Sauerkraut in a jar..

[curtainthief]

Hello!

I'm a first timer and I just had a couple questions for anyone willing to help me out!

I packed cabbage, grated horseradish, diced jalapenos and garlic into a big jar with enough salt for the brine to taste pretty salty. I topped it with a cabbage leaf and another clean jar that fit inside and the kraut is under plenty of brine. It has been on my counter for 3 days, and it has been about 70 deg Fahrenheit in my kitchen.

My question is.. some of the smaller pieces of cabbage/jalapeno keep floating to the top, no matter what I do. Is this okay? Should I try to skim them off to prevent mold/spoiling? Also, this is difficult to do because I must take the smaller jar out to have room to skim anything off and the brine gets mixed around a lot.

I also have a powdery looking sediment sitting on top of the kraut. It doesn't look like mold or anything, just wondering if anyone knows what this is.

Sorry if I sound like a complete n00b! Thanks for helping me out! By the way, it smells great

[Christopher Weeks]

When I'm doing that, I try to skim the little cruds off. They will certainly allow mold to colonize the surface. But that sometimes happens with pieces so little you can't see them, too. The most fun part of my suggestion is that if you're opening it every day or two to clean out, you get to taste your ferment at every stage of development.

The powdery sediment is the detritus from an active culture. Dead cells, bits of your vegetable that they've digested and pooped out, etc. It's totally normal and fine; good even!

[curtainthief]

Hey again!

So day 5. I just checked on my kraut and it smells great, tastes okay..

It is starting to turn soft though.. What did I do wrong? Not enough salt?

[curtainthief]

P.s. No sign of mold. A little bit of white, bubbly scum at the top, which I skimmed off. Barely any though...

[Christopher Weeks]

Try it again with more salt and see if that fixes it.

[curtainthief]

Hey, so I ended up leaving my sauerkraut fermenting and I just transferred containers and put it into the fridge. It tastes good, and smells good, but I think I may have needed more salt because it's pretty soft. I tasted some, and it has a nice mellow sour flavor. It's still safe to eat if it's soft, right?