Bad to the Bone Naturally Fermented Sauerkraut

I won't even go into how much sauerkraut I can consume. It's like on a scale... and that's because my normal method of making sauerkraut involves fermenting my veggies in very large Harsch-style fermentation crocks made by Gartopf.

And I have obtained these beautiful vessels and made an enormous amount of sauerkraut over the years because Fall often brings an abundance of cabbage. Whether grown at home in the garden or picked up like irresistible vegetable magnets at some beautiful farmer's market veggie stand, I can never resist the urge to preserve it all for later consumption when fresh greens are less abundant.

10L and 15L crocks make a pretty decent amount of pickled anything, whether it's dill pickles, pickled hot peppers, sauerkraut, kimchi, whatever. It's a lot.  And when they are full, they are heavy. Like, you might strain yourself if you try to lift them. That kinda heavy...

For instance, if you have 15 or more lbs of cabbage, then the larger, traditional glazed clay crocks are the way to go. They aren't cheap and can run anywhere from $85 to over $200, but it's definitely how you want to make a larger batch.

But lo and behold, I stumbled upon this little fermentation container known as the Crazy Korean Kimchi maker. Or something like that. But this company makes them in every size you will ever need.

What I love about this one is that it is fridge-size. If you've ever made kimchi before, you know that it's a fridge or cool cellar, kind of affair. Me, I've always made my kimchi in a click clack style food container that I kept in the fridge. An airtight, container, mind you. Understating it politely, kimchi can be rather aromatic. Especially to those untrained in the ways of kimchi. lol! I love that kind of intense, sucker punch of flavor, for real but not really loving a cheesecake with a hint of kimchi...

Having said that, I love anything naturally fermented. I drink fermented tea, keep sourdoughs, brew beer, kombucha, dabble in charcuterie, cheese. You get the crazy picture... That is to say, I am fascinated by this old fashioned preservation method that has become all but lost and is now considered by most to be a hobby instead of a life or death necessity of feeding the family throughout the winter.

So when I saw this contraption a few years ago on Amazon while looking for a new glass kimchi jar, I had to have it. It seemed ingenious.

Easier to refrigerate and the best part of it is that it has it's own flexible airlock layer that naturally vents the fermentation gases. No weights and no mess or fuss with your fermented vegetables not staying beneath the fermenting brining liquid. That sometimes leads to mold or off flavors and this handy little all in one box does it all and does it very well.

Not one to settle for single-taskers in the kitchen, I wanted to test drive it with a few smaller batch ferments I needed to do recently. For one, I used it to speed up a chili pepper ferment for a microbrew of hot sauce. It was outstanding and the ferment was so perfect after 2 weeks, I could complete the hot sauce I was making with the fermented peppers.

On to bigger and better culinary experiments.

Here's the way I used it for making my first batch of bad-to-the-bone sauerkraut. And yes, at my house, that's now a thing....

Bad to the Bone Sauerkraut Ingredients:
cabbage, sliced thinly with a knife or mandolin slicer
pink Himalayan salt

Brining ratio, if necessary:
2 c water
2 tbsp distilled white vinegar
1 tbsp pink Himalayan salt

1. Slice the cabbage thinly and layer on the bottom of whatever vessel you are using for your ferment. It could be a ceramic or glass jar.
2. Sprinkle salt over the layer of cabbage. Don't have to go crazy here. A light touch will do. Pound with a cabbage muddler/pounder, if you have one and if you make kraut a lot, you will want one. I couldn't find mine, funny enough, so I used the meat pounder.
3. Pound the cabbage layer a bit and then add another layer of salted cabbage. Continue to pound each layer until the cabbage begins to release it's natural water. You will be surprised.
4. At this point, you should have enough natural juices to submerge the now tightly pressed cabbage but if not, add a simple brine using the above ratio until you can fully submerge the cabbage. This container I'm using has a silicone layer with a built in airvac loc and seal. It performs the same function as traditional fermentation weights or plates. If using a more traditional fermenting crock or jar, the cabbage needs to be submerged in its liquid using fermentation stones, weights, a plate, etc.
5. Seal the vessel. Mine above has a locking lid. My other crocks have large stone fitted lids and are sealed with water in a water channel that creates an airtight seal. You can also just use a cheesecloth, muslin or tea towel secured with a rubber band. You want to keep out bugs and insects as well as unwanted bacteria or other airborne contaminants.

When it comes to sauerkraut, like most any other fermented vegetables, it really is a matter of taste. How long you let the fermentation go, depends on how sour you like your ferment. If you are more on the milder side of that fence, then check your kraut after a week and then again after another week. I think I let mine ferment for about 4-6 weeks but because I'm a curious cat, I will check the ferment starting about week 2. I like a super sour kraut so 6 weeks is still a-ok in my book. 

Remember that in times past, our grandparents used to ferment for the entire winter months, keeping their kraut and pickles in really large crocks or barrels even, just pulling out only what would be eaten within a few days, as needed. You need the larger crocks for that, in my opinion, which I have, but I usually just put it all up in jars just in case something goes awry. Like... I forget to keep the water channel full to create the watertight seal and insets get in. That is just suck-o-rama. Super suck-o-rama.

Again, one of the reasons I'm a little smitten with the Crazy Korean Kimchi maker is that it is a smaller, more manageable batch and it solves all of the drama because it keeps everything out while letting the ferment bubble and burp safely away. That's true regardless of whether you are doing a room temperature ferment, a basement ferment or a fridge ferment, like kimchi where you need to stop the fermentation process at some point. 

Me, I just blow stuff up and this can help with that little problem of over-fermenting because it's small enough to store in the 'ol refrigerator. But even that, can sometimes go awry, as you may have heard... so experiment with wild fermentation abandon at your own risk. ;)

One more handy little gadget to mention before I leave you to your fermentation devices. And that, was a pun intended, because this little device has been my newest BFF in addition to the crazy Korean mentioned above. Pickle Pipes. Yup. Mine came in a pack of 4 and they have since become one of the most used pickling gadgets in the house.

The silicone lids fit with wide mouth canning jar rings and creates an airlock with zero hassle. That little nipple thingy has a hole in it like a child's bottle might but is small enough to only let gases out while preventing access to insects, etc. What I have found is that not only are they very useful for fermenting foods. But if you use them to store fresh peppers, it will literally extend the shelf life of your fresh peppers for WEEKS. That's right. I said weeks, my friends. I was harvesting peppers out of my garden over the course of several weeks in order to start a small batch of hot sauce, but at first, I didn't have enough peppers to start. 

I added my fresh peppers to my jar, no liquid of any kind, of course. Just the washed, fresh peppers. Sealed the jar with a pickle pipe and ring, just as is shown above and I was able to collect peppers over the course of several weeks, adding them to my jar until it was full. Then I started another jar and did that until I had 3 half gallon jars full. 

I couldn't believe my eyes, honestly. I swear to Julia, the peppers I had picked nearly 5 weeks prior were indistinguishable in quality from the ones i had freshly picked that same day. You could not see a bit of deterioration, no soft spots or rotten peppers. Perfect.  The peppers were refrigerated the whole time in my pickle pipe jars. Between the refrigeration and the pickle pipe, the combination allowed me to preserve my fresh pepper harvest over 6 weeks!!! Freaking incredible. So well worth it just for this sole purpose if you grow and eat fresh peppers on a regular basis.

Homemade Pizza

This year, I have obsessed a little with cultured foods. Cultured foods haven't gone to college or studied abroad or married a foreigner...  They are just super healthy foods that have natural probiotics, or the healthy bacteria your gut needs in order to fight off illness or infection.

Most of us are familiar with probiotics in dairy products, especially, cultured dairy we have grown up with our whole lives such as yogurt, sour cream, butter, cheese and buttermilk. What we probably didn't know until recently is what made these dairy foods good for us, such as the probiotics they contain because of the fermentation process they undergo when these products are produced. Probiotics was a term I was unfamiliar with until several years ago when the vitamin supplement companies started touting probiotics as a way of healing a digestive track that was a bit off track.

Now, I see this term everywhere and know what it means and what it can do.  It can make a really bad tummy and digestive system right again. Even if you know this, you may not know that all cultured foods have this ability, not just dairy.  If you are lactose intolerant, don't fret.  There are loads of other foods you can consume with these same wonderful and natural side effects such as, yes, you guessed it, pizza!  How you say?  Let's identify some cultured and fermented products we know and love: pizza, beer, sourdough bread, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi,  pickles of all kinds, sake and of course, most of the dairy products we have already mentioned.  

The important part of the pickle equation, however, is that they are naturally fermented pickles. This means that the American pickles which are processed using vinegar, are not exactly the kind of pickles that are good for you, although they are not bad, they just don't have the healthy probiotics which come from the natural fermentation process used in making old fashioned pickles. The Germans and many of the Asian cultures still ferment vegetables the old fashioned way and that is the style that is quickly making a comeback, both for health reasons and of course, for the very fact that it is an excellent way of preserving your summer crops for winter eating. It is not only healthy, it's practical. It's green!  Make your own and not only will you be blown away at how much better a naturally fermented pickle is but you will giggle at how easy it is to do once you know how.

For today, though, I thought I'd introduce you to another fermented and cultured product that most Americans adore in um, large quantities. :)  Pizza. The simplest way to explain how pizza IS good for you is to talk about it in terms of sour dough bread.  This pizza is made with an Italian Pizza culture I bought from Cultures for Health.  I buy all my cheese and sourdough cultures there and have found them to be easy to follow, as well as very educational with videos, recipes, etc.  They make learning about this way of preparing healthy food really fun.  But being that this is still a cultured food, it means that some of the sugars in the flour are already broken down into a form the body can more easily digest and of course, they are also loaded with the beneficial bacteria your body needs for long term healthy digestion and natural immunity.  

Try, then trust and as always, do your own research and self-validation, like I like to do.  Sourdoughs are also supposed to help people with gluten intolerance who really miss their breads.  Couple this with the best and freshest flour you can find and you might just see gluten intolerance disappear all together, but that is for you to explore and I wish you all the best.

To make the pizza culture:
A packet of Italian Calmodoli sour dough starter (or fresh if you have this going already)
1/4 c lukewarm water
1/4 c flour
Large quart mason jar or other wide mouth jar (NO METAL TOP, very important)
Clean coffee filter and rubber band for sealing the jar to allow gases to escape and to keep out critters. 

**Metal tops will rust and are generally bad when fermenting food as the acids can essentially eat the metal which is simply put, bad eats.

Care and Feeding:
That's it. Use a large glass quart jar to get it started and feed your starter once or twice a day with 1/2 c water, 1/2 c flour.  When the starter is happy, it bubbles and grows or rises. You can see it. If you forget to feed it, a shallow film of liquid will pool on top. Not to worry, just pour this off and continue to feed. If you forget to feed it for a long while, you may need to start over if the film is green, white or moldy. I won't go into the education behind sour dough starter, but if you have questions, let me know and of course, check out Cultures for Health, a wealth of information. I'm a student, too. :)

Pizza Party:
This recipe is a work in progress but how I did this one...

• Liquids = sourdough starter, equal part water (if you have 3/4 quart of starter, use 3/4 quart of water)
• Flour = Double the amount of liquids above (if you have 1 1/2 quart of liquids above use 3 quarts of flour)
• 1/2-1 tablespoon of instant yeast (optional)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt

Mix it however you normally would. I use my Kitchenaid mixer and once it comes together, I put it in my proofing container and let it double.  The yeast is optional. Why? Because natural sourdough will rise if given enough time. However, most people don't want to wait 6 hours for bread to rise. If you have time, try it at least once.  I personally, need to control the rise and timing, so I use yeast... I know, sacrilege, but seriously, it is up to you.

Once it has doubled in size, the dough is ready for shaping and it's final rise. I divide the dough into balls, depending on whether I want large or small pizzas and then roll them on a floured surfaces to the desired shape and size. If you like sheet pan pizza, do that. If you like round, do that.  

My favorite pizza pan is an old perforated (yep it has little holes in it), round 12" pizza pan that arrived in my house from a delivery pizza that was so hastily boxed that the pizza dude left the pan right on the pizza. We haven't had delivery pizza in like 15 years, but this pan is a keeper. I use that pan all the time and recently bought one for my niece. What is special? I don't know exactly. But if you grease the pan or forget, the crust never sticks to this pan. It isn't a non stick pan, it is just some aluminum cheap pan that looks well used. I grease it just in case and the crust is crispy and perfect.  Mine looks a little like this one.

Baking:
450 degrees 12-17 minutes, depends on oven and whether you like a semi-burnt cheese or just gooey. I like mine a little crispified.

One last tip: I prebake my crust for about 5-7 minutes on 450 degrees.  THEN, I add the sauce, cheese, etc. You don't want to overload the pizza with cheese and toppings or maybe you do. I just find that with thin crust pizzas, less is more and with Chicago or deep dish style pizzas more is usually expected. It all depends on what "load" your crust can handle so experimentation as always, is my best recommendation.

*Please comment!  I am learning, too, and would love to know how this works for you or if you find some helpful tips to share, I will be happy to include them here.  Thanks!