Looks like toasted coriander. And you can totes use it.
If you have Caraway I really like that in kraut. Less common, but dill is also quite good.
If you want to get adventurous, a teaspoon of honey (but not much more, honey tends to suppress fermentation for a host of reasons)
Thanks, man!
Turns out those little bits are mustard seeds. How about that with garlic for one of my batches?
Iām thinking of red pepper flakes in a batch, and maybe some fresh onion too.
I really need to get some books on the subject. Iāve got the Sandor Katz āArt of Fermentationā on my wishlist.
Oh yeah, that makes sense.
I add red peppers whole or flaked to just about every pickle and onion worms great. Just donāt use red or purple onions, they turn a very unappealing grey colorā¦ Same with red cabbage, it ends up lookingā¦ Not good.
Cool - I have some nice yellow onions just begging to be usedā¦
I make an exquisite sweet & sour red cabbage but it takes 3 hours of cooking during which, for the first 2.5 hours, it has that unappetizing grey color and smells awful. Something chemical happens after all that time, and you end up with lovely magenta cabbage. But thatās cooking, not fermenting.
A good way of preserving the color isā¦ Beet juice.
BEET JUICE! BEET JUICE!
Three times. Now you can deal with the mess.
Also, pump up the sugar and/or sugar it after fermenting, so it doesnāt taste too dry and therefore blech.
Here is my yuck fermenting story. When I lived in Portland, OR in 1995 I was heavily into brewing. I had the bright idea to create BANANA BREW. I made an amber ale with extract and added in a ton of mashed bananas to the boil. The primary blew most of the chunks out, violently. Then it fermented in the secondary, gurgling for six solid weeks, exuding a pleasant tropical aroma. Then, it was time to bottle it. I opened the airlock and got all my clean bottles ready, and as I was filling them, the most foul rotten fruit smell imaginable wafted from the carboy. I took a sip and spat it onto the linoleum. Awful! 20 years ago and I can still taste it. Tasted like Brazilian floor wax mixed with the carcasses of ten thousand cockroaches. Never again with the banana brew! Yuck! It was so bad I couldnāt even dump it in the sink. I had to walk down to the storm drain at the street.
JUST look at it. (Donāt drink.)
I had it. I had flashbacks and had to spend a week in rehab and attend meetings.
Sauerkraut batch # 5 is now in the cupboard, doing its thing!
2 lbs cabbage, 1 T salt, massaged for 10 min, then allowed to rest for another 10. Added 2 T brine from batch #4, then split the cabbage.
Left: 2/3 of the cabbage, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 clove garlic, 1 more T of batch #4 brine
Right: 1/3 of the cabbage, 1 medium onion, 1 tsp red pepper flakes, 2 cloves garlic, 1 more T of batch #4 brine
Pickle pebbles added to the top of each. Look, I didnāt over-fill this time!
Canāt wait to see how these turn out.
How often do you eat sauerkraut?!
At least every other day. Itās fecking delicious, I tell you what.
It is due to a certain temp and certain yeast. Iāll look it upā¦
Eta
Wyeast 3068, ferment fairly warm. This will bring out the banana esters. Though Iāve accidently done it in stouts with stock Nottingham yeast.
I always thought Fruity Esther would make a great name for a female punk band.
Today was 'kraut check day.
They both smelled really nice when I opened the jars. Those pickle pebbles worked out really well, too! Everything was submerged.
So how do they taste, you ask?
Holy shit, you guys, these are the best batches yet! The mustard seeds in the left-side jar were the perfect addition. And I think the onion/pepper flake 'kraut on the right is going to be my new go-to food to eat when Iām feeling like I might be coming down with something. Just a little forkful, and I feel like my sinuses will be clear for days.
Iāma give āem a few more days in the cupboard, then itās eatinā time. Who wants a bowl?
hell yeah!
maybe i should try making an onion horseradish krautā¦?
iām fermenting bread today, now that my oven works again. did you know i had to reboot it? 
How does one reboot an oven?
