First Taste @ 48 hours

Last night Eric and I had a late dinner so I gave us each a small ramekin of sauerkraut on our plates. I tasted mine first.  It definitely had the initial hint of being kraut but at the same time had a crunchy fresh taste too. When I told Eric that it still tasted like fresh cabbage he bypassed his taste test, LOL.  Anyways we’ll try to taste it every day so that we can monitor its progress and halt or slow it when we deem it good eats.

One other thing about the taste test…  It was too salty. Like tongue-hurty saltiness. Eric can attest to my love of salt and everything salty so when I say too salty, it’s too salty. I was surprised and disappointed at this.  I think next taste test I’ll rinse it a bit in fresh water and see if that helps.  If we weren’t approaching warmer months, I’d say next batch would have less salt but warmer weather kind of dictates more salt.  We’ll see though. 

Also yesterday we noted the start of bubbling. If we press on the weight a ton of bubbles come rushing to the surface.

I noticed off and on yesterday and this  morning when I came down stairs that the kitchen definitely smells like kraut.  It’s not a smell that really bothers me but I notice it.

Here is a picture from last night after I removed our bit of cabbage for sampling.  You can’t really tell from the picture but I made a make shift ‘plate’ to help hold down the floaty bits of cabbage.  I use a GladWare lid that I cut down to a manageable (and removable) size.  You’ll also notice how high the brine is.  We did add 1 cup (8oz) of brine the previous night after Eric pressed it again but it looks like we didn’t need it.