I’ve had this idea for a long time, and had to wait for a proper moment to try and make it a reality – what if I dehydrated some sauerkraut and then turned it into powder; could it be used as a spice?

My idea was originally sparked when I got to play with my father’s dehydrator, after which I started thinking about the possibility of dehydrating something “crazy”. Hence: sauerkraut.

The point of this post is not to delve too deep into the science of the fermentation process and parameters, because that is irrelevant for the end goal of this experiment; I will, however, offer a very brief introduction. Sauerkraut is a fermented cabbage. The fermentation occurs due to various lactic acid bacteria. Its name in English is kind of weird and is basically two German words mushed together (sauer = sour, kraut = cabbage). In other European languages, including my native language, it also translates directly to “sour cabbage” (kiseli kupus).

Anyway, I found a local producer of sauerkraut, and it was pre-shredded, which was great – one can mostly find whole heads of fermented cabbage in my country, leaves of which are used for our traditional food called sarma. The greatness lies in the fact that shredded cabbage has a much bigger surface area. Bigger surface area = faster drying!

Approx. 350 g of this shredded sauerkraut was used which was then squeezed tightly between my hands, to remove as much excess moisture as possible. I didn’t have a scale in my makeshift home lab at the time, so I didn’t weigh the end result after squeezing. I then arranged the pieces of sauerkraut in my dehydrator and let the dehydrator run for 4+4 hours (flipped the tray order after the first 4 hours).

The before and after:

A Philips electric coffee grinder was then used to pulverize the dehydrated sauerkraut into a powder. A fine powder consistency couldn’t be achieved – I suspect it was because the hard stem part of leaves that are chewy when fresh turned hard and sort of sticky after drying out; the other reason was probably the insufficient power of my coffee grinder.

I was left with approx. 25-40 g of this powder (around two tablespoons, give or take).

The sensory part of this experiment was… interesting, but not very surprising. The color of the powder was dark yellow with some brown and green mixed in. The smell of the powder was strong and earthy, with an undertone of the standard “funky”, fermented smell. The taste was interesting – tangy, salty, savory, and reminiscent of the classic umami flavor associated with mushrooms and roast beef. The only thing I didn’t really like was the smell; I reckon the spice would maybe benefit from some sort of deodorization after the dehydration treatment; this could be looked into, but is beyond the scope of my home lab abilities.

This powder could be used in foods that are normally bland, such as boiled potatoes, popcorn, and rice. It could also be used as a coating for some sort of chips, or as something to add to salads. One fun way to try and use this, which I might do in the future, is as a spice in homemade sausages.