Brussels Krauts

[gardener]

JohnDulleck, you thought your Brussels sprouts would be ready in just eight days? My fermentations go much more slowly than that.

I tried Brussles sprouts a couple ways last year, whole and cut. Both turned out terrible, nothing like I had hoped. They were bitter and sort of sticky-pastey. Horrible.

Maybe sometime I'll try again.

[apshaitwister]

The closest I've come to making brussels krauts was including brussels sprouts in a batch of kraut. My boyfriend at the time worked at one of the local farmers markets so he was always coming home with armfuls of fresh produce. We, too, thought that perhaps since brussels sprouts looked similar to cabbages, they'd behave similarly in a ferment.

We cut the remainder of stem off each sprout, got rid of the first couple outer leaves, and then cut them in half. I forget exactly what type of brussels sprouts they were, but they are a bit smaller than what you might "normally" find at the grocery store. Then we prepared a regular batch of kraut and threw the little sprout halves in evenly throughout.

We let it ferment until the kraut looked like it's normal self and were rewarded with delicious kraut AND sprouts! I think we both admitted that it would have been nice to do a separate batch of sprouts next time though, so we could let them ferment for just a tad longer.