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I switched from airlock lids to cloth covers for my kraut and wow what a difference
For like 3 years I used those plastic airlock lids on my mason jars for sauerkraut. They worked fine but I got tired of cleaning them and replacing the gaskets. Last month I tried just using a coffee filter and a rubber band over the jar mouth. The ferment is way more active now and the kraut has a better crunch. I think the cloth lets more oxygen out so the good bacteria thrive. No more weird smells from trapped gases either. Has anyone else ditched the fancy lids for something simple like cloth or a napkin?
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spencer_gonzalez15mo ago
Haha I mean to be fair, "placebo effect with better cabbage" is pretty much the story of my life. I probably would've blamed my last batch on the airlock not being clean enough if I hadn't tried the cloth thing. But honestly my fridge is a mess and I'm too lazy to sterilize those tiny gaskets every month. The coffee filter trick is dead simple and my kraut actually smells less like a science experiment now.
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elliot_roberts5mo ago
So did you actually do a side-by-side test with the same cabbage batch, or are you just going on memory here...? Because I feel like the real question is whether cloth actually changes the environment enough to matter, or if it's just easier to clean. I'm leaning toward the latter but I've been wrong before.
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fionam115mo ago
Hold on, is it really that serious though? I mean, I get that cloth might work for you, but Ive been using airlock lids for years and my kraut turns out fine every single time. No weird smells, no mushiness, just solid crunchy kraut. Maybe you had a bad batch with your airlocks or forgot to clean them properly. Cloth sounds like it would let fruit flies in and dry out the top layer, which is exactly why I went with lids in the first place. Are you sure this isn't just a placebo effect or a coincidence with better cabbage that month?
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