My experiment with fermented sauerkraut has come to its final conclusion.
Before the big reveal, let’s recap.
While patronizing an antique shop in Silverton, Oregon, the owner said she made the best sauerkraut by doing the following:
1. Shred Cabbage.
2. Stuff Cabbage into quart size jars.
3. Add 1 Tablespoon salt to jars.
4. Add water, cover and set on counter for 3 days.
After following these instructions to a ‘T”, Day 3 came and watery cabbage was my only result.
I then decided to try the experiment.
Since I had 3 jars of my cabbage creation, I figured why not see if the amount of days on the counter aided more flavor.
This was my plan:
Jar #1 – 4 days on counter
Jar #2 – 1 week on the counter
Jar #3 – 2 weeks on the counter
The first obvious change was the color of the kraut.
On Day 4, all the jars donned a beautiful magenta. Unfortunately, my pretty layered look was sacrificed. Sigh.
C’est le vie.
They still are very pretty.
The next change was the taste.
I enlisted Renaissance Man to be the ‘official’ taste tester this evening. And let me tell you, there was definitely a clear winner.
Was the tasty winner container #1, the jar left out for 4 days?
Mm. Well. Not so much. R-Man says flavor was lacking…in a pretty big way.
Or was it #2, left to ferment 1 week?
While this was definitely tastier than #1, R-Man says, it didn’t even compare to the awesome zip and tang of …
You guessed it, #3 .
Crunchy. And tastes more like what R-man would expect from sauerkraut.
So, there you go. Lacto-fermenting sauerkraut in a jar with just water and salt.
Don’t remember how I did it? Go here and then make sure you go here to see some lessons learned from my initial venture.
Now the only business to take care of is to decide what to do with the contents of Jar #1 and Jar #2.
I’m thinking these girls might like ‘em.
I shared this at:
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