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Modernist Food | Fermented

Your First Ferment

Two recipes teach the two core methods. Sauerkraut is dry-salt: you salt the vegetable directly and it makes its own brine. Brined pickles use an equilibrium brine: you add water and size the salt to the whole jar. Master these and most vegetable ferments are variations.

Both live in the lacto band — hold them at 18–22 °C / 64–72 °F, out of direct sun. Keep one gut-check in mind throughout: everything must stay under the brine. Exposed vegetable molds.

Recipe 1 — 2% dry-salt sauerkraut

Section titled “Recipe 1 — 2% dry-salt sauerkraut”

Yield: ~1 quart (one wide-mouth jar) from ~900 g cabbage Readiness window: 1–4 weeks at 18–22 °C (faster when warmer) Done when: pleasantly sour, brine cloudy, pH 3.4–3.6, kraut still crisp

Weigh the cabbage

Core and shred one cabbage. Put the bowl on the tared scale and record the vegetable weight — say 900 g. This number is everything.

Calculate the salt

Dry-salt default is 2.0% of vegetable weight. For 900 g that’s 18 g salt. Use the dry-salt calculator to confirm and to scale to your exact weight, and the fermentation predictor to estimate the timeline at your temperature.

Salt and massage

Sprinkle the 18 g of non-iodized salt over the shreds and massage for 5–10 minutes. The cabbage wilts and weeps; you’re pulling its own brine out. Wait 15–20 minutes and massage again until a pool of liquid covers the shreds when pressed.

Pack under the brine

Press the cabbage into the jar firmly so the released brine rises above it. Leave ~2–3 cm headspace. Set a weight on top so no shred floats. If the brine doesn’t quite cover, top with a little 2% brine (20 g salt per 1 L water), never plain water.

Ferment and check

Cover loosely (or fit an airlock) and hold at 18–22 °C. Burp daily if sealed. Taste from about day 5. When it’s sour and crisp — typically 1–3 weeks — confirm pH 3.4–3.6 with a calibrated meter, then refrigerate. Cold storage at 2–4 °C effectively arrests it.

Recipe 2 — equilibrium-brine pickle

Section titled “Recipe 2 — equilibrium-brine pickle”

Yield: ~1 quart jar of vegetables in brine Readiness window: 5–10 days at 18–22 °C Done when: sour and crunchy, brine cloudy, pH 3.4–4.0

Pack the jar and weigh everything

Pack a clean quart jar with cut cucumbers (or carrots, beans, radish) plus garlic and dill. Fill with water to ~2 cm headspace, then pour that water into a bowl on the scale. Add the vegetable weight + water weight — say 400 g veg + 600 g water = 1000 g total.

Calculate the equilibrium salt

EQ default is 2.5% of the vegetable + water weight. For ~1000 g total that’s 25 g salt. The brine salinity calculator does the exact math; raise toward 3.0% in hot weather for safety margin.

Dissolve and pour

Stir the 25 g of non-iodized salt into the measured water until fully dissolved, then pour the brine over the packed vegetables. Everything should be submerged.

Weight and ferment

Add a fermentation weight to keep the vegetables below the brine, leave ~2 cm headspace, and cover loosely or with an airlock. Hold at 18–22 °C and burp daily if sealed.

Taste, test, chill

Start tasting at day 3. When sour and still crunchy — usually 5–10 days — confirm pH 3.4–4.0 and move to the refrigerator (2–4 °C) to hold.

See also

Section titled “See also”