[Ag-eq] Sauerkraut

[Susan Roe]

The recipe we used was from the "Country Side" magazine and it was a small 
recipe.  Basically here is how it went.  Take 5 pounds of cabbage and shred 
it small, but not too fine.  Place it in a clean kitchen trash bag with so 
much rock salt.  This is where it gets fun for kids; place the closed bag on 
the floor and with your sock feet, walk all over the bag and smash the 
cabbage.  We then had gotten a bran new circular plastic bathroom trash can, 
thoroughly washed andpacked the cabbage in the container.  Yu have to put 
down a layer of cabbage and then take something like the flat head of a 
wooden meat malit and tamp each layer down tight.  Do this until all of the 
cabbage is packed.  Then take a saucer, turn it upside down on top of the 
cabbage to hold it down and take a quart jar full of water and set that on 
top of the saucer.  cover everything with a towl and let sit for about 3 
days.

In this time period, the salt draws liquid from the cabbage and creates its 
own brine.  The level should just come over the rim of the saucer, if not 
there by 3 days, add enough water to get to that level.

Here is where the ferminting part comes in.  Take your washed and sterolized 
jars and fill them with the cabbage, packing as you go and fill an inch from 
the top.  Loosely put lids and rings on jars.  Now you need to put them in a 
cool dark place and let them fermint away.  Here is where I know I would 
need sighted help because you are watching for the fermintation bubbles to 
begin and end as well as the color to change.  You must not seel the lids or 
the fermintation gasses can't get out.  Also, you will definitely be getting 
loads of cabbage gas, oh what a lovely smell.

Then you take the jars into your kitchen and take the lids and rings off. 
Wipe the jars down with a clean wet cloth and rince the lids and rings 
before putting them back on tight.  Then you would process the jars in a hot 
water bath just like canning other pickels.

I have also heard of people taking crocks and filling them with a pickeling 
brine and cutting up vegetables and putting them in to be pickeled.  They 
would just add fresh vegetables and stir as they ate the pickels from the 
crock.  They could have half brined vegetables all year round.

Susan
dogwoodfarm at verizon.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione at access.net>
To: "Agricultural and Equestrean Division List" <ag-eq at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, September 06, 2013 6:30 AM
Subject: [Ag-eq] Sauerkraut


> All you guys who made sauerkraut with your moms, what equipment did you 
> use?
> I've been looking at Amazon and Gardeners Supply.  Some people use a 
> crock. Some seem to just use wide-mouth canning jars. It seems like people 
> put the cabbage and brine in a crock, leave it a while, like 2-6 weeks, 
> and then put it in jars.  The putting in jars bit seems like what Susan 
> was describing.
> Tracy
>
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