April 27, 2009

Texas

This seems to be a cause for great merriment in the Blue States:

So Long, Pardner: Comment: The New Yorker

but I think it is important to see what this really means.

Perry has been a horrible governor for the State of Texas. He is now pandering to the lowest denominator of Texas reactionaries that he can find to try and preserve his job. I hope that Kay Baily Hutchinson (whom he is now calling Kay "Bailout" Hutchinson) does not rise to the bait.

Thank goodness that Texas has a very weak governor system. Otherwise Perry (The Hairdo) could have made real trouble for us.

Sauerkraut day 7

 
Here is the crock with the scum (A tiny bit of mold, and some Carbon Dioxide bubbles) skimmed off. There is plenty of kraut juice.

 
It looks like the fermentation has changed from Leuconostoc to the lactic acid pathways.

We tasted the cabbage and it tastes sort of halfway between sauerkraut and cabbage. Still very, very crunchy, but you are starting to get some of the sourness you associate with sauerkraut
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April 20, 2009

More on homemade sauerkraut


You can see how much brine there is here - after just a few minutes


You weight down the cabbage with a jar of water


Then cover the fermenation vessel with a cotton cloth.


Then you wait with baited breath to see how it will turn out!
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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.
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