Shh
I've been hunting these guys for days now.
Careful not to spook them
I've been waiting for the perfect moment to STRIKE
It's NOT GARLIC
They were so young
And innocent... WHYYYYYY
I'm sorry. Go back.  It's ok.
Shhh it's ok
Audio: Riley's Food 101 theme
Start off with one head of roughly chopped cabbage
Then, add a tablespoon and a half of salt
Then, with clean hands, massage the cabbage for five minutes
It's important to use bare hands here
There are bacteria that live in the air and on our skin
That will carry out the fermentation. We will learn more about this later.
Let the cabbage rest for 20 minutes. It's exhausted.
While you wait for the cabbage to take it's nap, chop a clove of garlic or two
Or if youre trying to ward off vampires, use five like I did
The next step will be to add the garlic and massage for another five minutes.
This time you should be able to squeeze some of the liquid out of the cabbage.
While we do that, let's learn about lactic acid fermentation.
In my video on mead we talked about this equation for glycolysis.
Just a recap, this equation summarizes how a cell breaks up glucose, which is a fancy word for sugar, and turns it into different products that then create energy
When there is no oxygen present, cells are forced to push the products from glycolysis into a fermentation pathway.
Different organisms are going to have different products in their fermentation pathways.
In our last video we talked about yeast, and one of their products was alcohol
In this case we are going to talk about lactic acid bacteria, and you guessed it
their product is lactate, which is lactic acid
So this is all pretty confusing but just a general recap if you take nothing else away from this
The cells are doing fermentation because they need to create energy when there is no oxygen present.
In sauerkraut, the two most important bacteria are going to be from the lactobacillus family and the leuconostoc family.
These guys are happy lil probiotics that are good for your tummy.
By creating a cabbagey salty environment, we have the perfect conditions for these guys to get fat and happy while other bacteria starve and die
It's really good for them, really good for us and really bad for bacteria like (clostridium botulinum) botulism
Another reason that botulism can't survive in a fermentation environment is because as these guys are eating up all the sugar
in the cabbage they are releasing acid.
This acid has a preservative effect, it lowers the pH and botulism can't survive in a pH under 4.6.
When we go check the pH on our sauerkraut, we can see that it is below that number.
Transfer the cabbage and the liquid to a mason jar.
Pack the cabbage below the liquid so it not exposed to air.
fill any empty space with un-chlorinated water.
Then, find something to keep the cabbage below the liquid. I used an old water bottle lid but you can buy fermentation weights specifically for this purpose.
Put the lid on and allow the sauerkraut to ferment for 10 days at room temperature.
Every day loosen the (lid) of the jar to let a little bit of pressure out or you will be in for a surprise at the end.
As I promised earlier, here's the pH after 10 days. It's at 3.6 which means there is no botulism here.
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