My crock of sauerkraut stopped bubbling this past weekend. I dug into it to see if it was done. I picked up a pinch of the stuff with some clean tongs and began to bring it up to my mouth. As it dripped back into the crock, the liquid was semi-gelatinous and oozy. 
I packed it back down, hoping that this was just an intermediate step along the way, but I haven’t seen any more bubbles rising in the 4 days since.
I have two theories as to what might have gone wrong.
- I used too much salt accidentally, which can pause fermentation and just preserve the cabbage as-is.
- The grocery-store cabbage had been treated with anti-aging medicine to prevent rotting.
I’ll check it again in a few days and I’ll be incredibly disappointed if I have to throw out everything and go without this year. Maybe, if nothing else, I can do a fresh water desalting and just start it again.
Posted by leslie on September 30, 2010 at 6:27 am
Not sure I can go without it in my calzones this year:( I hope it works out!
Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on October 5, 2010 at 9:07 am
A few days ago I added four cups of water to the crock to see if perhaps evaporation was the problem. I thought that adding water back in would decrease the overall salinity of the solution and restart the fermentation. Apparently not.