Book excerpt: Fermented foods are experiencing a resurgence in popularity due to their bold flavors and purported health benefits. Brewer and distiller Gabe Toth has dedicated 15 years to learning and experimenting with the fundamentals of fermented vegetables, condiments, sausage, dairy, meat, bread, vinegar, kombucha, and other live-culture foods. In Fermentation Kitchen, he distills the essential lessons into easy to follow information that is both technical and practical. Part how-to guide, part cookbook, and part reference manual, The Fermented Kitchen is a wide-ranging introduction to fermentation for brewers, food enthusiasts, and home fermentationists, who want to go beyond just recipes to understand what’s happening as their food is transformed. Enough chemistry and microbiology is included to provide a thorough understanding of what’s happening during food transformation which, when paired with a focus on methods and recipes to illustrate techniques, will allow the reader to explore fermentation with greater creativity. The overarching aim of The Fermented Kitchen is to provide readers with the tools they need to improvise and adapt their new knowledge to safely create novel flavors and unique fermented foods that reflect their own creativity, using beer when possible.