Korean Natural Farming (knf) Master Cho

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Lazerus00

Lazerus00

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So hopefully there is not a thread already going but I wanted to start something for people to share info on "Natural Farming" practices, recipes, and general "know how" so more people can see how easy (and I think fun) it is to give back to mother earth while at the same time saving money and growing some insanely amazing completely natural organic buds. If your not familiar with Master Cho and his book Cho's Global Natural Farming then you need to go get that shit pronto bc it is the JAM!! He lays everything out in such an easy way anybody can do it! Okay so I'll just open the floor up to questions, comments, and any input at all!
 
Lazerus00

Lazerus00

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Cool well since I just started this thread I'll go ahead and open with.....I am having a lil difficulty sourcing some items needed to follow Master Cho's methods...One thing I can't seem to track down are sesame stems for making WS-PA (water soluble phosphoric acid and tobacco stems for making WS-K (water soluble potassium)....also I found it so interesting how much yeast can help plants and have been dying to try it out on a few but the only yeast I have is champagne yeast and I am unsure if that is okay or if I need to go get regular cooking yeast....See!!! This is exactly why I started this thread so me and hopefully all of you can ask these questions and hopefully get answers..lol...Anyway I hope this really takes off and if anybody has any answers to my questions or wants to ask their own please pull up a chair and lets get learning...lol
 
xavier7995

xavier7995

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Nothing to add, but I have been checking out the knf methods and think they sound great. What sort of environment are you looking to use it in? To me, it looked they would be best applied to large beds in a greenhouse, not sure how well it would translate to container gardening indoors. I like the thread idea:)
 
Lazerus00

Lazerus00

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Nothing to add, but I have been checking out the knf methods and think they sound great. What sort of environment are you looking to use it in? To me, it looked they would be best applied to large beds in a greenhouse, not sure how well it would translate to container gardening indoors. I like the thread idea:)
Thanks for stopping by!! Yea I figured this could be a place to come and talk about what ya got going on and diff lil way to maximize your efforts. I have a fairly large outdoor area to work with but really only grow veggies outside bc of the legal status of my state. I usually grow 1-3 plants out there kinda in the mix. It's not that any neighbors would ever see it but my luck would be I start a good size canna crop outside and for some reason the state troopers just stop by for something or my cable guy rats me out...lol...So as for using the knf products like fpj, ffj, faa, ohn, ws-ca, ws-k, ws-capo, and ws-pa AND the imo's 1-4 outside but will condition my soil and use the ferments on my indoor container plants...I grow for personal consumption so really i am just trying to grow the cleanest possible meds for myself and if I can give back to mother nature and save money I'm all over it!!
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

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Outside of the yeasts cultured for brewing, which are very specialized critters, it's all the same species.
Cool well since I just started this thread I'll go ahead and open with.....I am having a lil difficulty sourcing some items needed to follow Master Cho's methods...One thing I can't seem to track down are sesame stems for making WS-PA (water soluble phosphoric acid and tobacco stems for making WS-K (water soluble potassium)....also I found it so interesting how much yeast can help plants and have been dying to try it out on a few but the only yeast I have is champagne yeast and I am unsure if that is okay or if I need to go get regular cooking yeast....See!!! This is exactly why I started this thread so me and hopefully all of you can ask these questions and hopefully get answers..lol...Anyway I hope this really takes off and if anybody has any answers to my questions or wants to ask their own please pull up a chair and lets get learning...lol
Substitutes. Rice hulls can provide the Si, potatoes or dates can provide the K.

You want yeast? I've got your yeast! I'd go with a sourdough starter and keep feeding it. Bakers yeast is comprised of one species of yeast, whereas sourdough has various species of lactobacilli and yeasts, including the bakers yeast species.

Don't know if you can start a wild levain? Use the pineapple juice method, it's what worked for me.


When this cat, of Breadtopia, liked my SD on IG, I literally did a fucking dance. No knead, FTW!

Whoops! Almost forgot AGAIN, I have a batch of dough needs some stretch & folds.
 
Lazerus00

Lazerus00

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I use organic brewers yeast. Never thought about bread yeast..hmm... great Idea's for a thread. Cheers, :smoking:
thanks and good to know i can use either but i think i am actually going to start to culture my own with water and flour then you keep feeding it every few days and it expands and contracts...illl find the link to the recipe and post it....
http://www.wikihow.com/Grow-Yeast
 
Lazerus00

Lazerus00

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Outside of the yeasts cultured for brewing, which are very specialized critters, it's all the same species.

Substitutes. Rice hulls can provide the Si, potatoes or dates can provide the K.

You want yeast? I've got your yeast! I'd go with a sourdough starter and keep feeding it. Bakers yeast is comprised of one species of yeast, whereas sourdough has various species of lactobacilli and yeasts, including the bakers yeast species.

Don't know if you can start a wild levain? Use the pineapple juice method, it's what worked for me.


When this cat, of Breadtopia, liked my SD on IG, I literally did a fucking dance. No knead, FTW!

Whoops! Almost forgot AGAIN, I have a batch of dough needs some stretch & folds.
lol thanks for joing the convo Sea!!! I just posted a wikihow on the exact thing you posted before seeing it!! Great minds....lol Do you use the yeast in your garden as well as making bread??
 
Lazerus00

Lazerus00

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And is there some cheap place to buy BVR bc on amazon it all seems really expensive....Atleast compared to anything else i had to buy.....Oh and im dying to find somewhere to fins sesame stems, cant seem to find em anywhere!
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Living dead girl
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Just use what you can find, which I think is really more the point than following a given recipe exactly. Can't find sesame stems? Get rice hulls. There you go, Si and K.
lol thanks for joing the convo Sea!!! I just posted a wikihow on the exact thing you posted before seeing it!! Great minds....lol Do you use the yeast in your garden as well as making bread??
Yes, but only when I have discard. The way I'm doing it now I never have any discard. And don't forget the Lactobacilli! I'm culturing those as well. :)

That Wiki is ok, but it's not the best IMO, for a couple of reasons.
You don't have to use dechlorinated water.
Science now shows us that the microbes we culture for levain come on our flour(s), not the skins of fruits or anything like that.
Using different flours can net you wildly differing results.
Airtight seal is fine, these are anaerobes we're culturing (I debate this often in my SD groups, there are people who will insist on it despite the scientific facts), but yes, it can blow (that's why I use plastic ice cream containers, not glass with screw-on lids).
Unless you're using organic whole rye berries for the flour source, it's usually going to take you at least a week to see activity, not a couple of days. I think this is why most new SD bakers give up, believing they are unable to culture the microbes, which is really what we're doing. Just set the dinner table and they *will* come to eat.
They're not very clear on how to properly build the starter, doing it the way it's outlined in this Wiki you WILL end up with The Starter That Ate Detroit, and you'll go through a qualified metric shit-ton of flour JUST building the fucking starter. That's bullshit.
You WANT the alcohol odor! That's your sign of yeast activity! It may not smell like alcohol, it may smell like acetone. That's ok! It's still the same thing. Since I prefer a yeast-dominant type of bread, this is my goal. If I start detecting the sour odors most Americans associate with 'sourdough' then I know I've gone too far towards the whole wheat and time side.
The dark 'brown' (often black) liquid is called hooch, and yes, it is a sign the microbes have gone through all available food sources. It does not mean your starter is dead, however.

I keep about 200g of starter on hand at any one time. When it comes time to bake, I pour it out of my container and what remains is my inoculation culture. I use a 1:1 mix of organic AP flour and WW flour, sometimes with a small addition of spelt.
(Did you know that whole wheat is not, in fact, whole wheat? It is the white flour with wheat bran added BACK, no germ remains and the germ, the part the goes bad most quickly, is where most of the nutrients are.)

This is a somewhat lengthy article, but it digs a bit into the science. Keep in mind that one of the main reasons why the pineapple juice method is so effective is that the juice naturally selects out for the appropriate microbes, whereas just using water could allow anything to live. Once you have your microbial populations up, they will naturally disallow bad players, mostly through pH control.

Ok, now for something to chew on. Lactic Acid Fermentation in Sourdough.
 
Lazerus00

Lazerus00

2,030
263
Just use what you can find, which I think is really more the point than following a given recipe exactly. Can't find sesame stems? Get rice hulls. There you go, Si and K.

Yes, but only when I have discard. The way I'm doing it now I never have any discard. And don't forget the Lactobacilli! I'm culturing those as well. :)

That Wiki is ok, but it's not the best IMO, for a couple of reasons.
You don't have to use dechlorinated water.
Science now shows us that the microbes we culture for levain come on our flour(s), not the skins of fruits or anything like that.
Using different flours can net you wildly differing results.
Airtight seal is fine, these are anaerobes we're culturing (I debate this often in my SD groups, there are people who will insist on it despite the scientific facts), but yes, it can blow (that's why I use plastic ice cream containers, not glass with screw-on lids).
Unless you're using organic whole rye berries for the flour source, it's usually going to take you at least a week to see activity, not a couple of days. I think this is why most new SD bakers give up, believing they are unable to culture the microbes, which is really what we're doing. Just set the dinner table and they *will* come to eat.
They're not very clear on how to properly build the starter, doing it the way it's outlined in this Wiki you WILL end up with The Starter That Ate Detroit, and you'll go through a qualified metric shit-ton of flour JUST building the fucking starter. That's bullshit.
You WANT the alcohol odor! That's your sign of yeast activity! It may not smell like alcohol, it may smell like acetone. That's ok! It's still the same thing. Since I prefer a yeast-dominant type of bread, this is my goal. If I start detecting the sour odors most Americans associate with 'sourdough' then I know I've gone too far towards the whole wheat and time side.
The dark 'brown' (often black) liquid is called hooch, and yes, it is a sign the microbes have gone through all available food sources. It does not mean your starter is dead, however.

I keep about 200g of starter on hand at any one time. When it comes time to bake, I pour it out of my container and what remains is my inoculation culture. I use a 1:1 mix of organic AP flour and WW flour, sometimes with a small addition of spelt.
(Did you know that whole wheat is not, in fact, whole wheat? It is the white flour with wheat bran added BACK, no germ remains and the germ, the part the goes bad most quickly, is where most of the nutrients are.)

This is a somewhat lengthy article, but it digs a bit into the science. Keep in mind that one of the main reasons why the pineapple juice method is so effective is that the juice naturally selects out for the appropriate microbes, whereas just using water could allow anything to live. Once you have your microbial populations up, they will naturally disallow bad players, mostly through pH control.

Ok, now for something to chew on. Lactic Acid Fermentation in Sourdough.

Awesome Sea, thanks for the info and advice!! Thats exactly why i thought this thread might be a good idea!
 
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