Brad Makes Sauerkraut

Oh Vinny!

Funny to find you there.

Basketball Diaries, is Mark Whalberg in it?

(beep)

Today we're gonna be making a little sauerkraut.

Got some green cabbage here.

We're gonna core, slice it into nice little strips.

We'll massage it with salt.

Pack it into a jar.

With some caraway and a little garlic.

(cat meows)

(glass breaks)

(laughs) That was weird.

(upbeat music)

Swamp thing baby.

Remember swamp thing?

(beep)

We'll start here with our green cabbage.

Cut this bad boy in half.

Nice sharp knife.

No problem.

Oh geez!

That didn't happen.

And, we're back.

So what were doing, we have these.

And I'm gonna cut the core out.

And I just like to take my knife out and cut like

a nice little triangle.

[Andrew] Where are those rice cakes?

And now we're just gonna slice it into

nice little strips.

This guy.

A good rule of thumb for making sauerkraut,

is 10 grams of salt per pound of cabbage.

So I got 6 pounds of cabbage, i got 60 grams of salt.

Easy peasy math.

Good for me, good for you.

Oh, what's the time Vince?

Exactly 2:00.

Hook and Gaff, great knife company.

Uh, watch company.

And cut.

(beep)

So there it is.

Looks like a ton of cabbage.

But, as we salt it like we're gonna do now over in

a half an hour it'll probably be reduced to half.

So, I'll sprinkle on a good portion of the salt there.

I'd say about a quarter of it.

And then just start massaging the cabbage.

Well here, maybe we won't do it in the sink Vince.

I didn't like how that was rocking around like that.

And then working in batches, just add more salt.

If you have a local maker, a buddy of mine,

Ben Jacobson outside of Portland, Oregon making

some real cool salt.

You wanna get your hands in on this one and really

kind of massage it and crush it up a little bit.

Once you get a good mix like that going, I like to switch

the hands, the fists.

Little cabbage crushers.

You know this way you're not really tearing it up,

but you're kind of just crushing it down.

You want some of the cabbage crushers Vince?

I didn't think so.

We're gonna let this sit.

And in about fifteen minutes, I'm gonna repeat the process

and just give it a little bit of a tender massage.

Oh.

So this has been sitting for about a half an hour.

6 pounds of cabbage.

Remember it was a bowl, the bowl was pretty full.

And now look, Vinny get in there.

Liquid at the bottom, that's good.

And look how much it shunk, it shrunk in size.

I mean, water is just coming out of there.

And that's good, that's what we want.

Use your hands and just crush it.

Kind of sounds like, close your eyes Vinny.

Kind of sounds like walking in slush.

Like a fresh snow, packed snow.

Or maybe like a wet rubber boot

going through a muddy trail.

In a pine forest.

Yep, you're portaging from lake to lake, (laughs).

Really brought me somewhere on that one, Vinny.

I'm gonna fold in some of these spices.

And let them get kinda happy.

So that was the mustard seed and the caraway and now

I'm gonna add some of that fresh garlic

crushed and chopped, alright?

And then we'll just fold that in and let all those

juices and salts and the cabbage and the spices

just start to bleed together.

We'll let that sit.

Time lapse.

(upbeat music)

So I got this.

It's a one gallon jar.

And it just comes with a little lid

and this little air lock.

You don't to do this.

I just like to cause I have it.

What you wanna do,

is we're gonna pack it in here.

So as we push this down, it's own natural liquids

will start to rise.

You want your cabbage mixture to be submerged

in it's own brine.

I got this nice little tamper.

And you wanna go pushing that stuff down.

Alright, and then look Vinny.

I got all that residual liquid.

Whoa, easy girl.

You wanna leave a little head space cause it will foam.

It'll be an active fermentation.

No doubt about that.

We'll check on it, in about a week.

But, I think it'll take about 2 weeks to go

to where you want it.

So, I'm just gonna rinse this off.

That's how you get ants Vinny.

Ant to human ratio?

I think we learned this.

It's like a million to 1 or something, right?

I said a hundred to 1 , but it's a lot man.

It's a lot of freaking ants, okay?

I'm cool with the ants.

You listening ants?

We're cool.

I don't want no trouble with you guys.

Hard workers man.

You see those fire ants?

When they flood and the swarm together and make

their own survival raft.

They got it figured out man, (laughs).

And we'll pop that over here in fermentation alley.

We'll check on it in a week.

2 weeks it should done, ready to eat.

How fast it ferments will depend on where you got

your cabbage from, how warm it is in here.

We'll be checking in, what's today?

Today is Wednesday.

I'm gonna check it every day because these are my babies.

You know, I get involved.

And then we'll check it officially on Wednesday.

Cause today's Wednesday, one week Wednesday, and then

the following Wednesday, 2 weeks it should be done.

(upbeat music)

Oh Amiel, where'd you come from you little critter?

(laughs)

You see all those bubbles in there?

That's the fermentation, it's starting

to release the gases.

I would like to have added a little more head space.

As it ferments and starts to get a little more crazy,

the brine was coming up the air lock.

Give this a smell, tell me what you think.

Amiel's a big sauerkraut man himself.

It's good.

It's good, right?

And funky.

Garlicky, a little caraway.

Yep.

When I cam in this morning, it over flowed.

And this had all liquid in it.

So always put it in a little catch tray.

Alright, so we'll see ya on Monday.

(upbeat music)

it's been about 2 weeks.

Things have been, I've been going.

Let me just grab it for god sakes.

I've been going you know, ever other day every day

or so just going back and checking on it.

Just tamping it back down.

Making sure everything's submerged.

There's nothing bad happening.

No mold or anything.

If you do get some mold, you can just scoop it off.

Or start over if you're a scaredy cat like some of us.

(beep)

depending on who you ask, I think this is good.

I think it's done.

I'm gonna start eating it now.

If you wanna let this keep going, you can keep

this out at room temp.

So what I might do actually is take half of this,

pack it into a jar, put it in the fridge.

And I'll leave half fermenting to let it go

full German kraut.

(German music)

Very squeaky, you hear that?

(squeak sound)

It's got a beautiful kind of very pleasant sour flavor.

I mean I hate to say it taste just like sour kraut.

(beep)

But, it is still a little crunchy.

I like a little crunch.

But, it could certainly go longer.

Today I got these really nice frank footers that have

cheddar cheese in them from our buddy Elias over in

Olympia Provisions.

Boom, right in there.

Look at that plump dog.

What's up dog?

Eli if you're watching this, we need more hotdogs.

McKenna's going nuts over those things.

Coming soon we got a little thing oh no it's out, right.

This is the same sausages or frank footers that we

made in this video.

Fire in the hole.

Oh god!

Oh no, stop.

(beep)

Any questions, please put them in the comments section.

Make yourself some kraut, have some fun.

Get yourself some real nice hotdogs and share it

with some friends most importantly.

Bon a petit.

In Boogie Nights?

Yeah, remember Mark Whalberg.

He might've been doing more of that (beep).

But he was (beep) for like $20.00.

Mark Whalberg's in Boogie Nights right?

And he was a porn star.

In Basketball Diaries, no he's not.

Basketball Diaries?

You're thinking of Vince.

Is he in it?

Mark Whalberg?

Really hoping you knew.

Oh Vinny!

Funny I'd fine you there.

Basketball Diaries, is Mark Whalberg in it?

(beep)