(Surprising) Sauerkraut Success!

[forget-me-not]

Well, I've made three batches of sauerkraut (and one batch of awesome kimchi) so far. The first batch I made in a quart mason jar. It wasn't too successful. It went slimy, because of some mistakes I made (adding non-brine water to the top, also checking/poking at it too often) so I had to throw it out. The second batch went a lot better. It turned out ok after 6 weeks.

I decided to make a larger batch on my third try, and used a 6-quart plastic foodservice storage container. I weighted it down with a plate and some clean, boiled rocks and covered it to prevent evaporation. I put this on top of the fridge, too. After several days, it looked like the brine was kind of brownish, which bothered me. I smelled it, and it was pretty funky smelling. Not putrid, but just strong and weird. I was convinced that it had gone bad.

I left it up there for a total of 2 1/2 weeks, sort of procrastinating throwing it out. Finally, I got motivated to toss it, so I opened it up, took the rocks off the plate, and poured the brine off the top. I noticed that smell had mellowed considerably, and the brine wasn't as brown as I thought it was. I took off the plate, looked at the kraut inside, and thought "huh", because there wasn't any objectionable smell, just a clean sauerkraut odor. It wasn't slimy or soft, so I tried some. It was fantastic! I packed it in clean mason jars and stashed it in the fridge. I may use something different than rocks (glass bowl maybe?) to weigh it down next time, because even though they were cleaned and boiled, I'm concerned about possible metals or toxins leaching into the brine. I think it's possible the brine above the plate got a little discolored from iron oxide from the rocks. I think a lot of the smell in the beginning was just probably sulfur compounds from the cabbage breaking down.

Hopefully this post will be encouraging to those who think they might have horribly failed sauerkraut, when actually it might be some good stuff that just needs a little time, patience and experience with the fermentation process.