Day #1 Fermenting

 

Hey everyone! Today is day one of my sauerkraut adventure. I've decided to try my sauerkraut two different ways. I'm going to leave one of my jars of sauerkraut in for the minimum of 3 days and the second jar for the full 10 days and see the difference the 7 days will make. So today I went to the grocery store and picked up my ingredients (cabbage, kosher salt, etc.) I decided not to completely follow the recipe (I saw many video’s on making it so I kind of made my own version.)

This Is What I Did:

1.      I started by cleaning out all of the mason jars with hot water to kill all the bad bacteria.

2.      I cut up all of the cabbage and put it into a big bowl.

3.      I added 1.5 tablespoons of kosher salt to the cabbage.

4.      I squeezed the cabbage for approximately 7 minutes.

5.      I packed the salty cabbage tightly into 5 mason jars and made sure all of the cabbage was submerged in liquid.

6.      I closed all of the mason jar tops and placed them in a dark area.

My Observations:

I tasted the cabbage right before I packaged it up and it tasted like salty, soggy cabbage (not as bad as you’d think.) It smelled like salt water and there were many bubbles on top of the container. The cabbage felt firm, but wet.

I took some photos during the process:
                                                                   

Some of my supplies

Chopped cabbage and salt
 

Mixing and squeezing the cabbage

All squeezed together

 

Packing the cabbage in

I made sure the cabbage was covered in liquid
 

The mason jars stored in the dark. And now we wait!!