Can you ferment with wine?

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Can you ferment with wine?

Postby kelly999* on Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:28 pm

Hi There, I'm new here, joined 4 days ago when I finally started my first batch of sauerkraut. I live in the little area where France, Germany, and Switzerland come together. Lots of sauerkraut here. We always got it in a bag, and cooked it with wine. I love the wine taste, and will probably find my homemade sauerkraut lacking the flavor I'm used to. I saw that Sandor had a comment of you COULD ferment with wine... but that was all. I did order "Wild Fermentation" (2016) but it won't be here till next week. My questions are: Has anybody had any successes or failures with this? How did you do it? Would the wine diminish the probiotic effects that I'm looking for? I really really looked and looked for info, but could not find a thing anywhere except one post in German that said they added wine to their Kraut after it fermented a while. Hope to get some help here :) Thanks!
kelly999*
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2017 9:26 pm

Re: Can you ferment with wine?

Postby kelly999* on Sun Dec 03, 2017 6:07 pm

SO.. not that you think I'm a one post wonder.. I have just been waiting patiently for an answer from somebody that knows more than me. I have been checking regularly if anybody had a comment. Answer to that is apparently .. no...
Now I'm gonna rattle on, and hope somebody finds it a bit informative.
I'm looking at a bag of wine sauerkraut that I bought in Switzerland. Ingredients: Sauerkraut ( Cabbage, salt) wine 2.7%, then spices and stuff. That is what we would normally put in a pan with sausages and stuff if cooking. Have got some from Germany too. A lot of the time, adding wine was right in the cooking directions. They gave some leeway and allowed you to add water if you were apposed to wine ;)
OK, so at the 10 day mark, i tried my first sauerkraut with my 20 year old daughter that doesn't like sauerkraut. She LIKED what I made! It was still mild at only 10 days. That was jar one out of 3. I thought I would let the other 2 sit a bit longer for comparison. Jar one went into the fridge, but noticed the brine kinda disappeared. Decided to try my wine theory ( although I had already decided if it was homemade, it tasted better than any store bought with wine) Well, I topped up the jar one with a bit of wine and YELPED when it went crazy bubble mode immediately! Like if you pour vinegar on baking soda. I left that a couple days and tried my official 2 week sauerkraut against the wine version. Daughter and Hubby thought the 2 week without wine was better, but a bit strong for them, only at 2 weeks. The one with wine had all the flavor washed out. However.. I did not taste it before adding the wine. Flavor may have already been washed out. I read that here somewhere else that brine went away, and flavor vanished. Also the color is really washed out even more on the the one with the wine. It's so white.
I would like to make longer fermenting sauerkraut for the probiotics, but rather make something they will like to eat, so early batches seems to be how we are gonna go around this house for a while till everybody gets used to it.
Extra info, my house is pretty cold. Kraut was between 60 and 70. sometimes more, sometimes less. I didn't write anything down precisely about the salt.. think it may have been 17 grams of pink Himalayan per head of cabbage. Don't remember the cabbage weight, but I went by guidelines here . I only added a small amount of fennel.. will leave that out next time.. too overpowering.
I REALLY hope more will share some thoughts, or successes, or failures, or questions! Looks like many had some! Like a 100 views, but no comments.
Happy day to everybody! Don't be shy to say something!
kelly999*
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2017 9:26 pm

Re: Can you ferment with wine?

Postby Christopher Weeks on Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:22 am

Just so you know someone's reading this, I'm interested int he topic, but don't know anything. I was hoping someone else would come along and converse with you about it.
Christopher Weeks
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