On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to his colleagues in the Senate, notifying them that in the likely event Republicans once again block voting rights legislation when it comes up to a vote on January 17th, he will be forcing both a debate and a likely vote on filibuster reform. Now, spoiler alert, you don't need to wait to see how Republicans are going to operate. They're going to block it. So there's no need to waste time. Just put it up to a vote and try to reform the filibuster force people like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema to get on the record and deny voting rights to Americans across the country. And honestly, like I appreciate the attempt here by Chuck Schumer, but why weren't you doing this months ago? Why are you waiting now until basically the last minute during a midterm year to try to reform the filibuster? Why weren't you talking about putting filibuster reform up to a vote months ago? I just, I mean, again, like, I don't want to say that this is a bad thing that he's doing, because at least he's making an effort. But I think that you already know the way that this is going to play out and knowing how Republicans aren't going to cooperate with you on anything, waiting this long just seems kind of foolish in hindsight. Does it not? Now, it doesn't really matter. You know, Chuck Schumer is trying to huff and puff in order to to scare Republicans into not blocking voting rights reform by making them think that, you know, the filibuster will indeed be reformed and they'll just bypass it. But I mean, that didn't work because Schumer's posturing proved meaningless after Joe Manchin one day later poured cold water on his dream of reforming the filibuster. I mean, I don't know why anyone would have expected otherwise. But the Hills Jordan Corny reports Senator Joe Manchin voiced skepticism on Tuesday over a Democratic push to change the filibuster along party lines, warning that his preference is for any rules changes to be bipartisan, being open to a rules change that would create a nuclear option. It's very, very difficult. It's a heavy lift, Manchin told reporters when asked about using the nuclear option in which Democrats would change the 60 vote legislative filibuster on their own. I'm talking. I'm not agreeing to any of this. I want to talk and see all the options we have open Manchin said, adding that it was his preference that any rule changes have Republican support. Good luck, buddy. You know, we're still having ongoing conversations as far as voting because I think the bedrock of democracy is making sure that you're able to cast a vote. Manchin said, let's just see. Conversations are still going. Yeah. You know, no filibuster reform, at least that's functionally what he's saying here, but yet I really care about democracy. Well, unfortunately for you, buddy, you've got to make a decision here. You can choose to keep the filibuster or you can choose to keep democracy. If you don't get voting rights legislation passed before the 2022 midterms, you're done. So, and it's not just that the Democratic Party is getting wiped out due to voter suppression, but democracy itself will be further eroded. What's left of our democracy will be compromised further by an authoritarian, explicitly anti-democracy party in the GOP. So you can't have your cake, it's democracy or the filibuster and Manchin here is signaling that he's siding with the filibuster. Some Senate rule, that's a relic of the Jim Crow era.  Joe Biden is the President of the United States. He has his bully pulpit and how often have we seen him use it when it comes to exerting pressure on people like Joe Manchin, Kirsten Sonoma, saboteurs in his own party blocking his agenda. Almost never. So, at some point, you've got to stop blaming Manchin and you have to place blame on Joe Biden because Joe Manchin's behavior is predictable. He loves the spotlight. He loves being the Democratic Party equivalent to Susan Collins. He loves all of this, but what would get him to stop or at least possibly reconsider is the President of the United States doing anything. I mean, just trying to exert a minimal amount of pressure and others have made this point, but I think it's worth restating. You know, Kyle Kalinsky, David Dole, they've talked about how you can use your AG to go after Joe Biden's daughter for corruption with regard to the price fixing scheme regarding EpiPens, but he's not doing that. In fact, he gave Joe Manchin's wife a job, threatened to fire her. Like it's dirty, but when so much is at stake, climate change, U.S. democracy, I think that you kind of have to fight with fire. At least fight fire with fire, but Joe Biden isn't even bringing a knife to a gunfight. He's cowering in fear to members of his own party and running away. And at some point, you've got a question. Is it just incompetence or is it that Joe Biden doesn't actually believe in the agenda that he ran on? Does he feel really comfortable and happy about the fact that Joe Manchin is perpetually going to be his fall guy? I don't know, but this is why people like myself on this channel, if you go back in 2019, 2020, we were pushing for someone like Bernie Sanders against Joe Biden because Bernie Sanders actually cared what Bernie Sanders couldn't accomplish. He'd at least use his executive powers to push.  Joe Biden isn't fighting members of his own party that's obstructing his own agenda and any president in theory should not like that. I mean, do you remember during the Trump years when any Republican would fall out of line? Trump would rip them on Twitter. Trump would never stop criticizing them. The president sets the agenda. So yes, I blame Joe Manchin. I blame Chuck Schumer for failing to be a good leader in the Senate because, I mean, for years, Chuck Schumer has basically had a pretty loz-eye-fair approach to leadership. Just let your members do what they want to. You know, if they come from a purple or red state, let them just be functionally Republicans. That's fine. But now, all of a sudden, he's trying to be a leader and you kind of set the tone and they don't respect you as a leader. They don't listen to you and that's why a day after you make a threat to Republicans, you know, you have someone like Joe Manchin shooting that down. You have no authority. They don't respect you. So the one thing that can make a difference is the president. But Biden isn't acting and it's maybe because he's weak. Maybe he's incompetent. But also, this is his decision. It's by choice. He's letting people like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sonoma set the agenda in his party, which is to do nothing and get wiped out at the end of the year. So, you know, again, not to sound like a broken record, Manchin is at fault here and we should be mad at him for this. But at some point, when is Joe Biden going to corral members of his own party and get something done before they get obliterated, before his approval rating tanks even further? I don't know.


The DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware, makers of better things for better living through chemistry, presents the Cavalcade of America, tonight's star, Dane Clarke. I can see it now as I saw it the first time. A humpbacked purple silhouette squatting on the horizon. Eerie, ominous, foreboding, the big mountain. Tonight, our DuPont Cavalcade brings you a suspense drama of adventure and discovery set in the jungle heart of Venezuela. Our star, Dane Clarke, has Ronnie Latham. We're the guys who slogged our way through snake-infested jungles. We're the guys who laughed at native superstitions, who hacked our way through a wilderness to come up with the greatest mineral discovery of our time. But let's face facts, let's face them. Nothing we did could have been done without the backing of a group of men who never got within 3,000 miles of the big mountain. Never saw it, never knew it existed. You want to know where an adventure story like ours begins? The last place in the world you'd ever look. The boardroom of the United States Steel Corporation in Pittsburgh, half a dozen years ago. A quiet room, a group of quiet men listening to a report by J. G. Munson, vice president in charge of raw materials. Gentlemen, we face critical situation, and we'd be criminal to blind ourselves to the facts. At the present rate of peacetime steel consumption, the country's current reserve of good quality iron ore in the Lake Superior District will be used up in 20 years. This nation has built itself for 50 years out of that misabi iron ore range, and it's reaching the bottom of the barrel. So they estimate 20 years. If America should become involved in another war, it would take even less. Well, you've given us the facts, Munson. Pretty brutal facts, we all agree. What are your proposals? Find high-quality iron ore. The country needs it. Find it fast, anywhere, any place. Search for high-grade ore. Not just another survey with a few field operations here and there, but the biggest, most comprehensive ore search in history. Uh, what will it cost, Mr. Munson? In the way of answering that question, it'll probably cost millions. Uh, may turn up nothing. That's right. But we have the resources, the finances, the know-how to conduct an operation as extensive as this. So it's a gamble we must take. I repeat that. We must take. United States Steel must take. It began in 1946. Hundreds of men in a dozen different lands scouring the world for iron. Reports flying into Pittsburgh from Quebec, from Tunisia, British Columbia, from Sweden, Guatemala, Africa, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil, Newfoundland. And the answer on most of those reports? Negative. No good. Nothing of value. But one report. One report really showed promise. Chief of the field forces in Venezuela was Mac Lake. He grabbed the plane in Caracas and was in Pittsburgh 14 hours later to talk to Munson and his associates. Here's the situation, Mr. Munson. We know there's iron ore in Venezuela. Plenty of it. We've found some pretty good locations, but we're sure that the pay dirt hasn't been found yet. The mountain ridges on which all the major iron ore deposits have been found so far twist back and forth east and west right through the heart of the deepest, thickest tropical jungle. It's practically impossible to survey it by foot. It would take years. Too many years. Oh, what do you propose, Mac? An aerial survey of the whole region. That'll be a mighty expensive operation. It'll cost plenty. We're in this up to our hip boots as it stands, Mac. There's no turning back. Order the survey. By January 1947, the air survey was in full swing. I came into the picture just about then, fresh out of engineering school. The ink on my diploma's still wet. Our field headquarters was set up in Ciudad Boliva, a little stew pot of a city on the banks of the Orinoco. I remember the hours we spent huddled over the strips of air photos. Foka Kielstedt, Cabarel, Jose Inieto and myself tracing the mountain ridges as they twisted back and forth south of the Orinoco, east of the Caroni River. Then on the photos, we saw the iron pock mountain range suddenly run westward. We traced it as across the Caroni River and headed like an arrow toward a group of high cliffed hills that rose some 2,000 feet above the surrounding Sibana. Cabarel called over to Jose. Jose, Manda, Sr., what do they call this place? Where, Sr.? Here. Does it have a name? Ah, I see. That is what the natives call the Big Mountain. It is named the Cerro Boliva. Cerro Boliva, the Big Mountain. Everything about it seemed right. Every scrap of evidence we could pick up from the air photos seemed to say, this was it. This might be the payoff. The decision was made quickly with no arguments. There's no use waiting. Taking any chances on waiting. We'll take the Jeep and head out for the Big Mountain at dawn. Our Jeep gave up the ghost a few miles out of La Perida. So we hoofed it into town and Miracle of Miracles found a native who owned a truck. His name was Sebastian Sandoval. Oh, no, Sr., I am very sorry, but not to the Big Mountain. Why not to the Big Mountain? It is a bad place. What's bad about it?  Sometimes even from here we can hear the mountain shake itself.  I am a truck driver. Oh, don't give me that. I drive the truck like nobody. Yeah, like nobody. At Maracaibo they call me a one truck driver. A one truck driver, huh? You think I'm not, eh? I think you're not, hey. By golly, I show you. I show you who is the best truck driver in Venezuela. Abinkito Viscrams. As we approached the Big Mountain we could see deep red slashes where landslides had roared down the face of the escarpment. It looked like something out of Conan Doyle's lost world. Sharp precipices rising from the floor of the Sibana. Crowned with three separate peaks. The base of the hill was heavily wooded. We parked the truck and we had a hack of trail through with our machetes. Let's take a breathe. Okay. All right, hold it up, Sandoval. This in your... Cigarette Houston. Thanks. Uh, Sandoval, you want a smoke? Sandoval. What are you dreaming about? Listen. Huh? What am I supposed to be listening for? You don't hear it? Hear what? The mountain. It is grinding its teeth. Oh, you're hearing things. Come on, come on, take a smoke. Well, listen, amigo, you think the mountain has no teeth? How do you know about these things? We live here, we know. My father and his father, you think they just make up about these things? Many have come here and been crushed by the mountain. Oh, do not laugh. Oh, look, look, look, I'm not laughing at you. It's a dead serious proposition and I know it. If it'll do you any good, I'm just as scared as you are, but so what? We can't turn back now. A lot of men have spent a lot of time in the pile of jack to get to this far. So settle down. Take it easy. Listen, listen, landslide. Step behind the trees. Quick, it's coming. Houston, I'm okay. Sandoval. Right, senor. Ronnie, Ronnie, get over here quickly. What's the matter? Look, look at these boulders that slid down.  Up, up top, up there, on top. Sweating, huffing, forgetting the snakes. We crawled our way up to the summit. And there we stood, not quite believing our eyes. Not daring to believe. That's what it is. Blasted mountain of iron. Solid iron. Maybe. What do you mean maybe? It may only be a crust. You never can tell how deep it is until you drill. But look down the side of that precipice. It's 300 feet straight down and you can see that it's solid iron ore. Looks good. Wonderful. We'll have to drill before we can find out for sure. Let's take some sightings, make a rough survey, then beat it back to town and register the claim. The next night, Kay Burrell took one look at our samples, stripped off his coat and began to sketch out a flat map of the territory. I and Jose began work on drawing up the claim. I'll dictate, Rummy. You take it down over time. Okay, start dictating. Right. I, Volka Kielsteads, citizen of the United States of America, resident of Ciudad Bolivar, declare the discovery of a mine named... Hey, what do we call it? I don't know. What do you suggest? I'd like to name it after my wife, Carla. Good idea, Carla, it is. The discovery of a mine named... Carla number one. For the purpose of surveying, I take a point of departure, a stake of durable material placed at the summit of the westernmost peak of the mountain known as... We spend all night working on five separate claims. We knew we had struck something big, that we might have the richest iron deposit in the world in our fist. We knew all we had to do was get our claim filed. About midnight, Jose went down to fetch sandwiches and coffee and was back in the office in ten minutes. Sir, excuse me. What is it? Sir, leave him. What's the matter? The truck driver. What about him? He's in the cantina. When I went in to get the coffee, I saw him. So what? He has been talking all over the place. What do you mean, talking? Ram has loosened his tongue, sir, as he's telling everyone about the Cerro Bolivar, the whole town knows about the iron hole. The cats will have every claim jumped from the country on next by morning. What time does the registrar's office open, Jose? We can't take any chances. We'll be down there at 7.30. 7.30 the next morning, we handed our claims to the registrar. Oh, I am sorry. So very sorry indeed, senoras. But I cannot accept these papers. Why not, senor? Because they are all out of order. They have to be in long hand on government stump paper. But we didn't have any stamp paper. I'm very sorry, but the regulations, they are very clear on this point. We have to do them over again, is that it? I am afraid so, I am sorry. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Will you just look over the claim and make a note of the time we brought it in? Will you do that? Yes, yes, I can do that as well. Let me see now. Oh, my dear senoras, this is all very disturbing indeed. Very disturbing. But what is it? A prior claim has been made to this territory. A prior? I received it this morning at my home. It's from the same land? You're sure of it? Positive, sir, of Aliva. Can we see the other claim? Well, not until I enter in the registry book. Oh, when will that be? As soon as possible. It must be entered in long hand. It takes time. Yes, can we see it after you enter it? But certainly. All right. Jose, Jose, you stay here and the minute the other claim is available, make copy of it and get it back to our office. Is this easy or later? Senoras, I am very, very sorry. Believe me, I hope you are not disturbed. Disturbed? Don't be silly. We're not disturbed. We're fractured. You are listening to the DuPont Cavalcade of America starring Dane Clark and sponsored by the DuPont Company, makers of better things for better living through chemistry. The DuPont Cavalcade continues as Ronnie Latham, played by Dane Clark, resumes his narrative of a Venezuelan adventure and the discovery suddenly snatched away.  A country desperately in need of high-grade iron ore, U.S. steel pouring millions into a worldwide search, a race against time. Then to find it. To find it in the heart of Venezuela, find it. Only to have it snatched under our very noses. Oh, it was rough. When we returned to the office, Mack Lake was there. He had flown in from Caracas. We told him the sad story. Okay, what's done is done. Well, don't look so licked. We are licked. That's what it adds up to. Maybe not. Let's keep pushing ahead. Fulca, get those claims in proper shape as soon as possible. They have to be done by hand. Okay, call in the whole crew, engineers, everybody. Get them all on the job. We may have lost the round, but we haven't lost the fight. About four o'clock in the afternoon, Jose got back from the registrar's office. I've got a copy of the other claim, señor. All right, let's take it in. Here's the other claim. Good, good. Let's take a look at it. Oh, far if I get my hands on that truck driver. So how does it look, Kay? Well, it looks, uh... So that's funny. Where's our map? Right here. Spread it out. I've got a sneaking suspicion. Just an idea. What do you mean, Kay? Look here at this claim. First of all, it starts off by saying that they take as point of departure a stake of durable material to be placed on the farmland owned by one Miguel Armando. To be placed, get that. That means they haven't put their market down yet. Hey, here's the farm on the map. It's over here. All right, now let's give them the benefit of every doubt. Suppose we use this as a starting point, the corner of the property nearest to Ciro Bolivar. That's here. Here in the Sabana, east of the hill. Our claim ran from the westernmost peak. The overlap is just a chance. A bad chance. Look, let's not jump to conclusions. We'll have to plot it out. That's the only way to be sure. We've got to plot out their claims. Braille worked quietly, quickly. The rest of us stood at his shoulders, watching him sketch in the lines of our claim and the other. No one spoke. The only sound was the word of the electric fans and buzz of flies. The rattle of the ox carts through the narrow streets of the city. We waited. Okay, there it is. Well? Well, I guessed, and I guessed wrong. Are you sure, Cain? I'm dead sure. Look here. We have five claims. Four of them are absolutely in the clear. One claim, column number five, may overlap one of theirs by maybe a hundred meters in one corner. Nothing more. So four of our claims are valid.  All right, that's all we want to know. Kill. Pull in every diamond drill we can put our hands onto. We've got the drill. Find out if the high-grade surface over extends down to any depths. How many drills do we have at pier core? Two long-year-oldary drills. Order them to Cerro Boliva. Now, wait a minute, Mr. Lake. How do you expect to go up those drills into the mountain? There are no roads. Are these three rivers across the trail? Build the road. Bridge the rivers. Those drills have got to be turning by July. July and the rains came. You know, rain doesn't fall at Cerro Boliva. It just forms a sopping wet wall from the clouds right down on the ground. Our bulldozers had chewed a road up the side of the hill by then, and the trucks followed after them, sloshing their way up to the summit, carrying the drills and equipment we needed. All was tough work. But we did it. And three days after drilling started, we were ready to send back the core samples to see if they'd believe us for analysis and testing. We're going to have a rough trip, Ronnie. Be careful. I understand the Carapo River has busted its fangs. We'll get through. And keep those sample boxes dry. Tell Matt we've gone down 67 feet. There's no sign of tapering oil. Okay, okay. Can I bring you something back? Yeah, a pair of dry socks. Dry socks? Are you kidding? I bet the resident needs dry south of Macy's. I'll see you. Thanks. Good luck. What do I say? Sure. Whatever he wants that is dirty. That's the road. We must almost be at the bridge across the Carapo. Do you think we'll get across? Maybe. Maybe not. Wait a minute, wait a minute. There's someone out ahead. Yeah, it's one of our drivers. Hold up. All right. What's wrong? You can't get across. The road is two feet over the bridge. Is the bridge holding? So far. Okay. Jose, check the sample boxes. Make sure the canvas around them is tight. The Jeep will never get the crossing on. That's right. But we will. How? On our own two feet. All right, come on. Cut the motor. But, you see, ornate them, the river is full of fish. Well, what river is it? River fish. River fish? Some call them piranhas. Flesh eaters. They can eat a man's foot right down to the bone in a minute. Oh. Um, grab a sample box and let's get started. But, but, señor, but even if we get across on the other side, what then? How will we get to Ciudad Boliva? Jose, it's an old saying, never cross a bridge until you come to it. Doesn't say anything about worrying about what's on the other side. Come on. Come on. The water's fine. Come on, Jose. Yes, señor. Have a couple of steps. That's all. There. They're easy now. I guess the fish are looking for juicy meat. Come on, up we go. Gracias. Adios, we made it. Yeah. Yeah, we made it. It's 50 miles to Ciudad Boliva. 50 miles. How do we... What are they from? Look. Huh? For Pete's sake. Senor, it's been years. How'd you go, eh? You. Me, Sebastián Sandoval. How you keep? You know, if I swore, if I ever laid eyes on you again, I'd plant one right on your kisser. What's the matter? You don't like me no more, fellow? Well, that all depends. Uh, where's that thing you call a truck? Under the tree there. I was coming back to La Parida. When I got here, there's too much river. Don't worry, I'll wait. You want to be my pal again, huh? Oh, sure. You bet. All right. How's about driving us back to town? That makes us pals again, Guido. Buzzing pals. Amigo mio. We scrub. My nightfall, we were back in Ciudad Boliva. I parked my, uh, Buzzing pal, Sebastián, in the nearest cantino and made for the office. Mac Lake was waiting with John Hellenstein, our chief chemist. How long before we can get the results, Holly? Well, it'll take the boys until midnight to crush and quarter these samples. We'll get them into solution as soon as we can. I'd say we'd be able to do the type trading about noontime. OK, get to work. The big bell in the cathedral down the street had just told off noon when Hellenstein walked in. Well, how does it shape up, Holly? Let's have it. Very interesting. Very interesting and most unusual. Holly. Pure iron ore, as you know, is iron oxide and consists of 30% by weight of oxygen and 70% by weight of iron. Holly, we know that. Theoretically, therefore, the purest iron ore would contain 70% iron. Holly, what's the score? I didn't believe it at first. I checked and rechecked, but it's true. These samples range from 59.10 to 67.3. 67.3? They'll average out at about 64%. It's incredible. Finest misabi ore averages between 50 and 55%. This is almost 10% richer. Richer than the misabi. I never believed it possible. Well, it's three years now since U.S. Steel discovered the iron ore of Cerro Beliva. Looking round, I can see lots of changes. The road up the mountain has been graded. The camp has taken on a look of efficiency of permanency. And looking down from my headquarters now, I can see the airstrip, the pumping stations. I can see the bulldozers smoothing out the ground for the homes, the churches, the schools that will soon be rising down in the savanna. Yes, we've come a long way. And there's still a long way to go before this Venezuelan ore can be fed to America's blast furnaces and become critically needed steel. But all those problems will be solved. The big point is that we've got Cerro Beliva. We've got the iron mountain. And why have we got it? I'll tell you. We've got it because an American company had the bigness to accept a big responsibility. And there'll be no iron ore shortage in America no matter how vast our needs, no matter what the demands in the next 20, 50, or even 100 years. And, brother, that's important to a country whose very existence depends on steel. Can the Cavalcade players for tonight's story the iron mountain? Then Clark will return in a moment. It was a pleasure to appear on Cavalcade tonight.  It'll be a listening treat. A story about a man who sailed the seas with just a cargo of water. And yet he made a fortune. I'm Dick Widmark on Cavalcade next week. Thanks and good night. Tonight's original DuPont drama, the Iron Mountain, was written by Irv Tunick. Then Clark will soon be seen starring in the J. Arthur Rank Universal International production, Highly Dangerous. Music for the DuPont Cavalcade is composed by Harden Cornwell and conducted by Donald Voorhees. The program is directed by John Zoller. Don't forget next week, Richard Widmark on the DuPont Cavalcade of America, which comes to you from the Velasco Theater in New York and is sponsored by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. Makers of better things for better living through chemistry. Three times mean good times on NBC.


1996 Just a palace Frantic The score was 4 points 2 Mexican I'm going to say 88 1989 19 1972 I don't know That was the 15th of February Do you know what year? I only had this the other day, someone mentioned it It's coming up We've got to get the year as well It's what year, yeah But you've got a bit of credit to it for the day I might have to see if I can give you half of my credit Yeah, so we'll do I don't know how many years did this happen 1971 What's about the biggest, are they? Belgium Town Gate 10 Scotty T Stardust I think I might give you half of that Ziggy Stardust No, that's a full point Do you ask me a football question and say Who played for Arsenal's record score and he said Bonn Rhee You wouldn't go half a point Controversial answer, looking into it Ziggy Stardust Kanye West Not up on me rapping Tupa No, it's Kanye West Probably the most arrogant court I've ever read 95 1000 I've actually smashed it again, haven't I? Correct, dipping well A thousand million There's already about three around my house I'd say about 8,760 I'm going to go with 9,000 Australia It's the beef jerky, innit? Bill Tone Which country?  I've had it a few times as well So I should know it They're nice Bit chewy Bill Tone Any clues? It's English speaking I don't know, you know I think I mean most countries speaking would go with it I can't ask for any clues Bill Tone I'll go with


Welcome to the Wednesday weekly webinar. My name is Julie Gardner Robinson and I will be doing part of this session today along with Dr. Clifford Hall who is a professor in plant sciences. But first I have a couple of things I'd like to share. Our last webinar of this particular series is next week, same time, same place. And it's called growing microgreens in your home. And that will be led by Esther McGinnis who is an assistant professor and for the cultural impact sciences here on campus at NDSU. So that should be a really fun one to hear because it's becoming such a popular topic. Just a couple of logistics. I think everyone's figured this out. But that's the screen that you're seeing probably in your home or wherever you are. You can type your questions in the chat pod. And I don't think we're going to be using any videos today. But we will try to answer the questions as we go. And if we miss it, Cliff and I will kind of track questions for the other person. And we'll certainly try to answer them all before we finish up in the next hour. We will have again a short survey at the end of the webinar. And I think it's just because we are funded by a grant. And I write the reports and I always have to give some feedback to the grant agency. So we will email you that link. And I also want to draw your attention to the Field to Fork website. You're always adding new resources to that. So if you're a food entrepreneur, we have an entrepreneurship website that's very complete. They also have a local foods website and then a dedicated website to this project and you're certainly welcome to print and distribute. If you're at a farmer's market or selling things, you can print anything you like from our website and use it. You don't have to get special permission. So with that, I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Hall. And he and I are working together right now actually starting a new fermentation project. So that's kind of exciting. So thanks Cliff for joining us. And I'll have you tell them more about yourself if you'd like. Okay. Well, I am a professor in the Department of Plant Sciences. My education is actually food science. And so much of my teaching deals with food science. I do a lot of food processing activities with Julie and also work with other instructors in our product development course at NDSU for Food Science Kids. And that's always fun to watch them develop food products. So I basically have a teaching research appointment. And also I am in charge of the Pulse Quality Program at NDSU in terms of the end-use aspect of that. And so fermentation is of interest to us with regards to using pulses. So with that, I think I will get started with our focus today. Really, this particular presentation will focus on just some generic information about food fermentation. It serves as really an introduction to this topic. Recognizing that a few weeks ago, I covered some of the same information. So again, I'll try not to bore you too much with some of the details. But we'll start off with a history. We'll define what fermented foods are, show a few types or give a few examples, highlight the fermentation process, and then talk about potential health benefits of fermented foods. Fermented foods actually for the longest time, we're not really thought of as necessarily healthy foods. But I think there's a lot more evidence that we have today showing that there's a lot of health benefits. So Julie will cover that aspect of the presentation. So if we look at then the history, with history, I kind of group it into three different types of history. The first is oral histories. These are history that are passed down from generation to generation. And it's not really necessarily written anywhere. So it's just kind of this verbal passing on of information. For some of us, this might include a recipe, for example, where your grandmother knew this recipe and she never wrote it down. She passed it on to your mother or father and then they passed it on to you. And so that's kind of that oral history. The second type of history would be based on this archaeological data, finding proof in a dish that was uncovered when they were digging in ruins of some sort, where you actually find pieces of food items or they can use DNA technologies or genetic type of information to kind of track some of that materials that may have been present in these dishes or plates or dumps or garbage areas of a lost civilization. And then the last one is basically a history that is inferred. I call this an inferred history, meaning that they have evidence that, for example, the nomadic tribes in Asia used to carry water in a dried calf stomach or leather pouches. And they used to use that as a way to carry their water from one location to another. Some of the first lessons we learn when we talk about food fermentation is that food fermentation happened by accident. And they always use this nomadic tribe as that kind of that example, meaning that they say, well, yogurt or cheese came about by these nomadic tribes carrying their milk in a calf stomach. And so in that particular case, there's no direct evidence that they actually carried milk in these bags. But there is evidence that they used them as maybe something to carry water or other similar beverages. And so we infer that they may have carried milk. And if they did, then there was likely that some of the enzymes in the calf stomach were still active once it was rehydrated. And so we kind of then make that assumption then that, well, that's maybe where fermentation started with regards to dairy products. Again, we don't have any archaeological data to support that. But we do have archaeological data that dates back to 6000 BC where they've looked at fermented beverages in wines and fermented cereal. So we have some archaeological data. Did it happen probably before 6000 BC? More than likely, yes. We just haven't found the archaeological data yet to show that. What's important to understand is that nearly every culture has fermented foods today. So from a historical perspective today, we find that almost every culture has a fermented food item that might be unique just to their country or to their region. And so our assumption is that historically other cultures or other peoples also had fermented products. Why do we still like our fermented products? Well, they have unique flavors. A sourdough bread from San Francisco tastes different than a sourdough bread that maybe was produced in Turkey. So there's unique flavors associated with these types of products. Even though we say sourdough bread, they may have different flavors. So the tradition, when we highlight traditions, I think most of you can think of a family tradition. And if cultured products are part of that tradition, they're probably passed down from one generation to the next. So again, tradition is a very important part of that, that reason for continued use of fermented foods. I think most of you will recognize what are fermented foods. And of course beer and wine come to mind for many people. I've already talked about sourdough breads, but one thing that you may not think about would be olives. My first encounter of a fermented olive was when I visited Turkey back in about 2005, and that was the first time I've ever consumed a fermented olive. Of course, many of you probably consume yogurt on a daily basis. So again, these are products that many of us would associate with a fermented food. Of course, sauerkraut is another one, kimchi, very similar, but a spicy version of sauerkraut. It's kind of more of a vegetable, a fermented vegetable product. But then we get into the soy-based fermented foods. Just at lunch today, we were talking about natto and how no one in the room could stand to eat natto. So even our Chinese faculty said they wouldn't touch it. And so it's a case where certain cultures, natto is a great product, and they really like it, but for others, maybe not. And so keep in mind that with these fermented products that it's not necessarily going to be universal in the consumption. So it's going to be very much dependent maybe on that culture, that tradition in the consumption of these products. Let's move into the fermentation definitions. I've highlighted four definitions for you. With fermentation, there's what we call a true fermentation and then just fermentation in general. And I will kind of differentiate those for you by the end of our time through these definitions. But what I want you to recognize is there's a lot of similarities in these definitions. The first definition indicates to us that this is a process. So you're actually making a process food. So I want you to think about process foods. And in recent years, process foods have been looked at in a negative light. But I want you to understand also that fermentation is a processing method. So if you're eating sauerkraut, you're eating a processed food. So it's important to just recognize that processing is not necessarily a bad thing. And so I think we need to stop using it in that context that it's bad. So in this particular case, the fermentation is a process and it involves this breakdown of organic substances. So it's going to break down organic substances into just generically simpler substances. So that's a very vague or very general definition here. But if we look at this in the context of what happens, oftentimes sugars are that substrate that we break down. So sugars are broken down into things such as alcohol. So that's a good example of a definition that talks about it being a process. It highlights the organic substances that are breaking down into smaller compounds. And the last part of this definition that's very important is this concept of anaerobic. So it's this anaerobic breakdown that occurs. So keep that word in mind because I'm going to use it throughout the next three definitions. In the second definition, we again have this anaerobic breakdown and it is of energy-rich compounds. And most often, these compounds are carbohydrates. But be aware that you can also have a protein. So a protein can also be an energy-rich compound. So we have those two components typically. In this particular case, again, the carbohydrate is broken down into carbon dioxide, alcohol, or organic acid. So you have specifics here that really coincide with that earlier definition. The third definition here involves now chemical reactions. So they highlight chemical reactions. But this time, what's unique about this is they really stress microorganisms. And for a lot of our fermented foods, the fermented foods is based on this concept of microorganisms. So we're using microorganisms to convert this organic substrate. So we have this organic substrate and we make it into that simple substance. So again, think of this as using microorganisms. And again, with this definition, we're talking about sugar being broken into simpler compounds. In this particular case, I want you to recognize that they once again use anaerobic as part of that definition. The final definition again says it's an anaerobic cellular process where organic foods, and really this shouldn't say necessarily organic foods, but organic substrates like carbohydrate or protein are converted into simpler compounds. So that's typically what we have here. And so with all four definitions, the word anaerobic has been repeated in every definition. And when we talk about a fermentation, a true fermentation is one that is done under an anaerobic environment. So that's what a true fermentation is. However, a lot of people just use fermentation as a general word to highlight a number of different things such as production of vinegar. So when you make vinegar, you are creating acetic acid. And that acetic acid is this metabolite that has preservative action. But when we talk about vinegar production, vinegar production is a two-step process where you have a true fermentation occurring first where you're producing the alcohol. Once this alcohol is formed, it's then transformed under an aerobic condition to vinegar. So keep in mind that a true fermentation is one that's done anaerobically. And so when you are doing a fermentation at home, you oftentimes use a fermentation lock. And a fermentation lock is something that has a little bit of water. And then you see bubbles coming up through that water. Those bubbles are carbon dioxide. And so carbon dioxide is a common byproduct of this process of anaerobic fermentation. So you know that your fermentation is occurring if you see these bubbles. So that's a good sign that something's happening. But recognizing also that in a fermentation such as vinegar, people associate that with a true fermentation. But it really is kind of that two-step process. So be able to differentiate that. And if ever asked by a client, when I tried to ferment a certain product and it tastes like vinegar so my wine didn't necessarily work, that would be a question to ask them. Did you really do this under an anaerobic condition? When you had a fermentation lock, did you see bubbles coming through and so forth? So something to remember about fermentation is that fermentations are not sterilization methods. I think for those of you who eat yogurt, you're eating live bacteria as part of that. So you know that it's not a sterile environment. We want those bacteria. So oftentimes when you have a fermented product, you have to do some sort of processing after it's gone through its fermentation period to help prolong its life. So with sauerkraut, for example, there's a number of different things you can do. But one of those is to can it. And by canning it in jars, it's a sterilization method. So recognizing that since this is not a sterilization method, you might need to process it in some other fashion. Fermentation is really a method that preserves food using microorganisms. So that's the key again, this word microorganisms. We mentioned that earlier with microorganisms. There's two ways in which the food is preserved. The first here is that the microorganisms of interest will compete with other organisms. So if you have a foodborne pathogen, that specific organism, you don't really necessarily want in that product, right? So as a result, you hope that that good microorganism will out-compete that bad one. And so that's kind of one way that microorganisms help preserve that product. The other way is that the organisms that we want in the fermentation process, they create metabolites. I mentioned alcohol before. So alcohol is a preservative. And so in this particular case, these metabolites will kill some of the other microorganisms in that system. So that's a good thing. So those are essentially how fermentation acts to preserve food products. Just to wrap up the definition part of our discussion here, remember that fermentation is a transformation of nutrients. This nutrient is typically being carbohydrate or protein. This is done by bacteria or other microorganisms, which we'll see shortly here. And enzymes that are produced by bacteria or other organisms are part of this transformation process. So again, our definition focuses on this transformation of a material. The microorganisms that are used or involved in the fermentation are grouped into three different areas or categories. We have bacteria and yeast. Bacteria and yeast are the ones that are responsible for the true fermentation processes. Remember, I said that true fermentation is a fermentation done under anaerobic conditions. So bacteria and yeast, they are responsible for these true fermentations. Molds, in contrast to that, molds require oxygen to survive. And so they never are responsible for a true fermentation. They're oftentimes secondary processes that occur in a fermentation process. One good example is demonstrating this picture where they have a blue cheese. In this particular scenario, there's a fermentation that initially occurred where the bacteria created lactic acid. The lactic acid causes the proteins in milk to coagulate. And after the cheese master has formed that into a shape, they inject mold into it. And so now this mold is considered part of this fermentation process. But what this mold actually does then is it degrades the protein. So it degrades the protein. So instead of having this rubbery cheese, it becomes dry and brittle and kind of cracks and breaks. It also then develops some flavors. So it's not necessarily a true fermentation, but that process that it undergoes is beneficial in that it helps develop good flavors. It helps to make that cheese have a different type of structure. So just recognizing then when we talk about bacteria, yeast, and molds as microorganisms in fermentations, bacteria, the bacteria in the yeast that are responsible for the true fermentation. With bacteria, the most common being the lactobacilli or simply lactic acid bacteria. And then with yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is probably one of the more common ones, but you would have similar yeast that would do that fermentation. If you look at some of the fermentation types, lactic acid fermentations are probably the most common. These are the where we use bacteria. So the lactic acid bacteria, those are the ones that convert the sugars into lactic acid. This lactic acid then serves as a preservative. So again, we're preserving that food based on the formation of this metabolite. The second type would be this alcoholic fermentation. Again, this is where we convert sugars into alcohol. And this alcohol then serves as this preservative. So remember, lactic acid fermentations produce lactic acid. Alcoholic fermentations produce alcohol. So that's the price that we get from these types of fermentation. Keep in mind that in both of these systems, we have other chemical reactions that result during this process, and it allows us to develop flavor characteristics of the different foods. So there's other reactions that are happening than just simply this conversion process. So again, it's very much dependent on what organism specifically you are using, whether or not you develop certain unique flavor characteristics. Some other important basic information about fermentation is that remember, the growth of microorganisms is really the primary goal. We want to have those lactic acid bacteria outgrowing other microorganisms in that system. So we want to enhance that microbial growth. Lactic acid is produced with fermented vegetables and milk. So a lot of the lactic acid fermentation processes would be vegetable-based products or milk, kefir, yogurts, cheeses. So these are all fermentations that are done in milk, but it's really the lactic acid that is driving the formation of that curd structure in milk-based products. But again, the lactic acid bacteria are the ones that we typically add to the milk to produce that fermented product. With fruit, when we look at fruits, they produce alcohol. So alcohol is a primary product. If you do a fermentation of, say, a fruit juice, wine being the example. But if you also look at cereal products, with cereal products, we can have the production of alcohol as well. A secondary product that might form would be acetic acid. But remember, with acetic acid, it's oftentimes involved in that oxidation part of a fermentation system. So it's not necessarily the true oxidation process. So when we essentially look at these fermentation products, again, recognizing that we try to use organisms to complement what we want. So I see that we have a question about diseased cabbage. And it's important with diseased products that you try to get rid of as much of the dead product as you can. So if it's rotten on one side of the cabbage and the other side looks good, if you're in desperation, you could probably use that. Preference would be not to use it. Because part of it is that you don't know how those organisms are going to try to compete with, say, the lactic acid bacteria. So you don't know how they're going to compete.  I don't really know if it's been investigated, but that seems like maybe a good project to think about looking at what happens. But my suggestion would be is not to use necessarily that cabbage that would be diseased in that fashion. I think that would be a good conversation to have even at the end of our presentation when we talk about sauerkraut fermentation. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Julie and she is going to then cover the benefits of fermentation. And maybe if she wants to comment on this cabbage issue of black rot, she can maybe do that before she even gets into her part of it. All right.  And the consensus of the horticulture specialist, actually a couple of them, was the same thing you said. We don't really have the answers to know that those would be safe to preserve. So it's best to preserve the best and eat the rest. I think that's the usual thing. But certainly could be a topic of investigation because you don't know what's persisting throughout that fruit or vegetable. So some benefits of fermentation, certainly Cliff has been talking about preservation. They'll last a lot longer. The more acidic foods are the longer they last. I'm going to talk a little bit more in-depth about health benefits because one of my roles here at NDSU is as a nutrition and health specialist. I will mention energy efficiency and then we'll talk a little bit more about flavor. Certainly fermenting does lend itself to all sorts of flavor development. So some benefits of preservation in general are improved food safety, but I'll add to that. You need to follow the rules that have been established through research. I've been getting a lot of preservation questions lately myself about some unusual preservation methods using equipment that really was never intended to preserve. For example, one fad right now, so for all of you listening, I want you to be going out and telling your friends not to do this. People are canning foods in their oven instead of in a pressure canner or in a water bath canner. It is not safe to can food in your oven, to put it on a tray, set it in the oven because it does not, that food does not reach a safe internal temperature. And it's just the way that heat penetration works. And there's some devices advertised on TV. If you're an insomniac some night and you turn on the TV, like I was the other night and I saw these really interesting devices. One was about canning. You could pressure cook, pressure can, you could do anything in this device. And they even said it was USDA tested. And actually the USDA Center for Home Food Preservation came out with a statement that, no, we did not test this device. So you really need to be looking into what information sources that you use. And certainly now that it's food preservation season for a lot of our fall vegetables, follow those rules. We have them free on our website. All extension agencies across the United States also have food preservation resources. So, you know, remember that food safety is probably a primary concern right along with nutrition. But first it has to be safe before you eat it. Okay, so with preservation and particularly fermentation, it can help contribute to the food needs of the world. And in fact, you can even take some waste products and through the process of fermentation you can make them into edible food products. So they've looked at even locusts and fruit peels and hides and bones, for example. Probably not things that we typically eat in this part of the world. But the research has been done to show that maybe that is a future food source as well. One thing that happens with fermentation is that the nutrition or the nutrients in particular are more bioavailable. And that is definitely true. We also see some improvements in digestive and immune health as a result of fermentation. And fermentation can, eating fermented foods can also influence the microbial balance in our GI tract and can even remove some anti-nutritional factors. Okay, and I see I have a couple questions. So I'm going to pause for a second and answer as I've had several consumers this 2016 season doing or asking about oven canning. And this is new to my question. Yes. Not safe. The jars might break. And also, we don't get proper heat penetration, as I mentioned. People flipping jars upside down to seal instead of canner. Really, the best way to do it is use the two-piece lids, never paraffin because that doesn't fully seal the jams and jellies, and process for five to 10 minutes in a water bath canner. That's the rules. I've had people call me and tell me through years, as I've been in this role for almost 20 years, tell me that jars have blown up in their cupboards. And a lot of times it happens to be jams and jellies that were not heat processed because there can be bacteria, other organisms in the jars. They can produce enough gas to blow the jars apart. And I've heard about that in tomatoes and other things as well. So thanks for those questions, and I'll go back to fermentation. So lots of potential health benefits. So I have a little question for all of you. How many bacteria do you think reside in our body? You can type your answer in the chat box. What do you think? You are correct. A hundred trillion. And I can't even imagine really what a billion looks like and much less a trillion. But we have a lot of bacteria, and we want them to be there because they do play a role in our health and in fighting other organisms that can get inside of us. So if we weighed all the bacteria, how much would it weigh? Two to three pounds? Five to six or 10 to 11? You can type in your answer in the chat box again. If you said two to three, or if you were thinking two to three pounds, that is the correct answer. It would be nice to think that all you have to do is lose your bacteria and you drop 10 pounds, but that wouldn't work. So it's about a couple pounds all the bacteria would weigh if we were able to weigh them. So what do these gut bacteria do for us? They break down nutrients, so they help us digest our food. They also can produce certain vitamins, vitamin K for example, which is involved in blood clotting is part of a bacterial production in our body. They can help regulate energy and also energy storage. They're competitors with these pathogens or these disease-causing organisms, and they can also help us with our immune responses. So sometimes bacteria is good and sometimes we want to keep it away from us, but in this case our gut bacteria, we need to keep them at a particular balance. That's why a lot of nutrition experts are recommending the regular intake of probiotics to foods like yogurt on a daily basis or a regular basis at least. So now a few definitions. Raise your hand if you've ever heard the word probiotic prior to today. Yes. That's a popular one. We hear more and more about it. What does it mean? Well, if we split the word in half, pro means for, bio means life. So it is for life. It injures. All right. Probiotics introduce a bacterium into the body that provides health benefits to the host. And there are several natural sources, including yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk, kefir, sauerkraut. Just go into the dairy section of your local grocery store and you'll see most of these products. Sauerkraut, often also sold in either the canned good section or in the refrigerated section because you can buy sauerkraut fresh. Some benefits of probiotics, it can help prevent diarrhea, can ease symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. It can help prevent stomach aches, gastroenteritis. And some researchers are showing that maybe these probiotics can help slow the development of tumors, especially those in the colon. Now, I'm going to say another warning is to look out for all of the supplements that are on the market nowadays. Soon as some research comes out and some product will follow, go for the probiotics that are in food. That seems to be more beneficial than those through supplements because whether you are aware of this or not, a lot of supplements have no research backing behind them because they're not regulated as either drugs or as foods. So it's buyer beware when it comes to supplements and some of these advertised goods and lots of different things that you might encounter on a daily basis. Just look at advertisements. So some ways to preserve probiotics. So for example, with your yogurt or sour cream or those sorts of products, be sure that you keep dairy products refrigerated. And I'll ask you another question. Into the chat box, if you want to go ahead and type, what temperature should your refrigerator keep food in degrees Fahrenheit? What temperature should your fridge be? Yes, very good. Less than 40 is a good answer. And while I looked, I saw someone else had a comment. Sheila is asking, when looking at the excess salt from sauerkraut, does it still contain a valuable amount of gutbiotics? Yes, it will. Those would be contained within the, you know, the kraut itself. But certainly you want to, you do want to rinse it off or take some of that liquid off because it's very high in salt. So very good comment. Back to our probiotics. You want to look for food products with colony forming units of 5 to 10 million. That's how they count them in the microbiology lab. I'll give you who remember taking those and using petri plates and that sort of thing. And then also talk to your doctor about taking probiotics to prevent diarrhea in case you're ever on antibiotics. Sometimes there can be interactions between calcium and the antibiotic. So that's a doctor or pharmacist type of question to be aware of any food and drug interactions. I just completed some resources for you. If you're ever interested, we have a website called nourishing boomers and beyond. And that has one section about knowing your medications. And there's some information, more information for you about food drug interactions. And there's also a section on that website about digestion. So just another resource for you. There's a lot of things in our website. So you take some time to explore that. On the other hand, we also have an item called prebiotics. Pre means before. So before life. And basically this is the food for good bacteria to grow. So here we've got my dietitian hat on. I'm telling you that try to eat a wide variety of foods because we want to get all the nutrition we need. But we also want to feed those good bacteria. And some prebiotic sources, food sources include raisins and plums, wheat and beans as indriatable beans, like kidney beans and pinto beans, onions, garlic, leeks. So all those are very good for us and they feed this gut bacteria. And some additional benefits can help with your mineral absorption and promote a healthy immune system and may even reduce risk of food allergies. So lots of benefits with probiotics and the food for the probiotics which are called prebiotics. So we're really starting to learn more in the world of nutrition just about the role of micro-organisms in our food as well as in our body. So where do you find all these? If this were an interactive slide, these little arrows wouldn't be here already. But you can see, you can find them in all the different food groups. And this of course is the choose my plate icon, which is the icon for healthy nutrition at the moment. And you know, go for a wide variety of foods, all the food groups. Best advice is moderation and variety and balance. So in some cases, probiotic therapy, so having some of these fermented foods can help you manage diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease and even cancer as well as gastroenteritis. So there's a lot of potential health benefits and again, it's the subject of current research. And always a good idea if you are suffering from any of these things, discuss that with your physician.  So always, always keep notes. So going back to fermentation and some of its benefits. With fermentation, there actually is a reduced need for refrigeration, but to maintain that level of those organisms, you do want to keep it refrigerated as much as possible. So by lowering the acidity, so we get it more acidic, lowering the pH I should say, we are preserving it. And we also are reducing potential cooking time. In some cases, we can say that fermented meat and fish do not require cooking. Tempe requires less cooking time than raw soybeans. So, you know, again, when we add or when we change that acidity, we are changing the safety of the food. And finally, there's some definite flavor benefits. You can see strong, compelling flavors created. Sometimes we don't like those flavors right away, and we might take a while to adjust to those flavors. But it only takes a little bit of some of these enhanced foods to fermentation to help with bland foods. Just adding a little bit of soy sauce or whatever it happens to be. I'm going to pass it over for our little case study on solar crowd. Thank you, Julie. This particular slide is, I'm not going to go through every little thing, but this is one of the extension bullets that Julie and Ron Smith had put together is FN-433. So if you want that, just go to the NDSU extension website. And what I'd like to do then is kind of pull apart this bulletin for you a little bit and then just kind of cover the basics of sauerkraut fermentation. We won't cover every detail of it, but again, you can take a look at that bulletin that was put together. There's a few things to remember with making sauerkraut, and it's best to use the firm head and preferably disease-free. You know, we have that discussion a little bit earlier about the black rot, so it's a case where we prefer to have a very firm head disease-free. Keep in mind that if it's like half of the head is rotten, we can't take that rotten part of it and make it into some edible-like sauerkraut. That's not going to work very well. Julie had given us discussion points earlier about hide and some other things, and that might work. But when it comes to a fermentation like a head of cabbage, it's not going to work very well. So we can't take this spoiled material and convert it into something that's edible. But with regards to some of the black rot, we'd have to do experiments to really reaffirm that. Also, the reason why we want firm heads is because remember as this material is fermenting, it softens. It gets soft, and Julie had talked a little bit about some of the changes that occur during fermentation. So if you have a firm head going in, you're going to have a little bit firmer sauerkraut coming out after that process. So that's why we want to use firm heads. Another important thing to remember is that you want to use canning or pickling salt. I've done some experiments where I've used regular table salt that has iodine in it, and one, the fermentation did not occur very well. I mean, it wasn't as robust as when I would use pickling salt, but also it had a little brown tint to it. So the brownish tint probably came from some of the iodine during that fermentation process, sibilizing and attaching to some of the cabbage. So again, it's important to use again the firm head and pickling salt for this fermentation. A general rule, if you have a lot of cabbage, 25 pounds of cabbage, you would use about three-fourths of a cup of salt. So that's the kind of that ratio that's important to maintain. If you have 100 pounds, keep in mind with the 100 pounds, maintain this ratio. That's really the critical part to making sauerkraut. Just a few steps, and we'll quickly go through these. Remember to prepare the cabbage. Discard the outer leaves. The reason why you want to do this is that many of the spoilage organisms, the things that cause spoilage in a lot of our produce, are sitting out in the outer edges of that product. And so if we discard those, we get rid of a lot of those spoilage organisms that might be floating around in the air. Rinse with cold water and then drain. It's important to remember not to use detergents. So you don't want to use detergents because that can be taken up in the cells of the cabbage. You end up then with a very soapy, sour, not in a good way, sauerkraut. So it's from that soap. So it's not a good thing to do.  One of the things is that with these organisms, they're on the surface of these leaves. And so if you are scrubbing that away, you're getting rid of some of those good lactic acid bacteria that are present naturally. And so the fermentation may not be as robust. So if you wash it in cold water and then drain it. Draining this is also important because remember we want to maintain that ratio of cabbage to salt. So if we have extra water there, there could be a dilution of that salt. And so therefore, you might not achieve sufficient fermentation quickly enough that it would knock out some of the unwanted organisms. So those are just some general hints with regards to cabbage preparation.  Remember surface area. As we increase the surface area, we get a better fermentation. The reason for that is we press out. It's easier to press out the juice or the liquid from those leaves. And as a result, the sugars that are in that leaf with the water is then used for the fermentation process. So it's easier to remove this water from a thin slice versus something that's thick. And then also, you would make sure you have a suitable fermentation container. So once you have your cabbage prepped, make sure you have clean hands. For this next part, it's important that as you're handling this, if you don't use your hands and you have a clean utensil, that works just as well. But the important thing to remember is that for every five pounds of cabbage, use three tablespoons of salt. And so that's important. And then mix that thoroughly. So you want to make sure you disperse that salt throughout that cabbage material. Once that's done, remember that if you pack it into a container, so if you're only going to make five pounds, pack that firmly into a container. Remember that the salt is there for the purpose of drying out juices from that cabbage. And so the thinner that slice, the easier it is to do that. And again, the idea with a lot of these fermentations is that you want to have something that helps pull out the sugars along with that water because it's the sugars that the microorganisms will use in this fermentation process. If you're making a lot of sauerkraut, it's oftentimes easier just to do it in small five pound batches following that ratio. And then using a larger container to dump all the repeated shredding and salting and mixing that you might have to do. So if you have a hundred pounds of cabbage and you add your appropriate amount of salt, it's really hard to mix that. And so it's just easier to have smaller batch sizes. But it's important again to maintain that ratio. And so as you repeat this shredding and salting, make sure, again, you pack it tightly into that container that you will be using. And then finally, you want to make sure that you have about four to five inches above that cabbage because you'll need to make sure that you have liquid above that cabbage. But also you're going to need something to kind of provide a little bit of weight to that cabbage. So the cabbage is not floating around in that solution. You want all the cabbage to be underneath that liquid layer. What are suitable containers? Well, you can use a gallon container for every five pounds of cabbage. So that's kind of a general rule. A five-gallon stone crock has been a traditional method for a lot of people to make sauerkraut because you can ferment about 25 pounds of cabbage, fresh cabbage. But a lot more people have been going to food grade plastic containers or glass containers just because they don't have a stone crock. But those are acceptable materials. The one thing that I do want to caution you about is that you want to make sure that it's food grade material.  These are not food grade materials, and so they're not good for the fermentation processes. And so again, recognizing that user-correct material will always lead to more successful production of the sauerkraut. In this particular case, just recognizing again that in some cases there's some newer systems where they have plastic containers that have fermentation locks attached to them, or you can attach a fermentation lock. So that's another type of container that can be used. But just remember that regardless of your container, that you want to keep that cabbage one to two inches under the brine surface. So you want to maintain that under the brine. You also want to place a glass dinner plate or a pie plate inside this container. This will help keep that cabbage from floating to the surface of that brine. And you also then want to cover that container with a clean towel. So if you're not going to use a lid on your like a five-gallon bucket with a fermentation lock, make sure you cover it with a clean towel. And then allow that to ferment at 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit for a given amount of time. And so again, it depends on your sauerkraut. But keep an eye on it. Ideally, I've had sauerkraut five, six weeks for fermenting and it seemed to turn out all right. So again, just pay attention to the bulletin that Julie has put together. So once that sauerkraut has fermented for the given amount of time, it's important then that you would transfer this in a covered container in the refrigerator. And that will last about seven months. So remember that this is not a sterile product. It still has active cultures growing. So you have to basically put that in the refrigerator. You can also freeze the product. With freezing it, as long as you could prevent freezer burn, it would probably last upwards to nine months to a year. And then one of the more common approaches is to actually use hot or raw pat canning methods with the idea of being in that. You can then take that sauerkraut and put it on your shelf. So it doesn't have to be in the refrigerator. It doesn't have to be in the freezer. You can put it in the cupboard. So that is essentially then ways that you would preserve that sauerkraut at the end of that process. And again, there's USDA processing time, so go ahead and if you're doing a hot pat versus a raw pat, you have pints, cords, you have different processing conditions. So that would be a way to help determine, do you want fresh sauerkraut? If you do, then you have to refrigerate it. If you want something that can sit on the shelf and you pull it off in the middle of January, you want to then do that canning approach. If we look at vegetables, it's very similar to sauerkraut in the sense of the fermentation. The concept is essentially the same. One of the things is that we want to increase the surface area.  So a thin piece means higher surface area. That's important because you pull out the sugars. You pull out the liquid. There's more fermentation that can occur. Salt, by salting this, remember that the salt helps to pull out the water from the cells of that vegetable. And so, again, using the proper ratio of salts is very important. There's some information on the extension websites for this, but the idea is always remember that you have to use salt because that's what helps inhibit some of the food pathogenic organisms, but lets our lactic acid bacteria grow with no problem. And then there are some options for you with regards to salt. Salt's typically the preferred method. I'll admit that to me. It's a preferred method. It slows that fermentation process and it slows enzymatic processes, especially those that affect the texture. So pectin is a fiber material that if we can prevent enzymes from breaking it down, it helps retain that crunchiness or crispiness in that vegetable so you get a firmer fermented product. It also slows the growth of the bacteria and mold. So it's a case where you're going to have to have that product sitting there longer at room temperature per se than you would say if you have a no salt. One of the problems with no salt is it ferments in two to three days. So you have to pee on the ball and be ready to do something with it, otherwise it's going to go from a fermented to a spoiled food very quickly. We want to add spices and spices remember will inhibit molds. And then finally we have the need for starter culture sometimes because it's such a fast fermentation process that we want to make sure that we have the appropriate starter culture present. So again when we look at vegetables, keep in mind it's very similar to sauerkraut, but you can have options in some cases where no salt, but you have to be very careful about that type of fermentation. And then you want to make sure you pack it so the key here again is to pack it correctly. So even if you use salt or not, you still have to produce this anaerobic environment because remember it's this anaerobic environment that's going to allow for the production of lactic acid and syslactic acid that really helps preserve that product. And then fermentations again two to three days for no salt, it could be as long as a year for others. So it all depends on what vegetable, the size of that particle, etc. that you will be producing. And with that I will turn it over to Julie again and she can wrap it up. Sure. Thanks so much Cliff for joining us today. This is a book. If you're really interested in this topic, I'm looking at it on my shelf. It's about an inch thick. It's available on Amazon. I don't get any cuts or anything from it, but it's a very interesting book if you want to explore this topic. It has lots of different formulations and so on. And we are going to do some additional or do some fermentation work here at NDSU. Lots of references. We didn't make this up. Again I'd like to thank you for attending our session and there is a survey at the end and we will take some time for questions. And Anne is asking if we agree with all of Sanders' methods of fermentation. I don't know Cliff have you read? I have not explored all of them. No I have not either. I'll have to take a look and see. Yes. You have to watch out again with finding things online. Go with the most reputable sources, university sites. Colorado State is in the midst of getting some fermentation resources posted online. I don't think they have them up yet. But hopefully maybe in the future we'll have some additional fermentation resources. Ron Smith and I a few years ago, along with Steve Sagas, put together a wine making guide which is the type of fermentation. And so that is available on our site as well. But currently the only things we have are wine making and the Sauerkraut guide. Oh okay. Anne is saying she met him and said he could use any kind of salt even table salt. Well I think for the reasons that Cliff told us, I would use canning salt. You're going to get a much better product. If you use table salt in say pickling, you're going to get a very cloudy product as well. And it could discolor your vegetables and even give odd taste. So any other questions? Yes, and I want to agree with you Julie on that salt issue. I really think that we eat with our eyes. And so after I had made that, it's been probably a decade ago that I did that experiment. That it wasn't something that I probably would have eaten. And so I think that to me, it's not worth the risk considering how cheap pickling salt is. Diane had great success. Yes, I grew up on a little bit German, eating some Sauerkraut made in a crock. I mean basically it isn't going to hurt you. I mean using table salt, we all need the iodine, but all of the USDA recipes do call for canning salt. Okay, well I think I will draw this to a close and for a little bit over time. Thank you again. I hope that you join us next week for the session on microgreens. Thank you very much and please take the survey.


The training itself has been really enlightening and informative from my perspective. And also the people who attend this training, since they all come from different backgrounds, it creates this unique and really useful discussion environment that you can learn many things as well.