Thankx a lot for the recipe quaxk,
Besides making wine, now that I've gotten involved in making my own apple cider vinegar, too, lights came on ALL OVER TOWN as I read through your recipe.
Nobody may be interested in exactly how this process works (or, at least MY VIEW of how it works), and why so much time is involved producing sauerkraut, but it is very interesting to me!
Sugar is a simple carbohydrate. Most vegetables are complex carbohydrates, which will, as they break down, become simple carbohydrates.
Did a little light just come on somewhere?
Before you can have vinegar, alcohol is required!
Before you can have alcohol, sugar is required!
For wine, sugar, a simple carbohydrate, must first be present in the juice, for the yeast to then act on, in order to yield the alcohol, as a by-product.
For vinegar, alcohol must first be present in the juice, for the bacteria to then act on, in order to yield the vinegar, as a by-product.
NOW did the little light come on?
So...what is really happening is that your recipe is really a combination of two separate processes, one following immediately behind the other!
FIRST - you are making Cabbage Wine!
SECOND - you are creating Cabbage Vinegar!
As making wine teaches us, by leaving your wine exposed to oxygen, you create an ideal enviroment for the vinegar bacteria to thrive.
And, by leaving your shredded cabbage submerged in these two processes during the whole time, you have then created a THIRD masterpiece - SAUERKRAUT!
Pogo
BTW - If the fruit cap from making wine was kept submerged during the whole primary fermentation, then used, submerged as well, in a vinegar making process, wouldn't the end result HAVE to be pretty tasty, too???
New sour-names would have to be invented for these creations of - sauer-grape-kraut, sauer-apple-kraut, etc.
Just call me Dr. Franken-Pogo, Heh, Heh, Heh...