I wonder this kind of raw Sauerkraut:
https://www.coop.ch/en/food/fruit-ve...ries/p/3625035

How many days do you consume it after opening it and storing in the fridge? It's written: to consume quickly after opening, but "quickly" is not very precise for me. generally I eat it raw, but can also cook it if after certain period it's not safe to eat any more.
Thanks

I've had some which lasted about a month before I got around to finish it, was a bit too quantity optimistic buying at a market once. Texture wise it became less crunchy. I've no food safety backed answer though.

Very hard to say, if it smells sort of tangy sour, then it´s ok, musty sour, chuck it.

Freeze it or cook it.

Tom

I'd say a week. After that, mince onion and fry some lard with those onions, throw in a bit of paprika for 20 sec, 2 cubed peeled potatoes, carroway seeds, a spoon of flour for 30sec, mustard seeds, bay leaf and shredded chorizo, add in a liter of boiling stock and your wunderbar sauerkraut. Great winter soup. I'll repost this in Winter Comfort thread. It's a legend where I am from, competing with borsch. Après ski.

We don't use chorizo back there but papriková klobása. Same thing.

A quick update on this topic.

3 days ago I pulled from a fridge a can of Sauerkraut, which I bought from a local farm shop in the very late December 2020. Only opened and used it once right after got at home. It smelled and tasted fine with no noticeable developments. I snatched a couple pinches raw and cooked the rest following the MusicChick's recipe posted above (only had to swap chorizo for spicy sujuk). No negative consequences for at least 72 hours, so I declare it safe. One can never exclude survivor's bias, but that I can't control for right away.

In the Ye olde times, the people had a pot of Sauerkraut in the basement bellow the stairs. When ever they needed some they went to the pot, lifted the wooden lid, and scooped some out of it. Afterwards they closed it again and did so over the course of the year until a fresh batch of cabbages could be harvested and persevered.



Eben geht mit einem Teller
Witwe Bolte in den Keller,
Daß sie von dem Sauerkohle
Eine Portion sich hole,
Wofür sie besonders schwärmt,
Wenn er wieder aufgewärmt.
Unterdessen auf dem Dache
Ist man tätig bei der Sache.
Max hat schon mit Vorbedacht
Eine Angel mitgebracht.

Schnupdiwup, da wird nach oben
Schon ein Huhn heraufgehoben!
Schnupdiwup, jetzt Numro zwei!
Schnupdiwup, jetzt Numro drei!
Und jetzt kommt noch Numro vier:
Schnupdiwup, dich haben wir!
Zwar der Spitz sah es genau
Und er bellt: Rawau, rawau!

__________________
What?

Are you still alive? Congratulations!!!! I crave it now. I will do the same over the weekend. Apparently great with beer, but I don't drink it.

Is the feeling of invincibility coming yet? Superpowers?

It's really healthy!

I work for a food company which works for Coop, and sometimes we've got free food to take home. Last year I took a 5 KG red cabbage bag and I'd made home Saurkraut following an online recipe. After some months building up juice Lactobacillales I moved them to the fridge. They are still alive but they do not grow anymore.

I still got less than half jar after 1 year and a half and it's still edible. Most common fermented products on supermarket don't have latic acid bacteria because they are pasteurized (therefore, dead), so all the benefits you might read about these bacteria on your microbiota, you'll not have them.

So I haven't think about this, but I guess this is way there is a limit time you should eat these fermented products after opening them.

Yes, but for LAB to grow you need a proper environment, which prevents other fouler bacteria to develop and allow a healthy LAB to grow, this is: saltines, acidity (low PH) and lack of oxygen. That's why you are adding salt and maybe backslash it with water from before and than the vegetables (or fruits) must be kept submerged.
The same way as pickles can survive years even after they are opened and in a fridge so can Sauerkraut, which the same, just different vegs. You only need enough liquid. Even when pasteurized PH stays low.

Btw, you can do easy sauerkraut in few weeks, it will be already nicely sour with much lighter taste/smell but it will not be as stable.

I'm definitely alive, well and quite pleasantly satisfied in the food department. No superpowers yet, as far as I can tell looking through myself with X-rays from the future.

Also, started a small batch of a sauerkraut with cranberries (some grandma's recipe). Will see, if it will be edible in the spring, and how long will it be able to survive in the fridge after the ripe.

There have been some terribly misinformed answers on this thread.

It all depends on whether your saurkraut has been pasturized, but if it's raw then you're in luck.

Your saurkraut has been fermented (lactobacterial fermentation) with salt. I have saurkaut that is YEARS old (I make my own). It will only get better with age, there has never been a case in history where someone died from a fermented vegetable.

You have to think, refrigeration has been around for a century. What on earth did we do before we had fridges? We fermented, cured, stewed for preservation.

Villages would get together, shred cabbage into vats, salt it, and let the children stamp it down with their feet. These vats of preserved fermenting cabbage and other veggies would last all winter and beyond.

The same goes for Kimchi. Supermarkets are protecting themselves legally by telling you to eat it as soon as possible. Expiry dates are always very conservative.

The more sour and funky it smells, the better it is.

__________________
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

It depends on the salt content. 3% is normal (salt to vegetable matter) - a salt content of 10% for example would keep indefinitely, however this would be very salty. 3% would keep for years anyway.

Wilhelm Busch, love it, still got a huge, fat book with all the drawings and verses. Too bad this is not translatable.

Sauerkraut is fermented - how much worse can it get?
But funnily enough I wondered the same thing today, I bought some cooked Sauerkraut and after eating half of it for lunch it has already caused the "toute de suite" as we say here, so I definitely have to take a break.

The cooked version has absolutely no info, not even "soon"?