Sauerkraut, Red Cabbage with Apple and Juniper

My favorite of the kraut variants, and worth making for the color alone: as the acid works on the anthocyanins the cabbage goes a startling magenta that no dye could fake. The apple adds sugar so it ferments a little faster, and juniper is the traditional German partner that makes it belong beside pork.

Ingredients

• 1 head red cabbage (about 900 g shredded)
• 20 g salt (2.25% of the shredded weight)
• 1 small tart apple, grated
• 1 Tbsp juniper berries, lightly crushed
• 1 tsp caraway seed

Directions

1. Key ingredients

Red cabbage, salt, apple, juniper.

1. Method: Exactly as Sauerkraut, Basic (2.25% by Weight) — shred, weigh, salt at 2.25%, rest, massage until it gives up its brine, pack hard, cap with a leaf, weight, airlock.
2. Add the aromatics with the salt so they distribute as you work the cabbage. Crush the juniper just enough to crack it; whole berries give up very little.
3. Note the sugar: The grated apple gives the bacteria more to work with, so expect this one to bubble sooner and finish a few days earlier than plain kraut. Do not add more than one small apple to a head of cabbage or it ferments too fast and can go alcoholic.
4. Ferment cool, 2–4 weeks, then refrigerate.

Notes

PROVENANCE. My own variation on the German rotkohl tradition.

WHY IT TURNS MAGENTA. Red cabbage’s anthocyanins are pH indicators — they read purple-blue near neutral and shift toward red as acid builds. So the color is a live readout of the ferment: the more magenta it goes, the more acid there is. It is the only ferment I make that tells you its own pH.

Red cabbage is slightly tougher and less sweet than green, so it stays crunchier and takes a little longer. Excellent with roast pork, duck, or any of the sausages I make.

STILL OPEN: I have not tried this in the 30-gallon crock. At that volume the apple sugar might push it faster than I want.