Kimchi - kimchibulgogi.com recipe

Ah, so its been a while since i've updated - and actually a while since I made this.  Oops.  I've been on a kimchi kick for a while now, so the logical next step was to make my own.  I just googled a recipe and looked for one that seemed the most simple, this is the one I used:

http://www.kimchibulgogi.com/mahg-easy-cut-kimchi-recipe/

It all seemed pretty straight forward, cut the cabbage, wash it, sprinkle it with salt.  Except I don't think I did it as well as I could have.  First up I should have drained the cabbage a lot more before salting it.  Secondly I used sea-salt and it probably wasn't fine enough, thus it didn't sprinkle so well and I didn't get quite the coverage necessary.

 Still, I think you can just tell from the difference between these first two photos how much the cabbage wilts under the load of salt.  This was just under 2 hours, but I think it really needed twice as long to be truly effective.  I'd also decided that the 1/2 cup of ground chilli flakes I had wasn't hot enough so added a couple of tablespoons of cayenne - I think in hindsight that was probably a bit unnecessary!

Its quite strange when you first start mixing it, as you don't think its going to mix evenly, but all of a sudden it goes from powdery to gloopy to saucy as these 3 images hopefully show.  The longer you leave it the more sauce seems to develop, which is especially noticeable between the last picture in the bowl & when its finally jarred.  I decided to wear gloves as my skin is a bit wimpy and can't handle large amounts of salt or acid, so I figured lots of chilli would do the same thing.

In next to no time at all it was ready to chuck in jars, it turns out that one head of cabbage makes a whole hell of a lot of kimchi!  I think I finished making this a week and a half ago and i've still only used two thirds of that smaller plastic container, I might have to find someone else who likes kimchi who can have one of the jars!  

To date its been a pretty tasty - but very spicy snack, a reasonably good chicken kimchi jjigae and I managed to make a reasonable stir fry using it too.  But either I made it poorly, or its not a very good recipe.  I'd like to try one with more than just cabbage as the vegetables, and I think it needs to sit out longer to start fermenting as this doesn't really have a vinegary taste at all yet.  But, not a bad first attempt I reckon!