Should I remove extra water that leaked into sauerkraut?

Question

Making sauerkraut, I used bags to weigh cabbage down, bag leaked and now the cabbage is submerged under the water. Should I remove some of the water?

Answer 1

Yes. The extra water dilutes the salt in your brine. You need the right salt concentration or you don't get the selection for the right sorts of bacteria, instead you can get pathogenic species growing. If you have only just put it on (maybe an hour or two ago) and then discovered the leak, you should be OK to re-start it, however, much longer than that and you run the risk of it being swamped by pathogenic bacteria, so I would discard it and start again.

The bacteria that you do want growing (mostly Lactobacillus genus) are called halo-tolerant (halo means salt, tolerant in this case means "can grow in it"), whereas most pathogenic bacteria, particularly the bacteria found in your gut and in feces, such as Escherichia coli are not tolerant of salt, so the brine inhibits their growth.

There's a very long, but quite good, guide to what each component of the fermentation is doing in your sauerkraut at Secrets of Cooking.