Hi! This is John from betterdoneyourself.com. Today, I'm making some sauerkraut. The process for sauerkraut is just like
we've been looking at with some my other videos--
that is to take a vegetable. Cut it up into small
pieces. Submerge it in a salty brine. Potentially, inoculate with some existing bacteria,
if you have such a thing, and then allowing it to ferment for a
certain number of days. The most difficult step is in making sauerkraut is just processing all
the cabbage. It's just a matter of trying to cut up
the cabbage in the most uniform manner possible--
removing the bulk leaves, removing the hard center-- the stem core inside the cabbage and then neatly slicing all up
the the leaves into into strips. You may need to experiment to figure out the best way for you to cut-up cabbage. You can I'm just use a
board and knife and cut it up.You can buy a mandolin at your favorite gadget store or maybe on Amazon. I've got a link below.
Here this is an older model of mandolin that I've had for quite a while. I like this. I like Zyliss for mandolins.
I've tried a lot of other mandolins. I have tried some expensive mandolins that just don't function as well as
these ones from Zyliss. Check the link below in and have a look
at the one that I picked out on Amazon. It looks like a more recent model of the one that I'm using here. Once you've got a cabbage chopped up the next step is to brine it. I'm just using my hands
here and literally just punching the cabbage. It's a good way to take out your aggressions but you wanna' break up the cabbage. What you're trying to do here is, using the salt and your hands, crush this cabbage and get the juices
to start flowing out of the cabbage and create the brine
that that will keep your cabbages submerged. If you
have it to use, as just as an insurance policy, you can
add some pickle juice. Grab your favorite pickles that you've
got going. These are naturally fermented pickles. See my other pickle making
video Give yourself a doseof the bacteria
to get this sauerkraut off to a good start. Another thing: if you make your own
yogurt is maybe add a half a cup of whey. If you like you can add some shredded carrot. These are carrots
that I peeled and grated that I bought at the farmers' market.
All organic, so there's no pesticides or anything bad that's gonna
hurt my ferment. Like any other ferment, you have to
keep this out up the air. You'll want to keep your anaerobic bacteria protected from the
air. Any oxygen that hits this cabbage pot will cause rot-- will cause mold will cause an off taste to occur so you
really want to make sure you've got a lot of brine that keeps the cabbage covered and then
some kinda weight like a round plate. I use a gallon size
ziptop bag full of more brine solution to keep my cabbage
submerged. Every couple days you're gonna wanna
check your cabbage. Seeing how things are going-- to see if the cabbages starting to get slimy. See how it
smells. If you're feeling daring, you can have a
taste and you should find it crunchy, slightly
salty and starting to get sour. That's what
we're going for! We're going to sour this cabbage. We're going to hopefully prevent this and such a way that will build up lactic acid and give the its cabbages nice taste and help to preserve
it as well so this obviously is going in the
right direction! It actually tastes quite good! What we're gonna wanna do is just make sure you've got enough liquid in this crock. Here in my crock, it looks like there's been some evaporation or maybe the cabbage swelled a little bit. I'm just adding
fresh water here. I don't want to any more salt because I think I've got my saltiness
right but I do need enough water that I've got the level up the
liquid above the cabbage leaves themselves. My ziplock bag might be way
here to hold everything down below the surface in the
water. I want to get this water right above the bag a little bit. So keep
this covered up and back down in the basement.
I'll let this go for another couple weeks!