Home made sauerkraut

I have been obsessing about homemade sauerkraut for years. Recently, I have found several websites that talk about how easy it is to do.

Additionally, my sister Melanie is a professor of Molecular Biology at Pitt and uses sauerkraut as one of her classes on fermenation. She has a friend who makes it, and says that the homemade stuff is much better than the store bought stuff.


SInce I make my own bread every week (by hand) and roast my own coffee, that resonated with me.

I was worried that Houston would be too warm for the Leuconostoc mesenteroides bacterium to thrive (according to McGee it needs 65 to 70 degrees F) but my sister assured me that it will live from 68 to 86. So it should be fine.

Doreen and I took today off, so we decide to jump right in with the process.


Here is the cabbage


Here it is, shredded



Here I am, mixing in the salt


You can see that the brine has already formed. No water was added to this cabbage.