Farmall Cub

Went with my Uncle Jim last night and learned how to make Sauerkraut. All in all, we put up about 195# of the stuff. Use the old family shredder after UJ cut the heads in half. Shredded nicely into strings. 3tbsp of salt to 5 pounds of cabbage. Placed in crocks and now it is up to mother nature and the molds in the air to do the fermentation. In about 2 months, we'll have plenty of sauerkraut to share.

Was a great time bonding with my Uncle and learning how they did this when he was a kid. He's a tough old bird, and I love every minute spent with him!!!

Mike, How big are the crocks (or how many did it take to hold it all)? I guess I always thought there was a "vinegar" component to kraut.

Bob

Just cabbage, salt and time, Bob.

Yup, Don's got it right. The salt kills all of the "bad bugs" that are in the cabbage and only allows the proper yeasts and molds to grow and ferment the sugars in the cabbage. You are left with yummy salty, tangy goodness that is KRAUT. There is nothing like "raw" kraut right out of the crock...better than any store-bought product you could ever get. The process is labor intensive, but very rewarding!

To do the 200# of cabbage, we used a 12 gallon crock, 8 gallon crock and 1 and 1/2 five gallon buckets. Unfortunately, we filled the 12 gallon crock first and found that it had gotten a crack in it since last year... we had to offload all of the pounded kraut into two more buckets to transfer later on down the line. That 12 gallon pot has been in the family for at least 80 years, and it is sad to see it go. Part of the tradition of Kraut-making.

Hengy wrote:Yup, Don's got it right. The salt kills all of the "bad bugs" that are in the cabbage and only allows the proper yeasts and molds to grow and ferment the sugars in the cabbage. You are left with yummy salty, tangy goodness that is KRAUT. There is nothing like "raw" kraut right out of the crock...better than any store-bought product you could ever get. The process is labor intensive, but very rewarding!

To do the 200# of cabbage, we used a 12 gallon crock, 8 gallon crock and 1 and 1/2 five gallon buckets. Unfortunately, we filled the 12 gallon crock first and found that it had gotten a crack in it since last year... we had to offload all of the pounded kraut into two more buckets to transfer later on down the line. That 12 gallon pot has been in the family for at least 80 years, and it is sad to see it go. Part of the tradition of Kraut-making.

Mmmmm!! Kraut on a grilled brat (turkey brats now for me ) Delicious!

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-ca ... chn-189390

Waste of good cabbage. Should have use 1/2 the cabbage to make kimchi.

We do a tad bit every couple years or so,---But get it before it gets too strong in the fermenter!---dont like the strong stuff! thanks; sonny

Eugene thank you very much for the Kimchi recipe, I have my 15 liter crock full of kraut and a 4 liter ferment-er full of beets 2- 1 1/2 liter fermenter full of peppers and one of those nice radishes and carrots, so now I am going to take the 4 large radishes my Thanksgiving guest brought me from nEW yORK sTATE AND MAKE ME A 5 LITER BATCH OF tHAT THERE kIMCHI. My only question is to where can the Korean red pepper flakes, guess I will do a search.

A friend of mine made three different kinds. One crock with regular kraut. One crock with wine kraut and one crock with kraut with green tomatoes in it. I still liked the regular better with a pork roast.

I have the crock that my grandmother used to make kraut. The crock sat in the basement and she used a slate with a brick on top of it to press it. Eating kraut straight out of the crock is one of my fondest memories. Back around 2007 I rode with a friend to Bass Ford between Elyria & Lorain, Ohio to pick up a new truck for the Village. On the way home we drove over to Norwalk to visit his cousins farm. They were in the middle of the cabbage harvest for SnowFloss. I had never seen semi loads of cabbage before. His cousin gave us each 3 enormous heads of cabbage to take home. These things were the size of basketballs.

Doug