huisjen
09-13-2004, 10:34 AM
I got the answer to my sauerkraut questions at last, not long after throwing my first attempts on the compost pile. Yesterday there was a 'kraut making clinic at The Good Life Center (Helen and Scott Nearing's house).
It goes like this: shred your cabbage reserving an outer leaf. Add salt. (No flowing agents or other junk! Use pickling salt, not table salt. They used an unrefined salt from Utah.) Use somewhere between a teaspoon to a tablespoon per two pounds of cabbage. More salt makes it work slower, but makes it more acid so it keeps longer. Rachael, who led the clinic, uses a teaspoon per two pounds and says she has it keep reasonably well. You can also add spices at this point. Once the cabbage has softened, pack it into jars, tamping it down layer by layer. We used sections of closet pole dowel that had been boiled briefly to sanitize them. The jars were also rinsed in boiling water. Many seemed to be pounding it down, but I got better action (more liquid generated and good air removal) by just pressing firmly and repeatedly. Doing more later at home, I used the end of my rolling pin, which has no handles, as a tamper. Once the jar is nearly full you should have a bit of liquid on top. Take pieces of the big outer leaf and cover the top of the pressed cabbage with it, submerging it well, and forming a layer that keeps anything from floating up to where it will get air. Tuck the edges of the big leaf down between the jar and the shredded stuff. Then put a small clean (boiled) rock on top of that to hold everything down. This will also raise the liquid level a bit. Put a lid on, but don't screw it down lest it explode. Put all this in a place where you can watch it for a while, like an out of the way spot on the kitchen counter. Put it in a catch basin in case it bubbles over. If the liquid starts to go down to the point where it might expose the cabbage, add brine (1 tablespoon salt per quart of water). Once it's stopped working (when volume stops changing, or just when you think it's to your taste), put it in the cellar (around 50°F or cooler) or in the fridge or in a cool spot in the bilge. It should keep until spring or until the end of as long of passage as you might want to make. Rachel's low salt stuff is done in a week or two. Saltier (tablespoon per two pounds) stuff make take more like a month. I put 2 1/2 pounds of cabbage into a quart mason jar.
We had some stuff Rachael had made a few weeks ago with caraway seeds in it. Good stuff. That batch had been made in a gallon crock rather than a mason jar. It was covered with a full wrapper leaf, then a board cut to fit, then a larger rock to hold everything down. Think of the mold around the top as being like the bloom on a ripe piece of fruit. Just wipe it off and don't worry about it. The stuff under the big leaf is good.
Rachael isn't a fan of using plastics in cooking. I'm not so worried, but I still more or less agree, especially with acidic foods like sauerkraut. I had considered using a big food grade plastic bucket, but had hesitations. Then I read of an old method used on wooden barrels of questionable quality: coat the inside with parafin wax. Buckets and wax are a lot cheaper than stoneware crocks.
The funny part of all this is that the overstock of cabbage we had a month ago eventually sold, so I'm not so desperate to find a way to store it all now.
Dan
It goes like this: shred your cabbage reserving an outer leaf. Add salt. (No flowing agents or other junk! Use pickling salt, not table salt. They used an unrefined salt from Utah.) Use somewhere between a teaspoon to a tablespoon per two pounds of cabbage. More salt makes it work slower, but makes it more acid so it keeps longer. Rachael, who led the clinic, uses a teaspoon per two pounds and says she has it keep reasonably well. You can also add spices at this point. Once the cabbage has softened, pack it into jars, tamping it down layer by layer. We used sections of closet pole dowel that had been boiled briefly to sanitize them. The jars were also rinsed in boiling water. Many seemed to be pounding it down, but I got better action (more liquid generated and good air removal) by just pressing firmly and repeatedly. Doing more later at home, I used the end of my rolling pin, which has no handles, as a tamper. Once the jar is nearly full you should have a bit of liquid on top. Take pieces of the big outer leaf and cover the top of the pressed cabbage with it, submerging it well, and forming a layer that keeps anything from floating up to where it will get air. Tuck the edges of the big leaf down between the jar and the shredded stuff. Then put a small clean (boiled) rock on top of that to hold everything down. This will also raise the liquid level a bit. Put a lid on, but don't screw it down lest it explode. Put all this in a place where you can watch it for a while, like an out of the way spot on the kitchen counter. Put it in a catch basin in case it bubbles over. If the liquid starts to go down to the point where it might expose the cabbage, add brine (1 tablespoon salt per quart of water). Once it's stopped working (when volume stops changing, or just when you think it's to your taste), put it in the cellar (around 50°F or cooler) or in the fridge or in a cool spot in the bilge. It should keep until spring or until the end of as long of passage as you might want to make. Rachel's low salt stuff is done in a week or two. Saltier (tablespoon per two pounds) stuff make take more like a month. I put 2 1/2 pounds of cabbage into a quart mason jar.
We had some stuff Rachael had made a few weeks ago with caraway seeds in it. Good stuff. That batch had been made in a gallon crock rather than a mason jar. It was covered with a full wrapper leaf, then a board cut to fit, then a larger rock to hold everything down. Think of the mold around the top as being like the bloom on a ripe piece of fruit. Just wipe it off and don't worry about it. The stuff under the big leaf is good.
Rachael isn't a fan of using plastics in cooking. I'm not so worried, but I still more or less agree, especially with acidic foods like sauerkraut. I had considered using a big food grade plastic bucket, but had hesitations. Then I read of an old method used on wooden barrels of questionable quality: coat the inside with parafin wax. Buckets and wax are a lot cheaper than stoneware crocks.
The funny part of all this is that the overstock of cabbage we had a month ago eventually sold, so I'm not so desperate to find a way to store it all now.
Dan