Hello,

I started fermenting a bucket of sauerkraut about three weeks ago using both red and white cabbage. I didn't add any spices or additional elements--just cabbage and salt. It's still in the bucket, but today for lunch I tried some of it and it tasted quite spicy. I was actually sweating a little from the heat. Besides that, it tasted like normal sauerkraut (albeit a bit "stronger" than store-bought hotdog sauerkraut).

Is the spiciness normal? If not, why does it taste this way? Has something gone wrong? Should I throw it out? The one possible abnormality I can recall is that when I initially salted the cabbage it didn't produce sufficient liquid (despite ample salting) so I added some distilled water.

Any advice would help.

Thanks!