Gotta love getting third-hand fermenting advice from people who have been doing it forever: I rang my grandmother in Poland to ask whether shed ever made sauerkraut (shes an absolute master of the dill pickle). She apparently never had, but her neighbour (also in their 80s) did. The next day I got a call back with the following advice: after 5 days of fermentation, remove the weights etc and poke the handle of a wooden spoon (or presumably any other dowel-shaped object) into the kraut to create holes down to the bottom (or as far as you can get). Apparently this helps to release the gasses and keeps the cabbage from being bitter. When I mentioned that I had whole leaves on top of the cabbage, grandma seemed wary of floaters, and said she would recommend using a piece of boiled (read: sterilised) kitchen towel directly on top of the cabbage, in a single layer (ie not folded), with the weights on top of that. Granny knows best, so Im going to try her friends whole poking thing, but Im not sure I want to disrupt the balance of things by switching to a tea towel at this stage. Has anyone heard of/done either of these things before?
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:59:48 +0000
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