Continuing the Steak! thread that turned into more of a food/meat/cooking thread anyway.
I decided to try out fermenting my own sauerkrout. Two heads of cabbage and 2.5-3% salt (by weight) massaged in every half hour for a couple hours. It makes its own brine in the process. Some carraway seed added for flavor. Lactobacillis should already be present on the cabbage. So lets give it two weeks and see what happens!
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I tried something different last weekend. Turned out pretty good but could use some adjustments. I mixed 1 pound of lean ground beef (90/10) with 1 pound of ground Itailian sausage. Then put it in my smoker for a few hours and finished it on the grill. Tasted great but had a sort of weird texture. Next time it will be 75% ground beef and 25% ground pork.
Is it a possibility that you overworked the ground meat?
I have wanted try try sauerkraut. Northern brewer has a video on the topic me thinks
Yes, a very good possiblity I over worked the meat.
I hate when my meat gets over worked.
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Yeah don’t overwork your meat guys 
I thought this was a great video to explain lactobacillus fermentation in an easy to understand way. (great now I need to try fermenting garlic)
I learned how easy sauerkraut was from this (dude’s fedora game is on-point!):
Spurred on by the potential health benefits:
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I have a ‘go to’ recipe for chicken breasts, a variation of ‘Chicken Dijon’ my late mother taught me years ago. For two, make up a sauce with 1/2 cup of grated tasty cheese, 1/2 cup white wine, and one heaped tablespoon each of honey mustard and low fat mayonnaise, mix together and set aside. Brown two chicken breasts for about 5 mins a side in an oven proof pan, pour over the sauce, season with black pepper and put into medium oven for about 20 minutes until cheese has browned. Works well with green beans, roast potatoes, or anything really except rice, for some reason that doesn’t work. Garnish with flaked almonds to serve.
You could also use thighs but slightly longer in the oven will be needed. Since mum died, we’ve made this once a fortnight as a sort of a tribute, washed down with a nice Rose or Pinot Noir.
Geoff
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I got a staple of recipes that could share as I tend to cook 80% of our family meals for last 15 years or so - plus being fat from young age, ya learn to cook heh. Though a lot of it comes down to refining techniques that I think I was too anxious when young (20’s). Plus when I’m engaged in my vice, smoking, that quitting yet again, have TV in garage often watching cooking, motortrends wishing or cnbc.
How about some fermented hot sauce? This is my first batch in years - it is a Aji pepper (a mix of aji lemon and aji mango with ground cherries and carrot) - onion and garlic for a more complex flavor.
Pic 1 the start - Pic 2 after one week.
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Yep I’ve done a hot sauce a few years ago from peppers I grew. Can’t find the fermenter pic (on previous phone). But, after probably letting it go for a year, I finally made it.
Anaheim, hot and mild banana, cayanne. Looks like I also added some carrot and onion. I added some KameBishi 3yr real Japanese soy sauce to add more flavors. I tried adding some xanthan gum to firm it up. But I either didn’t do it quite right, or didn’t add enough. Because it is still pretty wattery and settles out, requiring shaking up periodically.
A bit more mild on the heat than Tabasco, but a bit more funk to the flavor making it unique. A few coworkers seemed to like it enough I needed to replenish their stock.
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Never tried the fermented style hot sauces. I do bottle up my chili Colorado sauce and pass it out to friends. If a Mexican restaurant has Chili Colorado on the menu, I’m trying it!
Had to Google that…
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It is super easy. Just need fresh peppers (not been frozen) and correct salt/water concentration. The lactobacillus should be alive on the peppers already, so once you provide the environment they can do their work.
It is not hard to do at all. Salt concentration should between 2% and 10% and all the peppers and other solid ingredients should be below the surface of the brine (use some type of weight glass or plastic bag full of water).
You can leave the pepper whole (takes longer to ferment) or cut up and deseed (what I do) as it takes less time.
Drew has inspired me to make some hot sauce by fermenting
Cajun peppers and red bell peppers from the garden. 4% salt by weight
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Sweet! Just needs time by this point.
Just started 2 more batches of hot sauce - one with orange Habaneros and the other with a mix of hot peppers (mostly aji lemon and aji mango.
Also, setup some rice wine vinegar with Pineapple Sage flowers for steeping. Add color and a pineapple flavor.
It’s been a little over 2 weeks on the kraut. I tamped it down about four times as the gasses formed pockets and lifted it all up in the fermenter a bit. Gas production has slowed to almost nothing now. I decided to call it good and divide it up into canning jars. Pouring the remaining brine back into them.
The flavor? Well, different enough that I would call it a totally different product than commercial vinegar krout. There is a tang, but it is much more subdued. To the point that other flavors are able to compete and take prominence. I get a salty-umami kind of flavor. I added caraway seed at the start, and that flavor comes out too. There is still some crunch.
Not sure what I was expecting. I have grown accustomed to the high acidic commercial stuff, so this is an adjustment. Need to see how it pairs with food. I don’t mind the smell, but my wife absolutely hates it.