Sharon Flynn

Cabbage is perfect for fermenting because the cell walls are easily broken down with salt, and the juices that are released quite easily make the brine. While you are chopping and grating your cabbage, eat a piece raw. It will be crunchy and sweet. After fermentation it will be pretty crunchy still, shiny and alive-looking; the sugars will have been eaten by the lactobacillus bacteria (et al); and the sauer that you taste is the lactic acid cleverly produced by the lactobacillus.