First Steps in Project Fermentation: Kraut and Kim-Chi!

We (my girlfriend, Bek, and I) have always wanted to make sauerkraut, problem is neither of has ever done it!  And I at least don’t really like plain kraut.  Some is nice (my Babcia makes a great kraut!) and Kim-Chi (spicy Korean sauerkraut) is excellent (Bek loves it too)!  So we are going to give it a try.

Having never made either before we’re going to use recepies from the internet.  Apple, Carrot Sauerkraut        and Kim-Chi.  So today we went to buy ingredients; 1 red and 2 green cabbage (the local store didn’t have Napa Cabbage so for Kim-Chi we used a regular green one instead), apples, carrots.  All the rest we already have.  It’s great when that happens!

For the kraut, because there are no instructions on the recepie page, we basically followed the instructions for regular kraut on Sandor Kainz’s website, Wild Fermentation.  We used half red, half green cabbage (as Mr. Kainz suggests).  Hopefully this will give us a nice pink kraut!

For the Kim-Chi we followed the recepie on the site except for adding a puree of one apple and half an Asian pear.  Many other websites I’ve read suggested this as it adds a “natural sweetness.”

On the left is the fermenting Kim-Chi and on the right is the Sauerkraut.  Both buckets were full when we started, the salt draws water out of all the vegetables and makes everything shrink.  A lot!

Sandor Keinze recommends covering the fermenting Krout and weighing it down with something, we used small plates and jars full of water, it seems to work.

So far so good!  We’ll see in a week or two how it all tastes!