The kraut is fermenting

Day one of placing the cabbage into the jar.

This post is going to be a serial, since the food I'm making takes two weeks, and I thought I'd post my progress rather than wait until the end. I'm making sauerkraut. I've made sauerkraut and other fermented foods in the past, but this time I'm following the lead of Michelle Babb, and making it the way she instructs in the video I'm sharing with you. A couple of weeks ago I took a cooking class from Michelle called anti-inflammatory eating for healthy aging. She made several incredibly delicious dishes for us to try, using anti-inflammatory foods, one of which, to my horror, turned out to be fennel. Fennel, black licorice, anise — I've spent years trying to tolerate the taste so I can eat things like five-spice powder and pho. I've had roasted fennel bulb, and it was excellent, but in our class, we had a raw fennel and spring onion salad, and I ate it and liked it! It was made with the raw fennel bulb, not the greens.

Michelle talked a lot about feeding our microbiome, and one of the ways to do that is with small amounts of fermented foods. During the class, she shared with us that she had posted a video of herself making sauerkraut, on her facebook page, and she then went on to demonstrate the sauerkraut-making process in class. (The video is very complete so I won't spend a lot of time here describing the process.) It looked so easy. Shredding the three-pound cabbage and massaging it take a bit of time and effort, but not so much as to make it a chore. In the first photo above, you can see the cabbage just after I pressed it into the jar, still pretty green. I placed a heavy mortar with a weighty stone in it onto the cabbage to help press it down. The massaging and pressing into the jar created so much liquid it spilled over onto the dish I placed under the jar to catch overflow. I've lifted the towel so you can see my just starting sauerkraut. (I'm using one liter (32oz.) preserving jars from Le Parfait that I bought at the hardware store for about $10 each. There are certainly cheaper jars out there, but I really like this one.)

Foam is forming at the top.

Here's the jar on day five. There is foam at the top of the jar. It smells like sauerkraut, and doesn't seem spoiled, but is foam supposed to be there?

Closeup of the foam.

Even after all the foods I've fermented in my kitchen, I still get nervous about bad bacteria and spoilage. I'll let you know how it turns out! Have you made sauerkraut?



Here is the video I followed to make my kraut. Michelle is a lifestyle and nutrition coach who describes herself as a wannabe vegan. She seems to be moving in that direction but isn't quite there yet, though the class was 100% vegan. Here is a link to the videos on her facebook page. 

UPDATES
1. I've got a second batch going, and I made a couple of changes. I added two thin onion slices, shredded, and about an inch of fresh ginger, grated.

2. Massaging the kraut can be tiring to the hands, but I found I could massage more efficiently, and comfortably, by using my fists.

3. Pressing with a flat, heavy, clean stone is even better!

Want to know how the first batch turned out?  Part 2: Ate the kraut. Didn't get sick.