I put up some sauerkraut on Saturday morning and have been closely monitoring the ‘build’ since. This is the first time that I’ve used the E-Jen containers for fermenting and am/was a little concerned with the inner seal rising out of the kraut. Here is a short video on how the container works.
Now the problem that I picked up on is that the plastic insert/seal was being pushed up by the gasses that the kraut produced. I’d open the outer part and find that while a ‘seal’ was being maintained, one portion of the plastic would be about half an inch higher than that it was on the other side. It was sitting catiwompus.
I’d pull the little plug in the center of the inner seal so and push it back into place and re-plug it. 6 or so hours later I would check on it and the seal would have risen again. A lot of forces are at work in that little box.
The kraut has 2.5 pounds of green cabbage, 1.5 pounds of red cabbage, a large sweet onion, one large carrot, and two granny smith apples. I’ve put this mix into two E Jen containers: one that holds just under a gallon one that holds about half of that. On the smaller one I’ve added five 1 inch long dried sprigs of Asian Super Pepper (about 80,000 SHU’s) to give it some bite.
I’ve got several more containers on orders from Amazon and they should get here on Wednesday. That means that on Thursday I’ll have the pleasure of driving the Huntsville, AL and back (an hour each way) to visit an Asian market that has a good variety of Diakon radish, Napa cabbage, and Chinese chives.
I’ve already picked up some pre-blended kimchi base (I’m not quite ready to build up my own) so by Saturday I should be awash in pungent and delicious veggies.