I just wanted to do a post about making kraut. I think my cabbage is close to doing a batch now. This is my father-in-law Bud.
He's 78 and has so much knowledge about gardens and such. He's a kraut expert from way back. I followed a recipe in a canning book for doing kraut in canning jars and they never fermented right. He taught us how to do it in a crock.
These were the 5 heads from our garden and Bud brought over a few more.
Here's the kitchen aid getting it's work out. It's so much quicker using the kitchen aid than it is to use the slaw cutter - which is almost like a mandolin.
To make kraut you put some salt in the bottom of the crock, then you add some cabbage. You keep alternating like this, but you have to stomp it as you go. The stomper is like a mallet with a flat end on it.
You can kind of see the wood stomper in this shot.
You have to make sure you taste it every so often so you don't over do on the salt. Once you get the crock full you cover the cabbage with some big cabbage leaves. Put a plate on it, and use a brick to weigh the plate down.
We put ours in the pantry to work. Every morning when you get up push down on the brick. It should gurgle and bubble. When it doesn't gurgle anymore then it's ready to put up. Bud said it has to be put up within 24 hours or you stand a chance of it starting to mold and go rancid. We usually put it in quart zip lock bags, and then put those in gallon zip lock bags. That way it's kind of double bagged to help protect from freezer burn. We usually don't have to worry about the kraut staying in the freezer too long because we like it too much.
Well I just wanted to show you the old school way of getting kraut without running to the store to buy it.
Subject: Saur kraut 
Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:27 pm
