Description
My whole life, fermentation seemed either like this ancient mysterious practice, or a mythical chemistry experiment that required lots of math and a perfectly sterilized clean room. Never did I imagine it was so simple and fast! Kimchi and Sauerkraut are my two go-tos, but I recently started a batch of fermented carrots, greens, and a honey mead! Next stop on the preservation adventure is candying—here’s looking at you, giant bag of lemons that I forgot what I bought you for…
Ingredients
- 1 head red cabbage, chopped into quarters with the hearts cut out (so emo)
- 1 cup red radishes, sliced into coins
- Kosher Salt
Instructions
- Here is where the math comes in, but it’s honestly pretty simple. You will need a kitchen scale for this though, so be forewarned. Lacto Fermentation occurs right around 1.5-2.5% salinity, so after you are done slicing and dicing your veggies, throw them all in a bowl (be sure to weigh just the empty bowl first) to get the weight of your veggies. Now multiply this amount by .02 and that’s how much salt you add. Simple, right?
- Weigh out that amount of salt, pour it in the bowl and massage those veggies. This will take about 10 minutes. You want to feel the cabbage start to soften and relax.Next, grab a sanitized large fermenting jar with an airlock, or a mason jar (you will need to burp these twice a day), and pack your salty veggies in. And when I say pack, I mean grab a rolling pin and press those veggie bois down to the bottom of the jar. Don’t be afraid to use a heavy hand-you want to squeeze out as many air gaps as possible.
- Finally, put the lid on your jar and place it in a dark spot for about 6-8 hours. At this point your sauerkraut is going to start releasing lots of water. Go on and give it another packing with the rolling pin.
- After 10 hours the level of the liquid in the jar should cover the top of the veggies. If it doesn’t, go mix up a 2% salt-to-water solution and pour in just enough so the tops of the veggies are covered.
- Now you wait! Feel free to grab some chopsticks and taste it every day until it’s to your liking (mine takes usually 2-4 days), then throw it in the fridge and voila! You have just successfully made your own batch of homemade sauerkraut.