About two months ago we attended the Mother Earth News Fair southeast of Pittsburgh. One of the many lectures I attended was by a man named Sandor Katz. This is a man who ferments almost everything before eating it. I was indeed a bit skeptical after years of reading in the Center For Disease Control database concerning disease outbreaks and the multiple mentions of botulism along with the hospitalizations and deaths associated with this foodborne disease. What is botulism? Well for those who don't know, it is a bacterial spore forming organism that turns up in our food supply from time to time. The spore germinates (sprouts) under anaerobic (no oxygen) environments and produces a toxin that causes muscle paralysis and can often lead to death. It used to be very common in low acid canned goods like green beans and corn. This was one of the reasons your grandmother insisted on boiling the canned green beans for five minutes before eating them. Boiling will denature this deadly toxin. Well Sandor Kratz stated that there are no reported cases of botulism from fermented vegetables (he either said this in his book or lecture....I do not remember). I was very skeptical of this claim, so I combed through and searched the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) published by the CDC. I went back several years, and to my surprise I could not find any reference to fermented vegetables causing botulism toxicity. A peer reviewed literature search revealed the same findings. I did however, find many references to fermented meat, fish, blubber and other animal origin ingredients leading to botulism poisoning. This is probably due to the high acidity (low pH) made by the fermentation process with lactobacillus bacteria when fermenting vegetables. The bottom line is that my skepticism of the safety concerning fermented veggies waned quite a bit. 
Back to the Kraut: Armed with new-found knowledge that it was indeed a low risk to ferment and eat vegetables I thought I would give it a try. We already make beer, yogurt and bread why not expand our fermenting experience? We bought four big heads of cabbage, took off the outer leaves and ran them through the food processor. Unfortunately we ran the cabbage through with a grater plate instead of a shredder so our cabbage pieces were quite small, but only a minor detail. We put the cabbage in my 6 gallon brew pale, added salt (2 TBS), some whey (for a starter culture) and a little bit of vinegar. According to what I read, the whey and vinegar are unnecessary, but being our first time I did not want to take chances on the wrong bacteria getting established. The whey (lactobacillus culture) and the vinegar (lower pH) were safeguards to promote growth of lactobacillus, the fermenter of all things acidic. We added enough water to cover the cabbage shreds and put the lid on the brew-pale with an air lock I used for home brewing. As far as I could tell oxygen is the enemy of fermentation of veggies (like beer) so an air-tight container is critical.
We waited about 2 weeks with only a few peeks inside the bucket in the meantime. I am not sure how to describe the smell....noxious, nauseating or just plain awful many be the best description. My daughter described it to her Grannie as smelling like "diarrhea". At the end of two weeks I was a little unsure if something had gone epically wrong or not. There was a little bit of mold on the top which I scraped off (no big deal really) and a horrid odor that permeated through the house nearly initiating everyone's gag reflex. I looked at some on-line forums and for the most part everyone on-line reported this as normal or usual. I knew I had to be brave so I took a spoonful out of the pail, let it air out a bit and took a bite. It tasted like a cross between canned store sauerkraut and pickles. We waited a few more minutes and the odors coming from the bucket o' kraut seemed to significantly dissipate and the concoction began to smell more like good old fashioned sauerkraut. I put some in a small pot and brought it to a boil and then let the kids try some. It amazingly tasted just like sauerkraut, though the texture was different as this homemade kraut was in smaller pieces and strands than the commercial stuff. Overall it was a good flavor and the kids ask for it regularly. This means that the kiddos must like it. We plan on trying the process again in the next few weeks.
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