Fermentation Flop – Smoked Sauerkraut

They all can’t be winners. After successfully reverse engineering Firefly’s Cortido Sauerkraut on the first try and my amazing Ghost Pepper Sauerkraut invention, I was on a fermentation hot streak. Even my Dill Sauerkraut was pretty good and my green cabbage kimchi also was amazing. But I did have one dud.

This summer I bought some Alderwood Smoked sea salt. My goal was to make a sauerkraut with a nice smokey flavor. On my first attempt, the conclusion was it needed more smokiness. So for the second batch, instead of using a 50% Redmond and 50% Alderwood sea salt mix, I used 100% smoked alderwood. The result was underwhelming. It had the smokiness, but it didn’t taste that good. Not bad. Bland.

smoked-salt

smoked-sauerkraut

Even the darkness from the salt made the sauerkraut visually unappealing.

If you used a search engine to seek out a recipe for smoked sauerkraut and you found this page, my advice is don’t waste 1-2 months of your life attempting this ferment. There are much better fermentation ideas you can do.

 

2 Comments

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  1. You really got me on a sauerkraut kick! I was already interested in fermented foods via kombucha. I bought some raw organic sauerkraut at my health food store, it was so good. Although it smelled kind of bad, it tasted good. I like how low calorie it is and the fact that you still can go into ketosis. The label said zero sugars!

  2. @Sheila – Combine that with the fact I almost never get sick anymore and those times I do get sick, the duration and intensity is far less. Fermented veggies are amazing.

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