Roasted Garlic Sauerkraut with Black Pepper

Ingredients for Roasted Garlic Sauerkraut with Black Pepper

• Cabbage: I suggest green cabbage for this garlic sauerkraut recipe. A small head of cabbage will make about two jars of sauerkraut using this recipe. At the store, look for a cabbage that still has outer leaves. Usually, if a cabbage still has its outer leaves, it’s more hydrated and fresh.
• Garlic: I used half of a garlic bulb for one jar. Below, I’ll go over the steps to roast the garlic.
• Black Pepper: You can use fine-ground pepper, medium-ground pepper, or whole black peppercorns.
• Sea Salt: I like to use unrefined solar evaporated sea salt, but any pure sea salt will do. If you like experimenting with fancy sea salt in fermentation recipes, I suggest trying French grey sea salt.
• Water: I add water to all of my cabbage fermentation recipes. Water is still drawn out of the cabbage when salt is added. However, having water in this recipe accounts for seasonal changes in produce hydration levels. So, no matter where you are in the world or what your cabbage is like, you should have success with this recipe.

Dry Roasting Garlic

Do not, under any circumstances, roast garlic with oil for this recipe.

Fermenting vegetables with oil can have negative consequences. I simply cut a whole garlic bulb in half, unpeeled. Then, I put it face down on a parchment paper-lined pan and roasted it at 400 degrees F for 35 minutes. After that, I allowed it to cool. When you squeeze the cloves, they will slide right out. Some can be softer and mushier than others, and that’s fine.

Supplies You’ll Need to Ferment Sauerkraut

32 Oz Mason Jars

Regular Mouth Rust Proof Mason Jar Lids

Wide Mouth Fermentation Weights

Kitchenaid Dual Platform Scale

Australian Sea Salt

Plastic pH Test Strips (pH 0-14)

Roasted Garlic Sauerkraut Tips

Carbon dioxide and bubbles will form during the first few days of fermentation. Sometimes, the jars can become overly full of liquid, causing excess liquid to seep out. To address this, you can “burp the jar.”

Remove the lid and press everything back down using a gloved hand, tamper, or spoon. Make sure that all ingredients, including the weight, are submerged beneath the brine. Clean the lid and place it back on the jar. There’s no need to tighten it completely; just secure it enough to keep it in place.

Always trust your sense of smell: properly fermented cabbage should have a pleasantly sour aroma reminiscent of strong cabbage. Do not consume anything that smells unpleasant or overly yeasty.

Avoid eating any food with mold growing on it. If you follow the recipe instructions and recommended equipment, you should not encounter this issue.

Conduct a taste test at three weeks. If you prefer your sauerkraut to be more tart and sour, you can allow it to ferment for up to four weeks at room temperature before refrigerating.

What Temperature Should I Keep My Roasted Garlic Sauerkraut At?

Keep your fermenting cabbage at a temperature between 70 and 80 degrees F. Keep out of direct sunlight

How Long Should I Ferment My Homemade Sauerkraut?

After 3 weeks, remove the fermentation weight and then smell and taste test. Your fermented cabbage should smell pleasantly sour. It should taste tart, lightly salty, and cabbagey. If you would like it to be more sour, you can replace the weight and lid and then ferment at room temperature for one more week before refrigerating.

Do I Need to Refrigerate Sauerkraut?

After fermenting for 3 weeks, remove the weight, place a regular mason jar lid on the jar, and refrigerate. Consume within 6 months for full probiotic benefits.

Roasted Garlic Sauerkraut Fermentation Timeline

We monitored this roasted garlic sauerkraut closely during fermentation, even peeking at the microbes under a microscope, so we could share this timeline with you.

If you’re following our recipe and fermenting at around 75°F, yours should follow this timeline. (Hotter temps will be faster, colder temps will be slower)

24 to 48 hours: All the contents in your jar should be fully submerged in the brine. The salty brine creates an anaerobic environment, which prevents unwanted microbes from developing. However, some Gram-negative bacteria and potential troublemakers may still be present. Don’t worry; they will be eliminated from the mixture over time.

2 to 5 days: Here come the bubbles! You’ll likely notice fizz or bubbles starting around day two. Bubbles are a great sign that stage two of fermentation has kicked in. This is when the helpful Leuconostoc bacteria get to work, and by day five, all the stage one microbes are gone.

5 to 10 days: Things may start to settle down now. You won’t see as many bubbles, but don’t worry, it’s shifting into the next stage. The brine might get cloudy, the color will turn muted, and you should catch a lovely, tangy smell. That’s the Lactobacillus taking over and doing what they do best, preserving the cabbage.

10 to 21 days: By this point, Lactobacillus is mostly running the show. They’re making plenty of lactic acid, which gives sauerkraut its signature sourness and preserves it. This is when your cabbage officially becomes real-deal sauerkraut.

More Sauerkraut Recipes to Try

• Turmeric Napa Cabbage Sauerkraut
• Homemade Kimchi Inspired Spicy Sauerkraut Recipe
• How to Make Old Fashioned Sauerkraut with Caraway Seeds
• The Benefits of Eating Sauerkraut Daily

Sauerkraut & Kimchi

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Roasted Garlic Sauerkraut

This recipe is a traditional, wild fermented sauerkraut with roasted garlic and black pepper incorporated. If you love garlic, crunchy and tart sauerkraut, and a light pepper flavor then this Roasted Garlic Sauerkraut with black pepper recipe is for you!

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• Prep: 15 min 15 Minutes
• ferment: 21 days 21 days

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Ingredients

• 500 Grams Cabbage, Chopped
• 50 Grams Garlic, Roasted
• 1 Teaspoon Black Pepper
• 200 Grams Water
• 20 Grams Sea Salt

Instructions

1. To Roast Garlic: Cut a whole garlic bulb in half, unpeeled. Then, put it face down on a parchment-paper-lined pan (NO OIL) and roast at 400 degrees F for 30 minutes. After that, allow it to cool. When you squeeze the cloves, they will slide right out. Some can be softer and mushier than others, and that’s fine. Alternatively, you can dry roast peeled cloves.
2. Wash your fermentation equipment (jar, weight, and lid)
3. Remove the outer leaves of your cabbage and lightly rinse with cool water.
4. Chop the cabbage to your desired thickness.
5. Measure out all of your ingredients using a kitchen scale.
6. Mix all the ingredients, including the water, in a large bowl. Lightly massage the cabbage and break up any large pieces. 
7. Pack everything, including the water/brine, into a clean jar. (A 32-ounce jar works best.)
8. Place a fermentation weight in the jar, fully submerging the cabbage pieces and the weight into the liquid. If you don’t have enough liquid, submerge your glass fermentation weight in the jar as much as possible. Over the next 12 hours, the cabbage should release more liquid, and you can press the fermentation weight down below the brine.
9. Secure the lid, ideally a rust-proof lid. (you do not need to tighten it all the way, just secure the lid but leave it ever so slightly loose so the gas doesn’t build up too much). You can keep the jar in a glass dish to catch any spills.
10. Burping the jar: It should get bubbly in the first few days. If you have a tightly secured lid, you will need to burp the jar. You should also wash off the lid to keep it clean and re-adjust the fermentation weight whenever needed. Anytime the weight comes up out of the brine, with clean hands press hard on the weight to tamper everything back down into the liquid.*
11. Ferment at room temperature for 21-28 days, then remove the fermentation weight and refrigerate.
12. If you try this recipe and love it, please leave a five-star review below!

Notes

• This recipe at 1x works best with a 32-ounce jar
• When things are bubbly: If it looks like you’ve lost brine and cannot re-submerge the contents by pressing down on the weight, top it off with raw apple cider vinegar. It slightly changes the flavor, but it doesn’t harm the sauerkraut’s microbes and prevents mold. You need to give it a good stir when it’s done fermenting to mix up the flavors.
• Taring/zeroing the scale with a container on it subtracts the weight of the container, allowing you to weigh only what is added to the container. After taring/zeroing the scale, it should read 0.0 with the container on it.
• Do not use oil to roast garlic. Oil can negatively impact fermentation.
• Any cabbage works in this recipe. My favorites are green cabbage, napa cabbage, and savoy cabbage.

Kaitlynn Fenley Food Microbiologist and Fermentation Specialist

Kaitlynn is a Food Microbiologist and FSPCA-certified fermentation specialist. An alumna of the LSU College of Science, she combines her academic background in microbiology with her Cajun heritage to create safe and delicious recipes.

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