Given up on sauerkraut

Hi all, I’m at my wits end trying to make sauerkraut without it going off. I’ve tried at least several different times and all failed. Apologies for the lengthy rant.

For the ingredients I’m using whole cabbage leaf minus the heart, 2% salt and filtered water. I finely chop the cabbage, massage in the salt and squeeze after 10 mins, then pack it densely into the glass jar making sure there’s enough brine on top. I also use ceramic weights.

The first time I had a poorly designed water lock from the Kilner fermenting jar that dripped contaminated water into the ferment, causing mould bloom.

I sterilised completely using the hot water + baking method and tried again. No luck, same result.

I then sterilised again and used a different water lock I purchased on Amazon which didn’t drip water into the ferment. It looked great but STANK. Extreme sulfury smell. I threw it out since I thought that was bad.

Then I read that cabbage tends to release sulfur during fermentation, so I tried it again but put it in a cool dark place away from the main areas of my house. Let it ferment for 2 weeks. It looked great, but still stank of sulfur.

Y’all. When I tried it, it tasted like blue cheese and rotten egg. Not at all like sauerkraut should be. There’s no visible mould and the colour looks like it should. I guess the only thing wrong was that by the second week fermenting the brine had reduced quite a bit.

I have no idea how you all are having success, but please I’d love advice because it just seems like nothing I do works. I feel like giving up.