Nothing much going on in the sauerkraut world… every other day it’s: unfold cloth cover, pull out weighted jar, pick off floating “stuff,” wash off jar, put back in, push down kraut, cover.

It smells, but almost in a good way, something like sauerkraut. I’m guessing I’m doing it right, since I’ve read that if it’s done wrong, it will just plain old stink like rot.
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You guessed it!  It’s time to harvest some cabbage!  Like I’ve said before, I want to give fermenting a try this year.  Our cabbage has come of age, and it’s time for it to take it’s place in my stomach the world.

Matt wants to take a few heads and boil them down with some sort of pork-like meat–we’ll have to get with him to find more out about that.  I am going to make sauerkraut out of some of it.  I’ve never done this before, but I’ve been reading up on it via that dangerous internet thing (I’ll share some of my more favorite sites on the subject at a later date).

So it beings: Diary of a Kraut; for the next two weeks (or however long the fermenting process takes) I will be documenting my prodigy as it zombifies into an undead treat for me.

The first thing I had to do was take five pounds of cabbage (it only took one head!) and slice, dice, and rip it up into a respectable size.  After that, I added three tablespoons of salt to the shredded cabbage.  I have to admit, I tasted it at this point and it was good enough to eat already!

As the water started seeping out of the cabbage, thanks to our friend osmosis, I transported my mess to a pickling crock.  Then I placed a plate on top of the mix and added a mason jar full of water for weight.  The plate and extra weight are there to push down and squeeze the water out of the cabbage.

The next 24 hours are very important to this process.  If enough water isn’t suqeezed out of the cabbage to cover it, then I will have to add a brine mixture to it so that it will halt the microbial action that I don’t want;  this will make a great home for Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus.

Stay tuned for the next update and we can watch this sauerkraut bloom together!
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