There's a point when I make sauerkraut where it feels like the whole thing is going off the rails. Mine has the traditional cabbage and caraway seeds, but I like to throw an onion in there and something about the latter steers the whole thing into off-putting deep-funk territory at about the six-day mark: it smells vaguely of stinky shoe and has a taste that's equally prohibitive. Amazingly, these are not bad signs.

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