We make the kind of sauerkraut that has to live in a fridge
Cabbage, salt and time is the whole recipe. It has been the whole recipe for a very long time — in kitchens across Eastern Europe, where a crock of kraut in the cellar was how a household got through winter, and later in the immigrant kitchens that brought the habit to America along with everything else they carried.
Somewhere along the way the jar on the American grocery shelf stopped being that. Pasteurized so it could sit at room temperature for a year, sharpened with vinegar so it would still taste like something afterwards. Shelf-stable, convenient, and no longer alive.
What we do instead
We ferment in small batches in glass. Nothing is heated, nothing is dosed with vinegar, nothing is added to hold it steady. Each batch ferments until it is properly sour, then goes cold and stays cold — through our door, through the carrier, into your fridge. It is still fermenting when it gets to you, which is why the lids are vented and why we tell you to open the first one over the sink.
Why the boxes, and why the flat price
Shipping something cold is expensive, and the honest way to deal with that is volume rather than a surcharge buried at checkout. Four jars and up ship free. Every flavor costs the same, so nobody has to decide between the one they want and the one that is cheaper.
Who we are
A small operation, family-run, working from recipes that have been in the family longer than any of us — the sour, caraway-scented kraut that has been on tables in Eastern Europe for centuries, made here in California.
We would rather make a jar that has to be refrigerated, explained and shipped carefully than one that can sit on a shelf and taste like nothing.