So I've tasted my sauerkraut, I gave it a week to ferment.

If you remembered I did one jar with salt and another without. The one without salt tasted sour something that would taste like kraut while the one with salt was very sweet and bitter tasting (not pleasant)

The question I am having is that the recipe I followed calls for you to put in salt with the cabbage, carrot, and onion mixture to help pull water out of all the ingredients through osmosis to make the brine that the kraut will ferment in.

I just finished reading chapter 8 (Hostile Environment) in our March of the Microbe book, and it talks about how salt is a preservative, it states  " Salt has also been used since ancient times as a food preservative, because high concentration of salt prevent the growth of microbes.

So I started thinking maybe the jar without salt is the only jar that is fermenting even though the recipe calls for you to use salt..........?

So I have decided to do trial number two. I am going to try a different recipe, one that specifies how much salt to put in......maybe enough salt to cause osmosis but not enough to prevent microbes from forming.

Again I will make two jars one with salt and one without. Hopefully the jar that I follow a recipe works.  So I am off to the store to try this sauerkraut project again!

This morning I went to check on the kraut, and I noticed that some of the brine was leaking from one of the jars. I remember reading that the gases would build up and that you would have to release some of the pressure.
 I opened the jar with  no salt first, there was a lot of juices that came out and you could tell that pressure from fermenting gases needed to be released because there was a popping noise when I released the seal.
Next I opened the jar with salt, no juices were leaking and when I opened the jar there was no popping noises.

I am not really sure why the jar t swith no salt had more pressure. Maybe because there was no salt there was too much acid in the jar creating pressure. Maybe the salt acts through osmosis and also balances out the acid. Not sure, I will continue to investigate and watch and wait!

The kraut is all mixed up! It looks very colorful and I cant wait to eat some. Now it is a waiting game.

 

I made two jars of kraut. One jar I added salt to the mixture and the other jar I didn't

 The salt pulls water out of the cabbage (through osmosis), and this creates the brine in which the cabbage can ferment and sour without rotting. The salt also has the effect of keeping the cabbage crunchy, by inhibiting organisms and enzymes that soften it. I wanted to see what would happen if I did not add salt to one of the kraut jars.

Fermentation- Saurekraut

I never knew you could make sauerkraut this way, I worked in a deli for 5 years before I became a nurse and I never really took notice to the process. This looks like a cool and simple way to make a healthy snack.

Check out the link,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i77hU3zR-fQ&feature=youtu.be

What I will need:
Cabbage- Green and Red
Carrots
Onion
Garlic
Salt

The process:
I will chop up all the ingredients and then mix them into a big bowl. When mixing everything I will be squeezing the products to help get the juices going and breaking down the cell wall of the veggies. These juices will create a brine that the kraut will have to be submerged in.

Never done this before hope all goes well, wish me best of luck!