Correcting a typo in my Sauerkraut Recipe
It should be tsp not tbsp.
Someone was thoughtful enough to write me to ask about a salt quantity listed in a recipe in my book (and elsewhere where I shared that recipe online). The recipe for Sauerkraut listed 2-4 tbsp, but I realized that this is too much salt for my preferences. I now use 2-4 teaspoons per cabbage not tablespoons.
Here is a screenshot of the recipe from my ebook with corrections below.
I also corrected the recipe I shared online in my 30 Reasons To Make Your Own Sauerkraut post.
Looking around online and in recipe books I own by other people it seems that some people do call for salt in the tablespoons range per cabbage (depending on the size of the cabbage) so I think it is also possible that perhaps I was following their lead in the beginning (back when I wrote that recipe) and then I found that I preferred to do a more lightly salted version more recently. I cannot remember to be honest.
Other sources call for weighing the cabbage and salt to find a certain salt to cabbage percentage ratio but I do not have a scale so I just go by the teaspoons per cabbage route.
I do know that I just made a batch of kraut and another of cordito (a central american style fermented cabbage recipe) and I used about 2 teaspoons per cabbage (weighing the contents down in the salt brine made using 1.5 teaspoons of sea salt per 250ml water after filing jars) and they turned out beautifully.
I might have been more paranoid about "bad bacteria" in the beginning and so I used a lot more salt but then I discovered that is not necessary (especially not necessary if one is submerging the fermenting cabbage in salt brine).
The long and short of it is this, if you are bruising up your cabbage well and adding a couple teaspoons of salt to that bruised cabbage, pressing it down into your fermentation vessel (to exclude all air) and then weighing down the contents and adding a salt brine (using 1.5 teaspoons of sea salt per 250ml of water) that should be enough salt to create ideal conditions for fermenting at room temp.
In order to address any potential safety concerns I will now share my answer to a great question from a subscriber in the hopes it can bring further clarity and provide confidence to all you aspiring food fermenters out there.
In a thoughtful comment that asked a couple additional great questions Steve Connally recently asked “Can you inadvertently create something that could make you very sick?”
My response was as follows:
The great thing about fermenting veggies is that you get very clear visual and smell/taste signs of a batch that has 'gone bad' (become dominated by species of bacteria or mold that are not conducive with human health when taken internally). If it has that distinct acidic tangy flavor and there are not signs of mold or other weird growths on the surface, your good to go and can trust it is safe to eat. The presence of a tangy acidic brine indicates the lactic acid bacteria have dominated, leaving no room for problematic species to pose a risk to your health.
With heat treated canned foods (which the producer claims to have "pasteurized") you do not get that same benefit of being able to trust your senses, as something like Botulism could occur and may not be detected when you go to eat it.
That could be reason number 31 for why fermenting food is more trust worthy than hot water canning or other heat based preservation methods (not to mention fermenting retains and enhances nutrition while heating destroys or diminishes many nutrients). I do make some jams, stuff like elderberry syrup and pickles and stuff via hot water bath method for keeping in our upstairs pantry but I always prefer fermenting and cellar storage when possible.
Steve asked the follow up question of: "So in summary, if it tastes or smells bad, it's probably bad?"
My response was as follows:
Well the reason I said "tangy" (and no mold) to describe what "good" (edible and safe) fermented veggies taste and smell like was to be less ambiguous and to avoid leaving it open to interpretation. What tastes "good" or "bad" to one person, can be the opposite for another, it is subjective. For instance, when I ferment 100% kale leaves to make Nepalese "Gundruk", most people who are not familiar with fermented foods would taste the finished product and say it tastes/smells "bad" (it is very pungent, earthy and sour/tangy) however, it is totally safe and fermented in an ideal way. So I say tangy, as that is a more specific indicator of an ideal PH range which inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria/mold.
Here are a few links for other descriptions and means to discern when you have a "bad" batch of fermented veggies (it is quite obvious and not sneaky like with botulism and canned food, so do not worry about experimenting if you follow the guidelines I shared above).
- https://ferment.works/troubleshooting-fermented-vegetables/2014/8/13/can-i-still-eat-this-kraut
- https://fermentmakers.com/signs-sauerkraut-has-gone-bad/
- https://www.makesauerkraut.com/sauerkraut-fermentation-gone-bad-troubleshooting-tips/
- https://ferment.works/troubleshooting-fermented-vegetables/tag/sauerkraut+troubleshooting
Thanks again for the great questions Steve! :)
I hope this helps clarify things for any of you out there that followed my recipe and ended up with a super salt batch of kraut. I apologize for the mix up.
Wishing you all joyful, relaxing and hopeful New Years celebrations.
Very nice! Guess my NY resolution is going to be “make more sauerkraut!
Thank you!