Skipped the fancy weights and used a ziplock bag of brine instead

I was making a batch of sauerkraut last month and realized I didn't have any fermentation weights. The cabbage kept floating up to the top and I was worried about mold. So I filled a quart-sized ziplock bag with extra brine (the same 2% salt water mix) and stuffed it right on top of the cabbage in the jar. It sealed everything down perfectly, no air gaps at all. After 3 weeks my kraut came out crispy and not a speck of mold anywhere (which I was honestly surprised by). Has anyone else tried this trick instead of buying those glass weights?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy_murphy157d agoMost Upvoted

Jumped over to this trick last year and honestly it fits a bigger pattern I notice everywhere. Like how people use old t-shirts as rags instead of buying paper towels, or how I use a coffee mug as a makeshift measuring cup when my real ones are dirty. We're all just making stuff work with what we already have around. The brine bag idea is smart because it solves two problems at once - keeping the cabbage down and not wasting any extra liquid. I've started doing the same thing with my pickles and it works just as good as those expensive kits. Have you found other kitchen shortcuts that turned out better than buying the fancy stuff?

karen_shah566d ago

Wait wait wait, you used the extra brine in the bag and it didn't leak into the cabbage at all? And no mold for three weeks? That's nuts, I half-expected a disaster but @amy_murphy15 you're right, it sounds way too simple to work that well.

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