Personally, if it is slimy, I would not eat it. Kraut should not have
the slimy bacteria in it.

If you don't like salt, then you need to add acid ... vinegar will do.
But you need to do something to keep the nastier bacteria at bay, IMO.
I haven't had this happen to me personally, but I also tend to use
lots of pepper, PLUS salt and acid.

"slimy" bacteria in general aren't necessarily bad. Kefir and viili
are two that can be slimy and are fine. Xanthan gum and glucomannan
are made by slimy stuff too. But kraut should be sour and not slimy
... if it is neither, you don't know what is growing in it.



On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 5:14 PM, france_133<france_133@...> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> My name is France and I am totally new to all this. I need your advice.  I
have been trying to eat more raw food.  5 days ago I decided to try to make
fermented cabbage. I followed a pretty simple recipe. However I did not add as
much salt, just enough to withdraw water out of the cabbage and make sufficient
brine to cover it.  Then, I put the massaged cabbage in a 1/2-gallon mason jar,
pressed it down, and covered it with cabbage leaves. Finally, I put a smaller
mason jar filled with water inside to put pressure and keep the vegetables
submerged in the brine. I put the lid on the bigger jar and let it rest.  On the
second day, the smaller water-filled jar was pushing so much down that the
leaves went up uncovering the vegetables.  The brine was about 1/2 inch above
the vegetables, almost covering them, so they were not totally exposed to the
air. There was also bubbling, but the bubbles where dark yellowish, and when I
opened the big jar to fix the smaller jar inside, the whole thing just bubbled
like crazy. At that point, I added more water (without salt), covered the
vegetables again with the leaves, fixed the smaller jar to have less pressure
over the cabbage, put the lid on the big jar and set to rest for 4 more days.
Today when I opened the jar the smell was strong but not disgusting, however,
the smaller pieces of cabbage are slimy, bigger chunks are crunchy, and all the
brine was viscous.
>
> My question is: Is this kraut eatable? I am not sure if it went bad. I do not
want to eat something full of bad bacteria but I also do not want to throw it
away unless I am sure is bad. I made a lot, and feel guilty just wasting it.
>
>
> I am sorry for the long post,
>
> Thanks much,
>
> France.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>



--
Heather Twist
http://eatingoffthefoodgrid.blogspot.com/