Posted: 8/1/2009 7:20:36 AM EDT
Waldo's cabbage post reminded me I never posted up our 'kraut experience.
Never made sauerkraut until this year. The whole 'controlled rot' business is a little sketchy..... Nonetheless, our kraut turned out nicely. The neighbor (my guinea pig, as it were  ) said "This is the best kraut I've had in years! It's world class! If we could make this in bulk we'd be rich! )
Kraut is very interesting to me on a conceptual level. Salt plus cabbage and then the magic of wild fermentation transforms raw cabbage into a (relatively) preserved, durable foodstuff. I can certainly see why this was a staple on the early homestead. One observation about kraut: it stinks a bit while it's fermenting. Mrs. Feral was glad to get it out of the pantry when we finally got around to canning it. Another thing I'll note is that the KitchenAid slicer/shredder attachment really made quick work of 40 pounds of cabbage. It would be tedious to slice all this cabbage by hand. Completely doable....but tedious. Anyway....the pictures pretty much tell the tale. The Ball jars in the crock are filled with water and sitting on a dinner plate. That holds the cabbage under the brine while it rots. You can see the brine bubbling in one of those pics. There's nothing in this but salt and cabbage. The shredded cabbage goes into the crock 5 pounds at a time. Salt is added on top. Then more cabbage and more salt. Mix a bit and press down. Doesn't take long for the salt to start sweating out the brine. When we were done, there was a good two inches covering the compacted cabbage––no need to add water. We got two family-sized servings of fresh kraut and nine quarts of canned from 8 cabbage heads. Fermentation time was three weeks. Smells foul, tastes good. 
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Countryside & Small Stock Journal July/Aug 09 had a good article about homemade kraut; it has probiotics, which help the immune system and
acts as a digestive tonic that helps with acid reflux and heart burn. Store bought canned kraut is nowhere as benifical as home made. The magazine is well worth a subscription for those (which is most everyone reading this board) interested in self sustainment and homesteading. |
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I'm probably going to do mine with my fall crop of cabbage. Have to get another crock though as the wife broke the last one. 
I've been told that a plastic bucket will work just fine. Cheaper and easier than dealing with a real crock. Yep, Ball book says you can ferment kraut in plastic. We chose to buy a crock cause all of our existing crocks are ancient....not sure if there's a lead issue in that old glaze. I think one advantage to using a crock is temperature stabilization......I bet a crock keeps things closer to the same temperature, despite environmental fluctuations, than a plastic bucket. |
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How much salt did you add to the cabbage? Do you change the water out? 3 tablespoons pickling or canning salt for every 5 pounds sliced cabbage. Don't have to change the brine....just skim it every day to remove any scum that forms. Mrs. Feral justed used up our last cabbage making some more today. Might have to have another planting if we can get away with it.
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Great thred. If I wanted to give this a ry, where can I get one of the crocks? Name and size please!! Lehman's sells a variety of crocks, but shipping will be salty. We're using a 5 gallon crock which would probably hold 50 pounds of cabbage without difficulty. Smaller would certainly work. Keep in mind that you can do kraut in a clean plastic bucket too.
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This is about as close as I'll ever come to a "dinner pic."
Smoked bratwurst (yeh, that's a 'jumbo frank' in the pic.......didn't have enough smoked brats to go around so Feral got stuck with it. ) with kraut and brown mustard, steamed green beans with minced garlic, sweet corn with butter. The veggies are from the garden and were picked about 20 minutes before the pic.
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If you add shredded carrots, bell pepper, hot peppers, garlic, onions, white raddish, or any other hardy vegetable (can't see any zucchini in this dish!) you have the Korean Kimchi or Kimchee!
Plastic is good. Make sure that whatever vessel you use, the vegetables are weighted so they remain under the liquid. In college (food science major) we used Nalgene containers with a plastic bowl filled with rice or beans and a tight fitting lid to place on top to keep the veggies under the brine. |
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Well, I canned my first batch the other night. Got 7 well packed quarts. I'll be making more out of my late cabbage. That stuff does smell pretty bad as it's fermenting though. I kept the bucket out in the garage. Next time, I'm going to try the double garbage bag with a few gallons of water in it as a weight/airlock. That should eliminate most of the skimming work. |
They make Stoneware weight for crocks in varios sizes for different size crocks.
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