I recently had the pleasure of chatting about fermentation with Sam Coffman of The Human Path. I love the work he is doing promoting self-sufficiency and teaching survival skills, and fermenting foods can play a part in the self-sufficient lifestyle. Next time I’m in San Antonio or Austin, I will definitely take a class there.

The Human Path is an ecology-based, wilderness-survival and wilderness-living school offering a huge variety of outdoor, bushcraft classes (outdoor fitness, wilderness and primitive living skills, wilderness medicine, herbology, self defense, teamwork and leadership, primitive engineering, permaculture certification, aquaponics, green building and much more) in both the San Antonio and Austin areas of Texas.

We spoke for about an hour on the benefits of fermentation. The recording is in two parts.

Part I: Listen Now [34:18]

• A bit of brief history: fermentation is a food preservation process that dates back thousands of years
• How fermentation imparts nutrients, vitamins and enzymes not present in processed or quickly prepared canned foods
• What does consuming living probiotic bacteria do to/for the body?
• Why is making food in small batches better for making friends with your neighbors?
• The difference between quick pickling techniques vs. slow fermentation and some parallels between fermentation and herbology
• What happens in the process of creating fermented foods
• Sauerkraut: make it in a week or over the winter….
• The equipment needed to get started
• What is wild fermentation?
• Turnips, carrots, cabbage: whats in your vegetable bin?  You can ferment all of it.
• How to make sauerkraut
• Why weighing down foods is important

Part II: Listen Now [24:50]

• What the ideal temperature is for fermentation
• How different times of years and locales can alter fermentation times and the outcome
• Surface mold – should you be concerned?
• Fermenting fruits: how a higher sugar content changes the process slightly
• How fruit can produce alcohol if the fruit fermentation time continues
• Fermenters Club: the online resources available and creating a way to try new recipes, swap foods and come together as a community
• Canning vs. fermenting
• What is the risk of botulism from fermenting?
• The importance of learning to trust the senses with home preserved foods.

Austin Durant

Author and founder of Fermenters Club. I’ve been fermenting food for 14 years.

In 2024, I published my first book, Fearless Fermenting.

When not stuffing things into jars, I enjoy permaculture gardening, cooking, yoga, writing, and studying cosmology and esoteric traditions.