[CH] Kimchi organisms

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Rob Solarion asked how the kimchi fermentation got going.  I remembered
Kris Blennow had looked up the organisms during the last time the thread
went around and his recent post was a good exposition of how the bacteria
that are present on all the cabbages begin to grow and metabolize the
carbohydrate to lactic acid.  I cannot add much more except from my own
observations. 

The heterofermentative Leuconostoc mesenteroides is a good marker for my
fermentations because the bubbling gets rather fierce as I mentioned in the
earlier posting.  The gas displaces so much fluid it makes it ooze up out
of the jar.  This usually settles down around day 4 after starting.  I
usually swirl the jar a bit to force the bubbles to the top, but sometimes
I poke it with a chopstick to knock the vegetables back down below the
surface.

You do not want them ever to be on top since molds can take over, make the
vegetables bitter and destroy the acid.  Then pathogens can grow.

It does make sense that there is another phase of the fermentation because
the full sour flavor is not present until about day 6 or even later.

A colleague at work plated one of my kimchis.  The aerobic plate had a
fluorescent yellow flavobacterium colony but also many small colonies of 
some organism.  We thought they were lactics growing aerobically.  The
anaerobic plate was loaded with lactic colonies; overall, a healthy
fermentation.

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