Apartment Sauerkraut

I've seen references to Wild Fermentation for years now and have always been interested in reading it, but I'm cheap and the library doesn't have a copy. On Sunday, I decided that I could no longer wait for the book and desperately needed to make my own sauerkraut. Luckily, Sandor Katz has the instructions posted on the Wild Fermentation site. I grabbed one of the smaller buckets that Mason has brought home and decided to give it a try. The worst that could happen is that I'm out two heads of cabbage and a few tablespoons of salt. It was pretty simple. Slice the cabbage, throw it in a bucket, sprinkle it with salt, pack it down and cover it with something breathable. If you'd like to make some for yourself, the instructions are really easy to follow and free, so I won't bother repeating them here. I used green and red cabbage, garlic, caraway, dill and celery seed in mine, but he says you can pretty much toss in whatever you like. If this batch works out, I'm going to try some with carrots, onions and broccoli.



I have to admit that the wafting scent of sauerkraut is a little nauseating at 5 in the morning, but I'm hoping that once I clear a space in the storage closet it won't permeate the entire apartment. This is probably more of an issue for us than most people because our layout basically amounts to us living in one big room. If you have a garage or basement, you should be fine. For other small apartment dwellers, I'll let you know how the closet storage works out over the next four weeks.