho ready-to-go to sitting sobbing on the stairs or throwing things because it’s all too difficult/boring/pointless. It isn’t any of those things, you’ve just reached a stumbling block. Indulge yourself a while, then make a nice cup of tea and see if you can pinpoint the problem. Maybe this bit you can’t solve alone and you might need someone else to talk it through with, or help. No shame in that - not point spoiling the

    whole thing because you’re trying to do something outside your skill set. Be kind to yourself, it’s your project and you can start and stop it when you like. When it’s all over, the relief, euphoria and self satisfaction will make it all worth it, and then expect the massive anticlimax because it’s all over. Time for another project! I have also found myself fault finding; “ I think the woodwork all needs another coat” etc….

In conclusion

My time was much better spent doing this than watching BBC police dramas that are indistinguishable apart from the titles ( Simpson, you’re off the case), or scrolling on Instagram. I doubly used my time wisely as I listened to all these books on audible as I painted. Now what shall I do next ?

First, a last minute invitation:

Book Launch!

Robin Sherriff, CEO of the Fermenter’s Guild and his brand new book The Science of Fermentation (see below) are travelling around the country with a series of launches, Tomorrow, Wednesday, 19th November at Bookhaus at the harbourside in Bristol where I have just been invited to join him to field any fermentation Qs you might have. I am assured that there will be delicious and interesting things to taste too. Tickets are available here and are a mere £7. Late notice, but if you’re free on Wednesday do come and say hello and get your signed copy hot off the press.

Book List

As the time to think about what you want to get people for Christmas is fast approaching, here’s a brief summary of some of ( in my most humble opinion) the best new fermentation books to help you choose. Do let me know your favourites in the comments too. In no particular order……

1. The Science of Fermentation by Robin Sherriff

Just published, Robin Sherriff, CEO of the Fermenters Guild and miso master has created a modern day fermentation bible, covering almost every type of fermentation you can think of: from lactofermentation to breadmaking, vinegar to miso, natto, tempeh, soy sauce, koji, comprehensive is a good description. It also explains WHY these reactions happen, looking at the chemical processes and microbes involved in fermentation in a depth no one else has attempted for the lay reader. It covers everything, but in a way that is suitable for everyone even a complete beginner. There have been many fantastic contributors to this book, including Kirsten Shockey, and Johnny Drain. Is it number one on the list because I did the microbiology pages? Of course not. It’s BIG, it’s yellow and its impressive!

Available here https://amzn.to/3XG5eEd or at Bookhaus

2. FERMENT: A Cookbook. Simple ferments and pickles, and how to eat them

Master fermenter Kenji Morimoto has written a practical guide that demystifies ancient preserving techniques and incorporates them into modern, flavour-packed recipes. It’s accessible to everyone, from beginners to experienced cooks. In two parts, it’s got practical methods first, followed by a very innovative recipe section, so a good choice if you want exciting things to do with fermented foods.

In stock at Amazon or Waterstones

Do Ferment: Gut Boosters and Foods that Fizz

Drawing on their experience at the award-winning Ethicurean restaurant, Matthew Pennington and Nicola Cradock demystify the process of fermentation, making it accessible for beginners. The book emphasises the health benefits and provides straightforward techniques with minimal equipment needed. I think it concentrates mainly on lactofermentation and pickling, so not as comprehensive as some, but I like the look of it and it’s got a good troubleshooting diagram – nice pictures.

Available at Amazon or The kitchen table

Adventures in Fermentation: From Ancient Origins to Culinary Frontiers, an Exploration of the Microbes That Shape the World We Live In

For something a bit different, chef and scientist Dr Johnny Drain takes us on a journey into the world of microbes and their significant impact on our lives, bodies, and food. More than just a cookery book, it’s an exploration of the vast possibilities of fermentation. It’s got personal culinary adventures, scientific discoveries, and practical recipes to guide readers on how to incorporate fermented foods into their own kitchens. I’m half way through - loving it!

Available here or at Waterstones

The Fermentation Kitchen: Recipes and Techniques for Kimchi, Kombucha, Koji and More

Sam Cooper is a chef, gardener, and author who focuses on seasonal and homegrown produce. This book covers an array of authentic and adapted fermentation techniques from around the world, with recipes for kimchi, miso, kombucha, ginger beer, and koji-based dishes. It also includes guides on flavour, texture, aroma, and recipe ideas for incorporating ferments into daily cooking. He shows that fermentation, is a safe, simple, and satisfying process. The book explains the science behind fermentation and provides, step-by-step instructions. The recipes are quite out there some of them, so for the more adventurous maybe?

Available here

Of Cabbages and Kimchi

From James Read, Journalist, author and owner of top selling kimchi brand “Kim Kong Kimchi”, this is a very pretty publication, with gorgeous illustrations by Marija Tiurina. While focused on lactofermentation and with plenty of recipes, it’s about more than methods, delving into the rich cultural and historic backgrounds of fermented foods and exploring how microbes have influenced human culinary evolution. Recipes cover both how to make the ferments and then how to use them. It’s a small chunky book – good for a fat stocking present.

Available here or The Falmouth book seller

Fermented Foods a practical guide and Vinegar

So because this is my Substack I absolutely am going to mention my own books just in case you don’t already have them (😜). My practical approach to fermentation has lots of pictures, lots of troubleshooting and lots of practical advice, as well as quite a lot of science. It’s focussed on lactofermentation so a good one to get to grips with krauts, kimchi, kefir, kombucha, kvass, all the Ks, in a practical way, with basic principles that can endlessly embellished and built upon.

Available here….

Slightly more specialised, Vinegar contains all the information you need to make your own… Vinegar! It’s a fascinating process that deserves to be more widely understood and makes a nice little side hobby that doesn’t take up too much time.

Available here

I should really advertise this as a tri-annual news letter - hey ho at least there’s no risk of me overloading your inbox! In my defence it’s been a crazy few months chez Gilmartin. It seems to have coincided with the return home of Hugo, post graudating from Foxes, 🤨 ( for the uninitiated, Foxes Academy is a marvellous college where young adults with learning disabilities are trained to work in the catering industry, with practical sessions at the Foxes Hotel in Minehead, where you absolutely must stay if you ever head down that way. More Info HERE! ). Anyway, he does love to keep me on my toes… and there’s been precious little time for much other than organising accommodation, work and support for him, though actually when I stop to think about it, I have ….

• · Made about 20 kilos of kimchi ( not ALL for me! – I continue to make better and better kimchi, it’s a bit like sourdough, you can build on previous experience. Current fridge view…. Actually there’s been a lot of fermenting going on!

• Did my first online kefir course ( not an unqualified success – I thought I had recorded it, so the participants could permanently keep it, but massively failed to do so)

• Did a joint kombucha workshop with my partner-in-brine Joanna Webster

• Did a talk & lactofermentation demo for the Avon Organic Group down at St Stephen’s Secret Café in the centre of Bristol which was extremely diverting with lots of interesting questions.

• Did a talk and kimchi/kraut/kvass demo at a bustling cicchetti bar in Cardiff, Bacareto with Laure from Absorb Health which was also great fun.

• Written several inserts for a new book called the Science of Fermentation, by the inimitable Robin Sherriff ( Chair of the Fermenter’s Guild, and Miso Master – we’ve done several classes together), just published!

• Investigated making kefir with more than one milk – good for the diversity of end products, I recommend it…

• Attended online the Stamford fermented foods conference – I knew I should’ve gone in real life; those that did had a blast and I got serious FOMO

• Oversold my water kefir grains and have been gradually gradually growing them back to selling quantities again!

• Helped my pal James from Nania’s Wildbrew calibrate his new Alcohol Meter and established that my continuous brew kombucha has a very respectably low ABV of 0.25%!

  

• Prepared a presentation for Fermentation Summit 2025 - See Below!

• Finally woken up my sourdough starter – let’s make some bread!

So WHAT’S NEXT? Here’s what’s in the pipline…

NEXT WORKSHOP 30th November 2025. KIMCHI KNOWHOW

Jo Webster and I are doing a kimchi knowhow day; part demo, part workshop, part presentation,part feast, we’ll be looking at all kinds of kimchi, making my very favourite type of kimchi, pickles, cheong, and using our kimchi in cooking a lunchtime feast. Jo will also tell tales of her recent trip to South Korea where she was in league with the Institute of Kimchi. The event will be at my house in Bristol but tickets are over on Jo’s Website because I couldn’t get it together to make the tech work on my website, and Jo just got on with it! Do BOOK HERE – half the tickets have gone, thus half are left! There’s a discount if you bring a friend.

Fermentation Summit 2025

If you’re not local, and want to find out all about all different kinds of fermentation, come to the online summit! I’m doing a presentation on many different kinds of kefir – I set up the experiment during a live session on Instagram, and the results will be shown exclusively here! I am the least auspicious of the presenters, who also include THE Kirsten Shockey and Mother of all things Kombucha, Hannah Crumb, and River Cottage’s Rachel de Thample. For more information, please FOLLOW THIS LINK! It’s FREE!

World Ferment Day 2026

February 1st is World Ferment Day! Why? Because Jo Webster said so and just made it happen ( I am in awe of her, I really am. I first met her in 2018 when she organised a Sauerkrautathon, an event to make the biggest batch of Sauerkraut EVER for the Guinness Book of records). ON that day, we’ve organised a JA-jang here in Bristol - a mini ferment- making festival where we will communally make something a little bit different - a very delicious Jerusalem Artichoke Ferment for you to take away, and there will be a delicious lunch feast too! Here’s the link for more information and booking

That’s it for now - as ever I am here to answer all and any of your fermentation queries when you need me!

Caroline x

NEW WORKSHOP MILK KEFIR ONLINE 20th JULY CLICK HERE!

Good morning/afternoon/evening dear reader!

Given the disparate origins of our most popular fermented foods, it’s quite a coincidence that most of them seem to begin with a K: kefir, kimchi, kombucha, ‘kraut, kvass, koji. And luckily, therefore, this gives rise to the following excellent maxim, which any proponent of fermented foods will stand by including me, obviously.

What’s the evidence?

The health benefits of fermented foods have been intensively investigated, and the balance of evidence shows that yes, they really are good for you. They are sometimes called “Functional Foods” - a phrase coined in the 1990s to describe foods that can beneficially affect bodily functions.

Did you know that functional foods have been known about for well over a hundred years? Nobel-prize winning scientist, Elie Metchnikov first made the link when he was studying the incredible longevity of Bulgarian peasants which he linked to the yoghurt they ate daily and copiously.

Fermented foods deserve their “superfood” status and can benefit health through :

1. Their direct nutritional value,

2. Bioactive compounds they contain, produced by the fermentation process

3. The large numbers of potentially probiotic microbes they contain,

4. Their ability to directly provide nourishment for indigenous gut microbes

5. The positive interactions of the microbes in the food (that survive gastric transit) with the existing microbes in you gut

What are probiotics?

These are officially defined as ‘live microorganisms, which when consumed in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host’.

If you start to include fermented foods in your diet what will you find?

Now here’s a question, and the answer lies anywhere on the spectrum from “ a whole new lease of life” to “ exactly the same”. Ask a regular kefir-drinker/eater and they’ll likely tell you about their new found source of energy, their reduced cravings for sweet foods, their excellent bowel habits, their resilience to upset stomachs, etc… BUT, even if you do feel exactly the same, it doens’t mean it’s not working. Recent research has highlighted the microbiota’s significant influence on cancer therapies, age-related immune decline, metabolic diseases, drug metabolism, and disease prevention. Eating fermented foods could help future-proof you in ways we mightn’t be able to physically feel.

But as we all get sick and die in the end, and because you are unique, you’ll never know if your fermented foods have helped or not! That’s a depressing thought. Moving quickly on.. it’s a good thing fermented foods are also delicious! Which leads me neatly to the recipe below for Kimchi Rice. It’s more of a concept that a recipe, and can be endlessly enhanced and altered. This is my current favourite lunch. Even my kimchi-shy husband has found himself craving it - upon cooking, kimchi develops and entirely new set of flavours.

Is the microbial activity retained? Probably some of it will be - there is accumulating evidence that even if the microbes are dead, elements of themselves, and anything heat stable, can still have positive effects. If enhanced gut health is your primary goal, why not add a spoonful of fresh kimchi on the side?

Basic Kimchi Rice recipe

(Serves 2 as a main or 4-6 as an accompaniment)

Ingredients

250g cold rice - see note below.

3-4 heaped tablespoons of kimchi, finely chopped, and/or kimchi juice

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil (or what you usually use for frying) or sesame oil for flavour

2 heaped tablespoons of chickpeas, cooked lentils, any pulse you like (optional)

2 heaped tablespoons of feta (optional)

1 egg

To go on top:

1 tablespoon of seaweed flakes, or chopped coriander, dill, other green herb (optional)

Sesame seeds, toasted or not (optional)

Spring onions, finely sliced (optional)

A spoonful of plain yoghurt

Method

You can make this in a stainless steel frying pan - let it heat till splashed water bounces merrily around the pan, then add the oil. Let that heat up and then add the oil. * (*don’t use a cast iron pan for this, as it’s acidic it will un-season it!)

When the oil is hot, set the pan to a medium heat, add the kimchi and let it fry for 3 or 4 minutes, till warmed through and the smell has changed - it will begin to smell as though it’s cooking

Add the rice, and pulses if using, and stir through.

If it’s very dry, add about 50ml water, just to keep it all moving.

heat through, add in your cheese if you want it to melt.

Fry your egg - sunny side up of course! (I always cover mine so the top turns opaque and there is no vestige of uncooked white, whilst retaining a runny yolk).

Assemble in a dish - top the kimchi rice with any toppings you’re using, then balance delicately the egg on top, or place jauntily on the side - seasoned appropriately!

The Rice

Most recipes recommend using cold rice, as freshly cooked hot or warm rice goes to mush quite easily in the pan. I would recommend reheating cold rice for an additional reason; when rice is cooked, (responsibly) cooled and reheated, the structure of the rice starch is altered, making it harder for our bodies to break down. It’s known as resistant starch and becomes food for our gut microbes, and human studies have shown a lower glycaemic response than with freshly cooked rice. (REF 1) .

I pressure cook large batches - Camargue red rice is my current favourite), cool rapidly by running through with cold water in a sieve, then split into 250g aliquots which I freeze. You can cheat and use a Tilda sachet - I love the sticky rice ones, but be careful not to pick something with loads of additives in. Sometimes I use Pilau rice which sounds like it might be at the extreme end of mixing cultures; cumin, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon shouldn’t work here but they do!

You can also substitute or mix in pearl barley, spelt, couscous, quinoa, whatever you have to hand.

The Kimchi

This is a great way to use up older or softer kimchi, as a more acidic flavour and softer texture will be advantages when the dish is ready. That said, if you’ve only got fresh kimchi don’t let that stop you!

The Extras

From the rnumber of optional ingredients you’ll have worked out that this can be as simple as kimchi and rice, or a multi-layered affair:

• You can start by frying some bacon, pancetta or pork, or mushrooms before you add the kimchi.

• I usually add a pulse of some sort because why not? Good for fibre and protein. Beluga lentils and chickpeas are my favourites.

• I love to melt in some feta or other sharpish solid cheese but you can use whichever cheese takes your fancy - I’ve tried everything from a blob of Boursin to grated cheddar. If you don’t do dairy you can add some yeast flakes or cashew cheese.

• I always have a tub of slow roasted tomatoes in the fridge - these are delicious additions, or if you’re craving a touch of tomato-iness, a tablespoon of tomato purée will do. - add with the rice, when you’ve fried off the kimchi

• I always fry my egg but of course you can poach it or even stir it in with the rice if you like.

• You could add extra garlic if you wanted, frying this to a lightly golden brown beforeu adding the kimchi.

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References

Begum, Pathan S.; Madhavi, Gujjula1; Rajagopal, Senthilkumar2; Viswanath, Buddolla3; Razak, Meerza A.1; Venkataratnamma, Vanitha4,. Probiotics as Functional Foods: Potential Effects on Human Health and its Impact on Neurological Diseases. International Journal of Nutrition, Pharmacology, Neurological Diseases 7(2):p 23-33, Apr–Jun 2017. | DOI: 10.4103/ijnpnd.ijnpnd_90_16

Sonia S, Witjaksono F, Ridwan R. Effect of cooling of cooked white rice on resistant starch content and glycemic response. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2015;24(4):620-5. doi: 10.6133/apjcn.2015.24.4.13. PMID: 26693746.

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We share our planet with about 65,000 other species of vertebrate. 64,999 of them go about their daily lives, just being rabbits, deer, tigers, cod, peregrine falcons etc… instinctively eating for survival. When they are hungry, they look for food and then they eat it, having been furnished with/evolved the skills to make this possible, whether it’s nibbling grass or dive-bombing a vole. And then they do something else; have a nap maybe, mark out their territory, tend to some offspring, sit and gaze into the distance, etc…

Just one species has the capacity to make a meal of it (accidental pun) and we’ve got ourselves into a right pickle; we think we know so much, and yet it seems, still not enough to know what eating like a human really is.

The quest for deliciousness

How have we ended up here? Evolutionary theories suggest that when we started to cook, about 750 thousand years ago, enhanced nutrient availability led to brain development, changes to our jaw, skull and nasal anatomy, which in turn led to better developed taste, and the concept of deliciousness. This plays a huge part in our daily lives, and our relationship with food extends far beyond mere survival; it shapes human behaviour, culture, environment, health and longevity.

Omnivores and Processivores

There’s a staggering amount of choice when it comes to food. 85% of us are omnivores, extending this even further. We’re quite special in this regard as only 3% of animals are omnivorous (roughtly 2/3 of the remainder are carnivores, 1/3 herbivores REF 1).

In contrast, Minty the cat eats the same thing, chicken IAMS pebbles, every single day. She is content; she self-regulates from her feeding tower, doesn’t forage for scraps from our plates and has maintained the exact same weight for 3 annual vet visits 😮.

If you’ve read Ultra-Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken (haven’t managed to finish it yet I’m afraid REF 2), you’ll know the term “processivore”. We are the only animals with the capacity to significantly alter our food, over and above the mechanical & chemical transformation of the digestive process: heating, grinding, drying, fermenting, salting are just a few examples. In the last 70 years or so, we’ve taken this to ridiculous extremes in our quest for convenience, hyper-palatability, flavour, and cheapness – aren’t we clever?

Why does it matter?

The right to be concerned about your diet or your health is yours and yours alone - It doesn’t have to matter at all. Some of us are content to rely on medication to offset the effects of what we eat. For me, though, I learned that eating well made me feel 20 years younger when I was about 40, and as I approach my 60s I want to maintain the status quo. Some of what’s coming to me will be genetically determined but if I can influence staving off the statins, blood pressure meds and metformin, so much the better. But everywhere I turn, conflicting voices whisper and if I, from the edge of the health/food arena, can’t navigate the maze, then how is anyone supposed to?

Here are some of the contradictory views I’ve encountered recently –you’ll get the point after a few lines and can skip the rest, but once I had started, I couldn’t stop!

THE DIATRIBE

Eat more fibre. Fibre is overrated, Innuits don’t need fibre. Plant-based is the only way. Vegetables are trying to kill you with lectins and oxylates. Only eat red meat and lettuce. Eat raw chicken to stimulate your immune system (yes, really). Eat fish. Avoid Fish it’s got mercury in. Eat meat substitutes. Avoid meat substitutes they’re full of additives. Don’t worry about the emulsifiers, your gut microbes won’t mind. Avoid sugar substitutes, because they might upset your gut microbes. Eat sugar substitutes because they don’t cause glucose spikes. Glucose spikes don’t matter. Unless they do matter. Don’t use seed oils, only the finest hand squeezed EVOO, unless it’s Zoe in which case do use seed oils. Don’t eat butter you’ll have a heart attack and get atherosclerosis. Don’t drink cow’s milk, it’s got lactose in. Drink oat milk. Don’t drink oat milk full of carbs. Drink soya milk, it’s got phytoestrogens. Don’t drink soya milk, it’s got phytoestrogens. Fruit it’s full of sugar so don’t have ,that unless it’s berries because those are superfoods. Never juice. Unless you’re on a juice diet. Never eat ultra processed foods – make everything from scratch. Collagen will change your life. Collagen peptides aren’t absorbed you’re wasting your time.

Avoid sugar. Don’t deny yourself because you should be able to have exactly whatever you want and be who you want to be. Avoid alcohol. Drink red wine. Sleep is crucial, eight hours a night or you’ll get Alzheimer’s. If you are a night owl don’t worry, it’s a sign of intelligence. Eat protein before bed for a good night’s sleep. Ensure you fast from 8 pm to allow your gut microbiota to do its job properly. Eat fermented foods but they contain histamines and salt so don’t. Avoid salt. Salt is important. Eat organic because of the pesticides. Eat lots of protein. Protein turns to fat and carbs. Eat more food to lose weight not less. Eat fewer calories to lose weight you eat too much. There’s no point exercising to lose weight. Exercise to burn calories. You can’t exercise yourself out of a big meal. watch your portion size . Calories don’t matter. Yes they do. No they don’t. Watch your macros instead. Don’t eat carbs. Do eat carbs. Don’t eat fat, you’ll get high cholesterol. Eat fat especially beef fat, it’s healthy. Never eat bread, it is the devil incarnate. Supermarket bread won’t kill you! Supplement, supplement, supplement. Don’t supplement they don’t work.

Why is there so little consensus?

The bottom line is, life is vast, cellular and genetic complexity is enormous, no matter how clever we think we are, we have got a long way to go. Health and nutrition research on subjects as variable as humans is tricky and hard to reproduce. A recent study found that more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist’s experiments (REF 3). It is after all only 25 or so years since the human genome was decoded, and the gut microbiome even became a thing. We’re getting there but we still don’t fully understand the mechanisms behind type 2 diabetes, heart disease, MS, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis or many cancers. Although we want answers right away, we’re a long way from that yet, and the search, meeting many dead ends along the way results in the chaos.

Which Guru do you do?

In recent years, instead of relying on our GPs for health advice, a new phenomenon has arisen. The epoch of the Health Guru is upon us, fuelled by the recent growth of both social media, and health and nutrition research. A mixture of doctors, scientists, nutritionists, all believe they have the answers we need for increased healthspan and longevity.

Tim Spector, the late Mosely, Rupy Aujila, Zoe, Glucose Goddess, Rhiannon Lambert, Rangan Chatterjee, Emily Leeming, Davinia Taylor, Chris van Tulleken, Zoe, Jason Fung are some of the most famous healthfluencers, but by no means is their advice universal. Everyone, myself included, has their own perspective: I found that kefir made me feel better, the Glucose Goddess found that regulating glucose helped her, Tim Spector had a mini stroke which led him to investigate his metabolic heath, Michael Mosely was a thin fat person on the verge of having diabetes, or others have become interested in and specialised in nutrition, and are sharing methods that work for them.

On t’interweb information spreads fast, and it’s easier than ever before to get your voice heard (even about 2000 people will glance at this post and no-one’s heard of me!). Spread of misinformation is also therefore easier – a little confidence, a personal belief, an airbrushed TikTok reel and there you go, you’re selling collagen to the masses. There is lots of very loud shouting out there, and everyone wants to be right. The vegans love their vegan lifestyle. The carnivore dieters love theirs. The 30 a week brigade are content; the keto lovers too. So who’s right?

There’s more than one way to skin a cat

One conclusion we can draw is that different approaches work for different people, i.e. it’s possible to improve your health via various routes. This isn’t that surprising when you consider the enormous variation in the human population. We are not lab-rat clones; we are genetically unique, with different diets, environments and histories; we react to interventions differently.

But how, then, do we know who to listen to? How can we tell if they’re physically like us, whether they’ve got our best interests at heart, if their advice is based on sound scientific evidence or if they’re more interested in lining their own pockets then our own well-being? Our choices are limited…

· Ignore all the noise and keep munching the hobnobs.

· Pick and choose bits of advice that you like the sound of.

· Try something and see if it works, and try something else if it doesn’t.

· Pick one “expert” and stick with them.

· Do your own hardcore research and see where that takes you

· Seek specialist advice from a registered doctor, nutritionist, dietician, etc…

I have to say the “pick and choose” option was disastrous for me; Tim Spector, in his diet myths book propounded that calorie counting is rubbish, and that you can’t lose weight by exercise. He’s an expert, I thought. So I stopped minding what I ate and stopped exercising. Then the Zoe programme pronounced that nuts and the calories in nuts don’t match up – you don’t absorb all the calories in nuts, which I interpreted as carte blanche to eat my bodyweight in cashews and pistachios each day. After I’d put on about 10 lbs it was time for a rethink.

I am now firmly between the “try something” and “do your own research” camps, which is working much better. For ME I should add – one thing I do agree with Zoe about is that this stuff is person-specific. These are the top things that work for the Gilmartins…

• I Leave the biscuits and the crisps and the sweeties in the supermarket. If they are not in the house and we want something sweet, we have to make something instead. This means that it will immediately be a better choice. Homemade is always best. This works well if like me you are an excellent abstainer but a poor moderator (ie. One packet of hobnobs would last 15 mins tops).

• I buy ingredients not meals. I have become adept at throwing things together in the time it would take to reheat a ready meal. Also immediately a better choice.

• We drink more kombucha and less ( for me, no) booze.

• Pulses, Rye bread, Seeds, apples are easy fibre wins.

• I freeze rice and pasta and reheat for an additional resistant starch boost ( a type of fibre for your gut microbes).

• We have at least one of the Ks everyday Kefir, Kombucha, Kimchi, ‘Kraut, Kvass, you choose – there’s something for everyone.

• We move. Any exercise is better than no exercise. Even an exercise hater like me has learned to love Pilates.

• On holiday, I keep it up. There’s nothing worse than putting on ½ a stone eating overly salty and sugar-laden tourist food.

  

• · We keep busy. Hobbies are a fantastic distraction from boredom eating; I’ll whittle a spoon, decorate a stairwell, crochet a flower, or batch cook for the freezer.

• I eat smaller portions than my husband and son. After all I weigh 5 stone less than they do.

• Slow and steady wins the race, tomorrow is another day and there’s more than one way to skin a cat. If it doesn’t work out for us today, we can try again tomorrow.

• At my age, there are a lot of ingrained food based behaviours going on, too much to untangle probably, but you can teach an old dog new tricks. It’s never too late to try a different approach to wellbeing.

  

What are your top tips for navigating the maze? – always looking for new ideas, I’d love to know what works for you and yours - or whether you follow the advice of one or many, and if so, whom?

REFS

1. https://doi.org/10.1002/evl3.127

2. Ultra Processed People Chris Van Tulleken

3. https://doi.org/10.1038/533452a

   Thanks for reading Every Thing Good! Why not subscribe - it’s free.

When you make kombucha, even at home ( or maybe especially at home!), you’re running a mini biotech operation; the transformation of sweet tea into delicious sparkling tart deliciousness via a controlled natural fermentation process. As bacteria and yeasts in the cellulose SCOBY ulitise the the tea and sugar, they create new compounds - metabolites - that give kombucha its distinctive taste, smell and potential health benefits. Some examples are organic acids (acetic, gluconic, glucuronic), phenolic compounds, vitamins, amino acids, and a whole range of flavour compounds.

Now, the composition of a kombucha varies according to just about every factor you can think of; starting tea used, other additions, type of sugar, the water, temperature, the microbial profile of the SCOBY, humidity, light, which means that there’s likely to be a huge variation in those metabolites and flavour compounds too.

Traditional booch brewer Lou Dillon of Twisted Kombucha is collaborating with the London Metropolitan University and the S.T. Arts Initiative to undertake some research into the composition of both home-brewed and commercial kombucha. They will be examining the samples by mass spectrometry, which will reveal what is going on in those jars.

Now this is where you come in….

If you live in the UK and if you will have about 500ml of drinkable kombucha ( the point at which you enjoy drinking it) to spare in the next week or so, Lou would love to send you a couple of bottles to fill with your kombucha, which you could then return to her ( postage covered and return in the packaging).

All you have to do is message your the address to me below

They’re hoping to send out 10 sets of bottles this week, and then lots more going forward! When the project is completed you’ll be able to get the results. Please do share with any home kombucha brewers you might know that don’t subscribe to this Substack (they don’t know what they’re missing, clearly)

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PS try out Lou’s Kombucha if you are not a fan of home made, it is very delicious.

NEXT WORKSHOP

If you didn’t make it to the last Kombucha Workshop, fear not. Another one is afoot. This will be on Saturday May 3rd, again with Jo Webster, again at my home in Bristol, and again with samples, lunch, cake, tasters, testers, and the opportunity to take away your very own Kombcuha to love and nurture. More info HERE .

SUBSTACK LIVE Friday 14th Feb at 1 pm

I shall be joining the inimitable Jo Webster for a subscriber Q&A live over on her substack - we love a question, especially a difficult one so do send us any you’d like answered.

In the meantime, Happy Fermenting until next time,

Caroline x

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As someone who’s spent a long time trying to persuade people that fermented foods are lovely as well as good for you, I regularly feel that I’ve failed because there’s still a lot of nose-wrinkling and grimacing that goes on when one mentions kefir or sauerkraut. Well the dissenters can deny it all they like, but it’s becoming increasingly evident that having a gut-full of the right sort of microbes can positively influence hunger and fullness hormones, as well as just about every other metabolic function.

So, as Christmas is coming, and it’s not just the Goose that’s getting fat (the couple of pounds we gain over the festive season each year then never lose are often cited as an underlying cause of weight gain in middle age), here are some delicious recipes that really do prove that you don’t need to choose between flavour OR gut health, you can have both.

KEFIR ICE CREAM

You’ll be delighted to know that that the microbes survive the freezing process ( I did an experiment to prove that you could use a spoonful of the ice-cream to set a batch of milk).

Ingredients:

• 75 g sugar ( I used granulated)

• 25 g corn flour

• 125 mL of double cream

• 500ml kefir to your taste - I prefer using fresh kefir, some people like more of a tang in which case use older stuff. Obviously I used homemade though I am sure it will work with shop!

• *Optional 1 tbsp vodka for a softer texture*

Method

In a medium-sized saucepan, place cornflour, sugar and double cream. Heat gently stirring, it first goes very liquidy then starts to thicken. Remove from heat and leave to cool a bit. Whisk In 500 ml kefir (and vodka if using). Leave a few hours to cool in the fridge ( Add any other flavours you'd like to try at this stage) and then put in your ice cream maker. I like lemon zest, or vanilla.

If you have a Thermomix or other high speed blender you can freeze the unchurned ice-cream in a shallow container, then break into pieces and then volumise it in the machine ( Thermomix is 20 seconds on level 6, scrape down and repeat).

Mango Kefir icecream.

As an addition for the high speed blender version, I added ¾ bag of frozen mango chunks at the blending stage. Completely delicious. If you’re using a churning ice cream maker, you could separately whizz up the frozen mango before adding it to the churn).

As it's a recipe with not much fat it sets quite hard and needs 10 to 15 minutes to come to before serving, though this is reduced if you add the Vodka.

Secret Sauerkraut Salad

Someone commented on my instagram version of this “why hide sauerkraut?”. Well of course you don’t need to, but those who don’t like the thought of it won’t mind it here.

Ingredients:

3 /4 grated carrots

1-2 heaped tablespooons of sauerkraut

½ can chickpeas, drained ( Bold bean company are the Best!)

A Spring onion or two finely chopped

Juice of ½ lemon

Liberal drizzling of extra virgin olive oil

Tsp cumin seeds (optional)

Salt

Pepper

Simply shove it all together in a bowl and mix well. Chickpeas too for a little additional fibre. This is also absolutely delicious with lime juice instead of the lemon and a grating of fresh ginger ( thanks Heather Priestly for this!)

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

It’s suddenly the end of 2024 - where did that go? I have been meaning for ages to organise a kimjang style mini kimchi festival but life has kept getting in the way ( too much painting and decorating to be done!). November is the month for this in Korea but I thought better late than never and it could be a perfect opportunity to get together and make some Kimchi for Christmas ( very traditional ha ha!).

Therefore I have decided to seize the moment and organise two sessions before the end of the year - Sundays 8th and 15th December. To book please follow THIS LINK

Much shorter than my usual classes, as we’re all busy at this time of year, this will be kimchi and lunch focussed, but bring all your ferment questions as there will be lots of opportunity to chat - and don’t worry if you’ve not made it before, I’ll explain everything as we go. There will be mulled kombucha, there will be mince pies, there will be kimcheese toasties and soup too.

One of the underlying principles of Korean cooking is Son Mat, which I’ve written about before - the idea that the effort/love/emotion you put into cooking or preparing food enriches the finished product - what better concept to put into a Christmas present?

We’re going to be using a combination of local veggies mixed in with some typical kimchi ones, and the resulting kimchi will be one I’ve become quite obsessed with lately - a mixture of red and white cabbage as the base brassica element - it keeps brilliantly and is dryer than a more traditional Napa cabbage kimchi, so easier to transport if you’re giving it as a present.

Hope to see you there!

Caroline x

Did you see our last video, in which we tasted and talked about the differences, both in terms of production and flavour,  between homemade and various commercially produced kombuchas? If not, do click here.  We looked at a range of kombuchas: some produced using traditional methods, some that are filtered for shelf stability, others that remove all the sugar and add in sweeteners, and even preparations of concentrated kombucha for dilution, and powder in sachets. 

As we went through the process it became abundantly clear that all of these products are called kombucha, but .. are they really?  There is no proper definition; an ancient culture from the far east, thousands of years old, handed from person to person, generation to generation, via ancient trade routes, doesn’t really need a definition.  Until it lands up in 2024 when it’s become big business.  And when big business gets involved, processes tend to change, often to maximise profits, but also for product stability, ease of manufacture and reproducibility, qualities that consumers often demand.

So we devised a test that would identify just how much like real, home made kombucha, our bought samples were.  In theory, any batch of kombucha fed some sweet tea should be able to generate its own SCOBY (the microbially- generated cellulose mass that can look like it’s taking over the jar), if it contains the essential building blocks. In real kombucha, the symbiotic community of bacteria and yeasts is recognisable as particular to kombucha and it quite stable, so that batch after batch, real kombucha can be used as back-slop to make more kombucha. And importantly, the kombucha it makes time and time again looks like kombucha, smells like kombucha and tastes like kombucha.

So, the million dollar question is, which of the commercially-produced kombuchas we reviewed in our last episode can be successfully used as back-slop to make more kombucha?And how did Jo’s kombucha perform? Listen to the episode to find out.

All of the kombuchas tested were purchased by us, and products used were simply those that we have had experience of / were in the shops we frequent / had piqued our interest.

TLDL – Too Long Didn’t Listen Summary!

• We are looking at what makes a real kombucha - we have concluded a key test is one you can buy and use as a backslop to start a healthy and recognisable kombucha batch at home. Coincidentally the ones that did this are the ones that are produced using straightforward recognisable traditional kombucha-making methods.

• We mixed 200 ml of tea with 200 ml of each test kombucha. We left them with cloth covers at room temperature for 29 days, assessing pH and taste at the outset, day 17 and day 29 and visually assessing regularly. Lo Bros joined late, so fermented for 13 days. Nania’s Vineyard joined later, so only had 7 days fermentation time.  

• A real kombucha should be able to make a fresh batch of genuine and tasty kombucha when used to inoculate (or back-slop) fresh sugar-sweetened tea. The pH should fall as the brew progresses because of the organic acids produced by the kombucha microbial community.

• Our theory is that a good quality kombucha will produce a SCOBY; a cellulose mat containing bacteria and yeast (a process often driven by Komagataeibacter bacteria).

• We tested Remedy, Equinox, Momo, Cidrani, Pure Earth, Lo Bros (2 flavours), Nania’s Vineyard and Jo’s home-brew.

• The only batches that tasted and looked anything like kombucha were Momo and Jo’s home-brew. Nania’s Vineyard joined the experiment late, so had it been given more time, it likely would have come good as there was a nascent scoby forming (see video).

• Save for Remedy and Lo Bros, the pH in all the commercial samples (and Jo’s home brew) fell over time. With Remedy, the pH rose between days 1 and 17 and only started dropping after that. With Lo Bros, the pH never fell, it rose.

• Remedy, Equinox, Momo, Cidrani and Jo’s home-brew grew some form of SCOBY but only Momo and Jo’s home-brew grew what looked like true vibrantly healthy SCOBYs. Momo produces commercial kombucha using traditional methods, as does Nania’s vineyard which was behind, but had definitely started SCOBY formation.

• Equinox, Cidrani, Pure Earth, and Lo Bros all had some form of visible mould growth.

• In descending order of kombucha quality based on our criteria:

1. Momo and Jo’s home-brew (and likely Nania’s vineyard with more time).

2. Remedy

3. Equinox

4. Cidrani Pure Earth and Lo Bros.

• A drop in pH and some sort of growth on top is not sufficient to render something akin to a traditional kombucha.

• Kombucha contains a complex community of bacteria and yeast; traditional methods of making it maintain this community. Commercial methods that alter that process to try to better fit a live fermented product into our modern food production and transport systems disrupt this balance.

• Research claims that kombucha is anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-hypertensive, anti-hyperchoesterolaemic, anti-obesity, anti-oxidant, immunomodulatory, anti-microbial. There is evidence for all of this in animal and in vitro models but not yet in humans; the research has been done almost exclusively on traditionally made kombucha, where the complex community of bacteria and yeast produce a rich brew of bioactive components, as opposed to modern derivatives. REF 1.

• One pilot study of poor standard so far whose findings that it lowers blood glucose in diabetics with poorly controlled blood glucose is not reliable for various study design issues - one of which being they only ended up with about 7 people who did the whole study! But it’s a start. REF 2.

• Humans have been drinking traditionally made kombucha for thousands of years, but only drinking modern style kombucha for about 10 minutes. We don’t know whether these altered kombuchas share the same potential health benefits as traditionally made ones.

NB Earlier this year, BBC Good Food did a taste test looking at 30 different Kombucha brands – BUT not only do they say at the top of the article that they get commission when you follow a link ( THANKS JO for noticing that), it’s got nothing at all to do at all with kombucha quality. They should’ve asked us! Below you’ll find a method for working out whether your favourite shop booch is the real thing or not.

How to check whether your favourite kombucha is all it should be:

Take a bottle or can of your chosen booch.  Put 250 mls in a large jar like we used in the video.  Put a tea bag in 250 ml boiling water with approx 15g sugar ( a heaped tablespoon). Steep for 3-4 minutes, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then fish out the tea bag and leave it to cool.  When lukewarm, add to the kombucha you’re testing.  Cover with a close-woven cloth or paper towel, fasten with a rubber band and leave for about a month out of direct sunlight at room temperature.  Check back and see what you’ve got!

We do love a comment and/or a question.  Let us know your favourite kombuchas, and if you’re a home brewer that started yours from a bought bottle, we’d be very interested to know the brand.

We don’t do the paid subscription thing, but If you’ve found this article helpful, please share it, and you could always……

BUY JO AND ME A CUPPA!

Key references

1. Kombucha in Diabetics trial PMID: 37588049

1. Kombucha review by Andrade da Anunciação et al 2024  PMID: 38930509