Our fermenting experience is really limited. I’ve personally done wine before. Eric and I have done beers together. We hope to try cheeses this summer when we have more time.
I came across this book called Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz and it has really sparked my interest in fermented foods. They are actually very healthy and safe for people. They act as a digestive aid containing the same bacteria as yogurt. A lot of people are afraid to try their hand at fermenting foods because of the risk of botulism. If you do the reading/research you’ll find that it is a non issue with fermenting for many reasons – namely botulism doesn’t like salt and acid.
Tonight we are starting our first batch of Sauerkraut aka fermented cabbage. We plan to post updates and reviews of the process from start to finish.
The recipe is simple: 5 lbs of fresh cabbage and about 3 tablespoons of pickling salt.
I coarsely chopped the cabbage and removed most of the cores. As I put each layer of cabbage in the bowl I sprinkled some salt on.
Then I packed it as hard as I could in to a 1 gallon jar. After trimming the cabbage I ended up with 4 1/2 lbs and it was all I could do to cram it into the jar.
I placed a pint jar full of water into the mouth of the gallon jar to act as a weight. Over the next day or two the sauerkraut will need to be pressed down when ever we can manage it. This will ensure that the moisture is released from the cabbage and that it will be submerged under the liquid to prevent spoilage. Then we wait for Lactobacilli to do their thing. Once the volume goes down a bit in the jar I’ll find something else to use as a weight.
As a final step, I tied an old (clean) tea towel around the top to keep dust and bugs out. If you open this photo up bigger you can see the moisture is already starting to accumulate in the bottom of the jar and it’s only been about 10 minutes.
0 comments:
Post a Comment