Live Culture Sauerkraut

How to tell a live jar from a dead one, without opening it.

It was in the cooler. A live ferment cannot sit at room temperature indefinitely, so anything on an unrefrigerated shelf has almost certainly been heated.

The lid is vented, or the jar is not filled to the brim. Live cabbage produces carbon dioxide. A sealed jar with no headroom either is not fermenting or is about to make a mess.

The ingredients are short. Cabbage, salt, and the vegetable the flavor is named after. Vinegar means the sourness came from a bottle. Sugar and preservatives mean the jar was built to be stable rather than alive.

It changes. Open a live jar in month one and again in month five and the second one is more sour. That is the ferment still working in your fridge.

Ours meets all four. Fermented in small batches in glass, never heated, shipped cold with an insulated liner, and still going when it arrives. Expect a hiss on the first jar — open it over the sink.