Fermented sauerkraut

The jars are overstuffed. But who cares?

I wanted to fit the full 3LB cabbage into two 1Qt. jars.

I followed what one of the Green Brother said in his video; salt the cabbage 3Tbsps to 5LB of cabbage. But I only had 3LB of cabbage so that took a bit of algae bra.

3/5 x 3/3  =  9/15 ÷ 5/5 = 1.8/3

Maths! Innit.

The cabbage being stuffed to the brim is a problem. The fermentation is fast. The next day the jars were burped and both jars fizzed and spewed brine through their caps as I twisted them off messing the jars and the counter and my hands. But that's how fast the fermentation goes. Faster than sourdough starter. Faster than beer with its slow yeast.

This is eight hours. But the balloon was, er, erect in less than one hour. It's trying to snap off the jar and cabbage inside is fizzed to the brim. 

They must be burped over the sink.

Fifteen years ago I was talking to my sister about sourdough and told her the sponge produces CO2 this same way. Observably by the cap exploding off by pressure when the lid is twisted off.

"Really?" 

Sure. You can even see it and measure it if you want. 

"Really?" 

I thought back to university biology 200 where we did such a thing. It involved jars with stoppers and tubes curving around and displacing water to measure the activity of photosynthesis. We measured the level of water as the gas inside the tube moved the water up the tube and made notations in our little experiment notebooks in increments by the clock. 

I chose my lab partner by her virtue of beauty, but it turned out she was very smart too. But that particular day we were measuring the photosynthesis she was just totally whacked. She didn't make sense when she spoke, she was beside herself throughout, "Is it time to check?" It wasn't. She grabbed the grease pencil marker without checking the clock, without thinking and carelessly went whap with the marker, smacking the glass tube and marking it at the wrong place, grabbing her notebook in a flurry of bizarre activity and it wasn't even time for it. Not even marking the level of water properly, just a careless random mark on the tube. 

That does it. What's wrong with you? You're way of character today.

"I don't know." 

At that historic era, when your grandchildren were born in late 70's a fad was making the rounds called "biorhythms." A friend had a biorhythm calculator. He was really into it at the time. Swore by its accuracy, but I was doubtful such a thing can apply to everyone equally. You enter the date and you enter your birthdate and the calculator produces three wave calculations; green for intellectual, red for emotional, blue for physical. The tops and the bottoms of each wave are when you are at your best in each category, but the center line of each wave is critical because your body is in the in-between state of up and down. It was supposedly a way of being aware of these three states. 

I borrowed that calculator and took it to class, had her enter her birthday as she was resistant to tell me the year. Turns out that day (a few days earlier) all three of her bio-waves were at critical. Each wave intersected on a single dot at the center line. Perfectly. 

She goes, "Wow." 

But all that is irrelevant to speaking with my sister about sourdough, except for recalling it reminded me how we measured the increasing gas, by displacing water in a tube. 

But I got no scientific equipment around here such as tubes. 

What can substitute for glass tubes? What do I have that can fit over a jar and show gas being formed inside the jar?

It took a good deal of thinking to come up with the idea of a balloon. Something I can show my sister.

But I got no balloons. 

Yes I do. 

So I used what I had.

And it worked. 

And it was hilarious! 

This was after Dr. Fred's wife died and we were spending a lot of time together, going out to lunch everyday. During the day I was photographing the sourdough jar with the balloon, Fred was sitting opposite me at my dining room table with the jar between us. He thought my idea was ridiculous. I said, "No, actually the sourdough sponge is quite active right now and the balloon fills up fairly quickly. Observably."

"Well, we'll see."

The balloon is limp at the side of jar looking pathetic and wrinkled and flattened. It slowly fills with gas, plumps up, then sticks out sideways from the jar, then its angle increases from 45° to 50° to 60° filling out more as it rises to 70° then 80°. Fred and I are talking about something else entirely, our conversations were always intense, our minds were elsewhere when between us boing 90° straight up and Fred cracks up laughing because it looks exactly like a penis becoming erect and that last bouncing increment is just too funny. 

I tug the edge of the balloon and it deflates. Immediately it begins to fill again. We resume our conversation from Fred's outburst of laughter, and within ten minutes the balloon does that exact same thing again, boing, 90° straight up, and Fred cracks up all over again.

I tug at the edge of the balloon and it deflates again. Immediately it begins to fill again. We resume our conversation from Fred's outburst of laughter again, and within ten minutes the balloon does that exact same thing again, boing, 90° straight up, and Fred cracks up all over again.

And so on for up to ten iterations. It never stopped amusing Fred the exact same way each time and I must say having him laugh hysterically like that over something so silly was very good to hear and be part of. We spent the whole afternoon in deep conversation and I got some very good pictures of the jar to send to my sister that proved visually CO2 production of sourdough starter. 

And now, this is fifteen years later, I'm reading all over the place a story originating from Reuters about Cuban citizens finding new ways for multi-purposing condoms; to cast their shoreline fishing lines out farther due to restrictions placed on boats (due to defections), as children's toys, as hairdresser's ties, for producing better wine. The articles don't mention sourdough bread or sauerkraut, but it's the same idea. 

Cubans are so creative with making the most from the least.