Sauerkraut revisited

I made my first batch of sauerkraut in December of 2009. Since that experiment I've had many successful ferments (and started using a real fermenting crock rather than a fish bowl), but my most recent batch may just be an epic failure.

Making a tasty ferment is always a combination of factors -- temperature, bacteria, and timing all play together in a chemical, biological dance. Prior to my most recent batch, I'd only made my kraut in the Pacific NW fall; a fall with reliably high humidity. But a reliable characteristic of my current home is aridity. 

On a sunny fall day I sought out a pair of hefty cabbages at the Santa Fe farmer's market. I cradled them like babies, brought them home, and did the usual -- fine chopping, squishing with salt, and packing into my 2 gallon crock. I was impressed with the brine created from the cabbage's liquid. It covered the cabbage by a couple inches, so I didn't need to add any additional brine. 

Fast forward a few days, and I check on my kraut. All of that beautiful brine evaporated! The cabbage was exposed to air, and I needed to add more liquid. Somewhere in my head I knew that I should add a brine solution (water + salt) and not just plain water. The correct salt concentration discourages the growth of gross bacteria. But I was feeling extra experimental that fateful day, or overly confident in my healthy batch of kraut, or lazy, and I decided to use plain tap water to resubmerge the cabbage. 

Fast forward a few more days, and the kraut has an amazingly hairy growth of mold. I scoop it out with a big spoon, and the whole mat clings together like a weird kombucha scoby. I dig deeper into the crock and happily find that its innards are crunchy, delicious, and developing excellent kraut sourness and flavor. I fill a jar for the fridge, then pack the rest back together and place the crock gently in its fermenting corner, confident that it will be a fine batch.

But then the jar in the fridge grows soft. I fear for the whole batch, and open it (after 40 days at ~60-70 degrees F). It seems softer than normal. But it's tangy. And the smell is... interesting? I swear I detect notes of chocolate, but then I have a weird nose. All of this begs some questions: can soft sauerkraut be okay? and are my vague memories of someone telling me about their grandmother's sauerkraut crocks, and how they had a layer of mold, true? If the kraut is delicious, I will eat it. Go bravely into your fermenting future!