One evening this week Agnes came round, and we ended up skimming the brine. Somewhere around 20 °C it started to make sense. It was sunny outside, which never helps with burping the jars.
The result was a crunchy pickle, or close enough. I spent a good part of the day packing the crock and didn't regret a minute of it.
Why making a hot sauce worked is still a bit of a mystery to me. What I changed with the scoby this time:
In hindsight, the real trouble was too much salt. Honestly, I enjoyed the failures nearly as much as a jar worth sharing. None of this is new, but bottling the kombucha is new to me. I wrote it all down: 617 g of cabbage, 2% salt, and a note to be more patient.
Even Percy seemed to approve. For once, I didn't change anything halfway through skimming the brine.
I'm still not sure whether it was the starter culture or the weather. Now for a cup of something and a long sit down after burping the jars.
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