Homemade sauerkraut?
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lauriekallis wrote: »I haven't had any luck finding unpasteurized sauerkraut in my area. So I think it is time to take the leap and try making it myself.
This is the recipe I'm going to try: https://cleanfoodcrush.com/homemade-raw-sauerkraut/#more-'
Anybody here have any experience on this front? Would love some suggestions/instructions/first hand experience. I'm a bit nervous.
I haven't tried this one but I love cleanfoodcrush. She has some really good recipes.
I am not a sauerkraut person lol
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It is easy and fun. I started with saurkraut, then went on to brining dill pickles, and ended up making ginger ale.1
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Gingerale - that sounds like something fun!0
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I have been wanting to make my own sauerkraut but it seems daunting!! Thanks for this link!0
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waistaway80 wrote: »I have been wanting to make my own sauerkraut but it seems daunting!! Thanks for this link!
It's actually very easy. It almost "makes itself." I am waiting for cooler weather when I know I can keep it below 75 degrees consistently for three weeks.0 -
I absolutely agree with @mtaratoot - I was daunted until I tried it and saw how the magic happened! I too am waiting for it to cool - nursing the last jar along until I can make more.
To fill the summer gap, I made a few batches of Kimchi because it only needs a few days of fermenting - a short enough period to predict weather/temperatures. It is delicious too - but not the same.
I thank you @mtaratoot for giving me the courage to try it.
(my son just brought me a bag of my jars back - 11 jars from sauerkraut and kimchi I gave him over the past 6 months - I was tickled ) 0 -
The kimchi was probably ready yesterday, but I didn't pull it out of the fermentation vessel. I did today. It's pretty good, and I decided to mix in the last of the other batch that was way too salty. This one is pretty spicy!
When I put it away to ferment on Monday:
One of the half gallon jars that is now in the fridge:
What a pleasant stink!1 -
I am curious what it's going to smell like in my house in a few days.
I made the cauliflower kimchi. I've never even eaten any, but it sounded good. I broke up a half head of cauliflower and soaked it in brine for nearly 24 hours. This afternoon I made paste with four fresh serrano chiles (I took out the seeds for looks, but unfortunately that means lots of the heat will go away too), a bunch of garlic & ginger, red chile flakes, a little Aleppo style chile flakes, some ancho powder, some soy sauce, and some fish sauce. I processed that to a paste. I sliced a jalapeno and mixed it all together. It all fit in a half-gallon jar with headspace to spare. I didn't want to press it down too hard, so I added some of the brine back in. I covered it with a clean plastic bag and filled the bag with more brine to hold everything under the liquid. I'm expecting it will ferment two weeks and be ready about the same time as the sauerkraut I started last week.
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Cauliflower kimchi update.
Yesterday was the day I was supposed to jar it up and put it in the fridge. I went to the forest to stomp around and collect mushrooms instead. Today's weather is very high wind and a crapton of rain, so I took advantage of the weather.
So today was the day.
I also jarred up the sauerkraut that was supposed to be done today. Can I just say there's a very interesting set of aromas in my house now. It will continue because a friend gave me a couple Napa cabbages from their farm, and they are presently sitting in a big bowl of salt. I will massage them a little more then cover them with water for a few hours while I go get some other ingredients, then rinse rinse rinse, then mix up the next kimchi. But all that has nothing to do with the cauliflower.
It really was interesting how the smell of the stuff changed every few days. The thing I was most curious about was how it tastes. It's actually pretty good! I will make more again some other time, and I might shut down the fermentation a few days early hoping it will be just a little crisper.
The taste is unique. It's mildly sour, but it's also sweet. Slightly crispy with a lot of ginger and garlic accenting the vegetable. It's still crisp to be honest, and it really isn't fermented too long. Maybe I should just stick to the same recipe. Even though the flavors are the same ones I use for Napa kimchi, the flavor is totally different.
Yum!
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Yesterday I chopped up a couple purple cabbages from a friend's farm. She gets a share of the sauerkraut. I haven't made purple kraut yet. Now I'm starting.
Was a bit of a pain, but as it turns out, it was a good thing the two cabbages weighed in a pound or two more than my normal recipe. There were spots inside each heat that were dried, brown leaves. I don't know what would cause this, but I know this farm doesn't use pesticides. It could be insect damage. Whatever. So it took a lot longer to prep than normal as I had to sort out the bad spots every two slices of cabbage. When done, I sorted the whole batch from the giant bowl into a plastic bucket, then sorted again back into the giant bowl. I think I got rid of most of the brown/dry bits. Very odd.
Salted the cabbage and let it sit an hour maybe as I massaged it a few times then packed into a gallon jar. It released plenty of liquid. I checked it this morning, and it was just barely starting to show signs of coming to life.
For a change I made this one very basic. No carrots. No garlic. Just cabbage, salt, and caraway. It will be ready to sample in three weeks.
Then today I put more cauliflower in a brine to soak. In the morning I'll drain it and get the "sauce" going and in a few days my house will smell really funky again. I've already eaten through about half the cauliflower kimchi I made a couple weeks ago. The flavor is mellowing. Ah, fermentation season....
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Wow - you are such an inspiration
I had shoulder surgery in October and am not quite up to slicing/chopping anything with anykind of finesse yet. Sling is coming off soon - maybe I'll be able to weild a knife with some accuracy early in the new year. I could really use some kimchii!!!!!!!
Thank you for posting these.0 -
lauriekallis wrote: »Wow - you are such an inspiration
I had shoulder surgery in October and am not quite up to slicing/chopping anything with anykind of finesse yet. Sling is coming off soon - maybe I'll be able to weild a knife with some accuracy early in the new year. I could really use some kimchii!!!!!!!
Thank you for posting these.
Get well soon! The most basic kimchi doesn't need as much finesse. Chop the Napa big. You can even skip the daikon. All the ginger and garlic and chilies can go in the food processor. Sauerkraut might be harder if you truly want to slice the cabbage the width of a quarter. I think you could also just roughly chop it; it would still ferment. Just be different texture.
The red cabbage sauerkraut came out quite nice. Very basic - just red cabbage, salt, and caraway. Three weeks ferment and packed it up. Without the garlic which is very non-traditional, it's very sweet. Still super crunchy, and also pretty sour. I gave about 1.5 quarts to my friend who gave me the cabbage. I don't have anything fermenting right now, but that's OK. I have to work through two batches of kraut and 1.5 batches of kimchi. And the second batch of cauliflower is also good; next time I might only let it ferment one week. Very tasty and still unusual.
The red kraut:
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That looks good.
I'm almost good to chop 0 -
We had some cold weather in the forecast a week or two ago. My neighbor was out of state, and I was taking care of the house to assure pipes don't freeze and all that. Forecast was COLD weather. I got a text: "Please pick carrots, beets, and kale before the freeze turns 'em to mush." I knew we also had snow on the way that probably would insulate them, but I hedged bets and pulled some carrots. Oh DOG they are tasty. Crisp, but tender. And really sweet.
Short story is they survived. The air got cold, but the ground didn't freeze. The insulation meant that the plants didn't even quite die back to the ground. Good thing. I have beets and kale that would have succumbed. All are well.
So I had all these carrots. And I like fermented vegetables. I cut them, stuffed them in a standard-mouth half-gallon jar with some black pepper, caraway, dill, garlic, and ginger, and I added some brine. It's been a little less than a week, and they are bubbling away. I think they will be awesome. I dared take out a sample today. Totally NOT finished fermenting, but still crisp at tasty.
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Wow, @mtaratoot , those look delicious.
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lauriekallis wrote: »Wow, @mtaratoot , those look delicious.
I have given in to temptation a couple times and grabbed a sample. They remain crisp and tender, and they are still sweet even as the lactic acid makes them sour. The vigorous ferment is subsiding. I will pack 'em up this weekend and share some with my neighbor who grew them and a few other friends and hoard all the rest. I probably should go start another batch as soon as these are done. I also need to think about starting a new kimchi. I have plenty of kraut to last another month or three, but I'll want to make at least one more batch before it gets warm. And yes... spring is on the way!0 -
Today was the day I planned to end the carrot ferment. And I did.
I packed them into three jars - small, medium, and large. I gave the small jar to the neighbor who grew them. I don't even know if she likes pickles. The other two are in the refrigerator. They had been fermenting very slowly the last several days, although they were still fermenting. They are mildly sour. Kind of like a half sour pickle. They may be more sour than the taste would suggest since they were so sweet to start with.
Oh. Yeah. They are delicious.
Some of the garlic turned blue. I've seen this before. It's not dangerous, and last time it actually subsided. Too bad; once I found out it wasn't dangerous, I thought it looked kind of cool.0 -
Decided to follow this!
I haven't fermented any food, only honey, water, yeast...which turns into Mead! 🥂1 -
HotMermaid729 wrote: »Decided to follow this!
I haven't fermented any food, only honey, water, yeast...which turns into Mead! 🥂
I used to make mead. In fact, I still have some that is probably 25 or 30 years old. Some hasn't aged well, but when I pull out a couple bottles, there's always at least one that's not only "not bad," but is still really good. My mead making stemmed out of home brewing beer. I developed a basic recipe for a show mead as well as just basic mead that had a couple other ingredients. Plus things like hydromel, braggot, pyment, and even a rhodomel.
Many people associate mead with a cloyingly sweet drink. Mine weren't sweet. They were pretty dry. I used a very attenuative yeast (Lalvin K1V-1116). The perception was a little sweeter than it actually was because the floral essences from the honey came through. I would never boil it, just boil the water, add the honey, and let it sit at least 160F for at least 20 minutes or so to pasteurize. Typically I'd start with a gallon of honey for a five gallon batch and then add some more honey when I moved it to secondary fermentation. After the second honey addition, I figured that the adjusted original gravity was usually about 1.10, and I'd ferment it down around 1.0 or sometimes less. I think I'd usually end up about 12% ABV.
My favorite recipe was very simple. The final flavor was affected by what the bees collected, but my addition, aside from a little yeast nutrient, was just a tiny bit of fresh ginger and eleven whole black peppercorns. You couldn't taste the pepper, but it added depth that is hard to describe. Once I added two split vanilla beans to the secondary fermentation. That was good too, and I think I still have a bottle of that.
I'm going to open some OLD mead this week!1 -
I was running low on kimchi, so made a large batch today. One big Napa a little over three pounds and another a little over two. Nice crisp daikon. Carrots. Lots and lots of garlic. Lots of ginger. Green onions, jalapeno, Serrano, and gochogaru. Soy sauce and fish sauce.
This filled my gallon jar almost to the top. My guess is that when the ferment really gets going, it will bubble over. Oh well.
Three or four days then I'll move it into smaller jars and put in the fridge for the flavors to mature. I still have about a half a quart left of the last batch, so this one will be ready just in time.1
