Just Keep Swimming...

A Riveting Tale of Fermenting Smelly Crap in a Crock.

OK, so I'm thinking that my title is just a little bit harsh!

*Sigh* I'm either just pissy or hormonal tonight, or perhaps *technically* a little of both.

  

But No Worries! 

Chin up!

This beautiful glass of wine should help me clear my head and brighten things up!  

(Or at least until I drunk vomit all over my keyboard! lol)

Wait a minute...

Wasn't this supposed to be a story about making Sauerkraut???

PERHAPS?

Well then, 

Let's get on with it!

"Alex, I'll take; Foods you Eat that smell like ass, for $200.00 please?"

(See? The wine is already working!)

Once upon a time, (and with a $1.50 in my pocket) I got a wild hair up my backside and decided to buy a larger than life, green cabbage from a local farm stand.  Besides being super affordable and very nutritious, I actually LIKE cabbage!

With that, I stuck my $1.50 into the money slot at the self service food stand, and went home with a cabbage head larger than a nine month pregnant woman's belly.

I was a happy girl!
  SO happy that in fact, I did what every devoted cabbage lover does....

I let it sit on my counter for over a week because I was too lazy to deal with it! lol!

Once my shroud of laziness subsided, I had decided that I had wanted to make Sauerkraut out of this cabbage.  I had never done this before, but the internet told me that it is actually quite easy.  Kind of a "set it, and forget it" concept.  

(watch.. I will now get sued because I just used a popular infomercials tag line!)

When the day came to start my endeavor, I decided to weigh the cabbage first;

   Here's an idea of just how BIG this cabbage was!  Even after open air drying on my counter top for over a week, it STILL weighed 15 lbs!  That's just crazy!!

First off, I had to chop this up.  

What a major P.I.T.A it was!!  It was like trying to hack into a bowling ball using nothing but spoon to cut with!  

Because of the fact that I am no cabbage professional, I used the most primitive tool for the job.  A simple serrated steak knife.  Most people would use a Mandolin (what's a mandolin? lol!) 

Thank GOD that the cabbage wanted to spring open when I tried to cut it in half, or else I would have never gotten it apart!

I started out by cutting wedges off, then I would cut those wedges into small shards.  I took those shards and put them in a bowl on my scale. When I got 2 lbs of shreds, I added fine sea salt to it (can't remember how much salt - forgot!)   

Oh yeah!  NOTE the 7 lb purple cabbage next to it!

Glutton for punishment! I canned purple sweet / sour cabbage after this project!

When I had 2 lbs of salted, shredded cabbage, I started adding them to this fancy, shmancy, 4 gallon crock.
(Shmancy??? REALLY? lol!)

I borrowed this huge beauty from my dad!
LOVE IT! 

Great that it didn't leak, suck that it didn't have a lid. (I'll get more into that in a bit)

I took the salted cabbage and put it inside the crock.  Did I mention I bought ANOTHER green cabbage to add to it?

23 lbs of cut cabbage, and a small finger cut later...

I finished filling that huge crock!

I added large outer leaves to cover my handiwork.

Because I didn't have an actual lid, I had to come up with an idea to cover it.  I was supposed to not let air get inside (yeah right...lol!) so I used an inverted glass salad bowl.

As the final Crem De La Crem, 

I needed someplace to put this masterpiece for the next TWO months.  This was tough!  Being the end of October, I couldn't put it outside because it would freeze.  I don't have a basement.  And no way was I going to have my living room smell like a dead carcass for the next few months.

Do you want to know where I put this??? 

You're going to die when you hear this...

I can't believe I'm actually ADMITTING this...

Cabbage...It smells.

It smells like poop.

So I put it where the magic happens.

I put it in the BATHROOM!

(Ok, go ahead and pick yourself off the floor now.)
  

If you think about it, it makes LOGICAL sense!

(...Meanwhile, refilled my wine.  

-Just thought you'd like to know!)

Besides, doesn't everybody put their edible food in the shitter?

For the past 3 minutes I just played a game with Google called; "What's a good synonym for Shitter?"

Anyway,

Throughout this entire process I learned ONE major thing.

I am not very good at making Sauerkraut!

Every so often I pulled off my makeshift lid (the soup bowl) and checked to see what was happening.  The outer leaves that covered the top were starting to mold.  From what I had read, I learned that this was "ok".  I confirmed that when I peeled back those larger outer leaves to look at the shred.  Underneath, the cabbage was a beautiful off white color.  But as time went by, I did start to worry.  I noticed that the top layer of shred was starting to mold.  I discarded that layer, and made a salt water brine to fill more of the crock (keeping the shred submerged)  And that's kind of how life went, time would go by, I'd check it, I'd scrape off the scum.

I wasn't quite sure when to call this science project from Hell done.  

It looked like Sauerkraut.  It smelled like Sauerkraut, but it took me a LONG time to get up enough guts to try it!

There's just something about eating rotting food that plays on your psyche! 

!!*PUKE*!!

I DID try it, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much it DID taste like the real thing! 

(New experience for me!)

-Then of course I waited to see if I was going to die from Botulism or something silly!

With all systems a go, I decided to put this concoction into jars!

Then it got kinda weird...

I had to scrape off a lot of undesirable "stuff"

This was the first layer. 

Completely black and mushy.

NASTY!

Second layer.

Not black, but super slimy!

Pitched this in the trash too!

3rd layer.

A little firmer, but trash.

Getting closer...

Finally!!

Reached something edible!! 

White and crisp!

If I ever decided to do this again, (which I'm completely on the fence about!) I would change one thing.  I would have a lid that sealed tight and didn't let in oxygen!  HUGELY important! 

Air = mold production.  I would also add some type of weight to the top of the cabbage to keep it submerged in the brine.   

Overall, it was an interesting learning experience!
Another notch in the "Been there, done that!" belt.   

I'm REALLY not quite sure if I'd ever want to do this again though! lol! 

In the end, you know what would be GREAT???

Being sober enough to proof read this.... ;)