Tell me if you can put wet leaves in the freezer. Or do you need to dry?
Elena, the leaves need to be dried, otherwise you will take them out of the freezer with ice.
I understood that we ferment in a saucepan under a damp cloth, and I also read somewhere that we ferment under oppression. I don’t understand which is more correct.
Lena, right this way and that. If we twist the leaves in a meat grinder, then there is enough juice for fermentation. You just need to crush the mass a little. And oppression is not needed here.
If you twist the rolls, then there is not much juice, so the fermentation may take longer and worse. This is especially true of naturally dry leaves - raspberries and currants. Then I freeze the leaves and the juice is much more when curled. But anyway, if you just put the rolls in a fermentation container, there will be no dense mass. That's when I put the oppression in order to compact the mass. So oppression helps to make the mass more moist, thereby fermenting more efficiently. I repeat that in the case of "meat grinder" tea, oppression is not needed. There the mass is already dense and moist enough.
my raspberry leaves lay in the freezer all night, and still some of them remained rough and dry. Apparently, such is their property. After twisting, the smell is not raspberry (in the sense of not berry), it smells like a leaf, so sour
Tanya, apparently, all have different freezers. And then you need to freeze the leaves longer. And it also depends on the number of leaves - the more leaves, the longer it freezes. Yes, let them lie there longer - nothing will happen to them, only it will be better! And one more thing: I usually try to make a bag with leaves as if flat, distributing all the leaves evenly over it. Then it freezes faster.
And after twisting, there will be no raspberry smell. In principle, it will not smell like raspberries. I wrote that a raspberry smell would be guessed. And it should appear during fermentation.Plus additional flavor will appear. In general, you need to wait for a very strong aroma and a change in leaf color to dark. Then the fermentation can be stopped.
your teas won me over! I am already mentally preparing myself, since there are plenty of cherries and blackberries.
Daria, I'm happy about it! Means, it is necessary to prepare seagulls!
One thing, but my oven is a real old woman, you can't set the temperature in it. What do you think, if the temperature is above 100 degrees, with vigilant supervision and stirring of tea, you can try? In order not to dry out the tea in the oven, what is better to be guided by smell or color?
It should work in the "old lady" too! Just make the fire minimal. Plus, it is advisable to lay out the bottom of the oven with a well-washed red old brick. Or put a pallet with sand down. Then there will be the effect of a Russian stove. And put a baking sheet with tea on the highest level. Well, be much more vigilant - watch the tea more often and interfere too. You need to focus not on the smell, and not on the color, but on the dryness of the mass. And it is better not to dry the tea in the oven than dry it out. Let it be not completely dry yet. Then you can dry it in an old pillowcase in a dry room. And if it is dry outside, then there is only shade.
And another option is to dry in a pan. First, over medium heat with constant shaking in the pan. And after 20 minutes - on low heat and constant stirring with a wooden or silicone spatula. I did this once, when the light was turned off, and it was already necessary to dry. But I didn't really like it - the bottom layer dried out very quickly. I could have put a gas divider on, but I don't have it. So everything is possible, even without a modern oven.
The best option is to do it in a cooling Russian stove. I have this very stove, but in the summer we do not heat it. So, girls who have a stove are also an option.
My daughter brought pear leaves, but they are dirty. Rinse-dry and then follow the instructions or rinse and freeze?
Tatyana, yes, wash and dry. In general, it is better to pass a pear through a meat grinder - it tolerates it remarkably. And don't bother - spin the rolls. I only make granulated tea from pears. Only then it is necessary not only to dry the leaves, but also to dry them to the extent that when the leaf is folded in half, the "crunch" of the central vein in most of the leaves will not be felt. Then it's time to send them to the meat grinder.
But if you are an opponent of a meat grinder, then wash, dry, freeze, defrost, roll rolls, etc.
Girls, but you can spin the rolls without freezing. Then you need to wither the sheet so that it becomes soft. Then it will be easier to curl than fresh. But what does the freeze have to do with it? Just freezing makes the curling process much easier. So I am fixated on this freeze. In general, practically no one freezes the leaves. In one place I saw that freezing helps to facilitate the process of rolling the leaves, so I now use it constantly. And if you have enough strength in your hands to twist the rolls until the leaf darkens from the juice released, then you can do without freezing for all the leaves, except for currants and raspberries. I do not have this strength, so I ice cream ...
That is, under oppression, only cherry leaves or all leaves are possible? Or are all the leaves not rolled into rolls after freezing?
Elena, I also wrote there that you can do this with any leaves. So, not only with cherries.
Let's get it in order. I
I do not put oppression on leaves twisted in a meat grinder - there is enough juice there. I just slightly crush the mass of granules with my hand.
A
I put under oppression or leaves, rolled.
Oras in the described cherry case -
whole leaves, not twisted or cut.
Why? Because the mass is not dense. And only
aerobic microorganismsliving on oxygen in the air. But for high-quality fermentation, you also need
fermentation... This is provided
anaerobic bacteria... And oxygen is harmful to them - they die with it. Therefore, the mass must be compacted so that the anaerobic bacteria can provide the fermentation process.
And also
good fermentation requires a sufficiently humid environment... When we twist the leaves in a meat grinder, there is enough moisture. If you roll the leaves, then there may not be enough moisture - not everyone has the strength to squeeze out a sufficient amount of juice from each roll. Freezing allows destruction of the leaf structure very evenly. And the juice is released much more than if we did it without freezing.
If you make tea from a whole frozen leaf (do not twist the rolls), then the mass will not be moist enough. For this, we will use oppression. Under the pressure, the juice will be allocated additionally.
In general, girls, remember how you ferment cabbage. You shred, crush it to make it juicy, put oppression on it. And then a lot of juice is released. Cabbage in this juice is fermented.
If you just cut the cabbage and, without crushing it, just put it in a saucepan, then our cabbage will not ferment. Why? Yes, simply because in this dryish and loose, not compacted mass, anaerobic bacteria cannot live and multiply. And since we did not provide anaerobic bacteria with a favorable humid environment without air access, then there will be no fermentation process. And we can't do cabbage.
So it is with our tea. We provide him with a moist, dense environment. For granulated (meat grinder) tea - crush the mass by hand. And for loose leaf tea from rolls or a whole leaf - oppression. Also, if the mass is dry, I spray the mass from a spray bottle with water - for reliability.
Phew, I wrote it ... I hope I explained it clearly.
Marina,
I immediately put all the leaves in a bag, about 0.5 kg, and then, when I was freezing it, I laid it out thinly, on a large plate and in the freezer. In the second version, they froze more, although all the same, such good sausages did not work out. Now the currants are in the freezer - let's see what happens.
Marina, indeed, the raspberry rolls are somehow "shaggy". But from currants - beautiful, even. Yes, I can see it in the photo. Indeed, this is a feature of every plant. But nothing, it will not affect the result - the raspberry leaf will not crumble later when cutting.
In the morning she began to grind in a meat grinder, but the granules did not work out, the leaves crumpled into a dense mass like a piece of plasticine and these pieces had to be picked out of the meat grinder.
Marina, This is because of the meat grinder. It was like that on my old mechanical. And when they bought an electric one especially for tea, everything began to work out. You can see it in my photos.
The smell turned out to be so familiar, they remembered and remembered with my husband - and remembered. It smells like a bathhouse! Birch brooms, when they are steamed Is this so necessary or have I got an individual aromatic shade? This is possible, since the leaves had to ferment for 8 hours at a temperature of 22-23 degrees, I did not have time for them earlier. Are you stuck or is the truncated in order?
Tatyana, I didn't smell of birch brooms. Maybe it was just a concentrated scent. And what smelled when drying? It should have smelled, of course, not of raspberries, but of a very pleasant scent with recognizable raspberry notes + an additional aroma. Tea should stand for at least another month for dry fermentation. If everything was done correctly, then you will feel raspberries in the smell. If the tea works out, then it will be good now. But after a month - much brighter and richer. And by autumn and winter - even better. And a year later - more and more ...
I am also interested in freezing wet leaves and most importantly: can I dry it in an airfryer ?? I don't have an oven at my dacha.
Oksana, about wet leaves, I have already answered - it is better to dry.
But I don't know anything about the airfryer - I don't have one. If you can set the temperature there to 100 * C or less, then you can.
You can also dry in a frying pan on gas. I wrote this in a recipe about Ivan-tea, in this recipe (in the text hidden under the spoiler - answer No. 6) and in the comments on this page (answer No. 89).
apparently, the juiciness of the leaves depends on the region in which the tree / shrub grows. Lyuda in Vyazma is both cooler and wetter, so the leaf turns out to be more full-blooded. And in our steppe, but on the sand, through which even a rare rain escapes like through a sieve, apple trees will soon transform their leaves into needles - well, like cacti to reduce evaporation. And after freezing raspberries, I was reluctant to give juice, although it seems to be irrigated ... So the processing method will have to be adjusted depending on the state of the feedstock. More details: https://mcooker-enm.tomathouse.com/in...on=com_smf&topic=389380.0
Tanechka, You are so smart! Indeed, you need to consider your conditions too.
After all, no one has yet written textbooks on the production of fermented teas at home. There is very little information on this subject on the Internet. Therefore, everything that is written here is an experience in my conditions. The main thing is to understand the principle! And there you can adjust everything to your own conditions.
Girls, it is clear that you want all of you to succeed the first time. But we have not only different weather conditions. We have the strength of our hands, which turns the rolls, is different, and freezers and meat grinders ... In general, I assure you. Do it a couple of times, everything in your head will be organized. and after 5 - 6 times, with your eyes closed and in passing, you will make tea.
Apple leaves have a wonderful smell! Karishnevye already all
ABOUT! The flight is normal! And this smell is not yet final! And the color is correct!
Sit down, five plus! Well done ! I'm looking forward to what's next!
