Homemade sauerkraut

Factual Questions
1

I was reading a book about probiotics called The Life Bridge, and there was a part about the health benefits of sauerkraut, it being fermented and full of antioxidants and reccommended heartily by a certain Dr. Pasteur. The book had a very simple, in an almost passing reference, recipe that said if you put ground raw cabbage in a sanitary container and maintain it at room temperature, voila, eventually there will be sauerkraut.

So I chopped up some red cabbage (free from the culled veggies at work: I have a great job) and put it into a pint plastic container (also from work, used to pack deli items) and stuck the cabbagy container on a shelf, assuming that it will maintain itself at room temperature.

My question: am I going to make myself sick? The recipe was vague at best so I don’t know if perhaps a glass container would have been better, or if there will be other, less awesome bacteria present than Leuconostoc mesenteriodes that will, like, kill me.

So, is it a good idea to eat my experiment?

ZJ

2

Sauerkraut is fermented, salted cabbage. Without the salt, your cabbage is just going to wilt and eventually rot.

3

Sauerkraut from Good Eats. The plastic container is also a bad idea. After four weeks, it will reek of cabbage and visa versa.

4

Cool. Thanks guys.

ZJ

5

Yes, you definitely need to get some salt going there. You need enough salt to kill the bacteria you don’t want, and not so much to overpower the bacteria you do want.

Here’s another solid, basic recipe for homemade saeurkraut. You can add juniper berries and caraway seed to taste.

6

A couple of anecdotes here http://www.sauerkrautrecipes.com/health.shtml suggest it could work, but most of the other references say too little salt can affect quality and safety. I’ll speculate that without salt other conditions like temperature become critical.