Sauerkraut!

[Midnightmom]

I just got THREE 5lb bags of shredded cabbage from a food pantry.   I am going to make sauerkraut! (for the first time ever!!!) 

I hope I am as successful as the people in the videos I've watched. (They are all in line with the food preservation "bible")

[Midnightmom]

I had to take a break.  

I wore myself out trying to find my backup supply of salt!    I will probably find it in a week or two. 

In the meantime, I DO have enough in my refill container to proceed - once I've "recovered" from the exertion of trying to find the salt I was looking for. 

 

[Mt_Rider]

   Oye!  I KNOW that story too well. 

 

MtRider  .....iffen we know where everything is....we don't have enough STUFF!!!    

[Joyfilled]

Would love to see pictures, MidnightMom! I made some last year....we ate it all in two sitting (just one quart) with reuben sandwiches. Yummy stuff! I wish I had made more, but we never got around to it. Maybe I'll make more this year!

 

 

[Jeepers]

I'm interested too. I tried to make it about 35+ years ago. Not a typo. I won't mention what a complete disaster was awaiting me when I went in the basement to check on it. I still remember it to this day. Vividly. It wasn't fresh. Nuff said. I might give it a try one more time. Next time in the kitchen where I can keep a closer eye on it. 

[Joyfilled]

31 minutes ago, Jeepers said:

I'm interested too. I tried to make it about 35+ years ago. Not a typo. I won't mention what a complete disaster was awaiting me when I went in the basement to check on it. I still remember it to this day. Vividly. It wasn't fresh. Nuff said. I might give it a try one more time. Next time in the kitchen where I can keep a closer eye on it. 

Haha! So sorry,Jeepers....hopefully enough time has gone by for you to laugh at it!

 

I still have a jar of beans that never sealed down in the basement. I call it the experiment.

[Jeepers]

LOL.  I had a couple of unsealed jars of soup beans festering in my basement too. Ugh. I planted those beans in my first garden and watered them and weeded them all summer long. Then I harvested them and canned them. I was so proud of them. I was now a famer who could feed myself and my family come what may. They were so pretty sitting on the shelf.  

 

That is when I learned all about the hazards of overfilling dense food in a canning jar. They were sealed...until they weren't. Also the advantages of storing canned food without the bands on. 

 

And the time I somehow managed to mix up my salt for sugar in my pickled beets recipe. Lesson there was to taste the sauces before I can anything. Costly mistake that one was. 

 

Oh, and the quart jars of pickled mixed veggies. They were beautiful too. Carrots, broccoli heads, cauliflower etc. Did you know you are supposed to soak your fresh picked broccoli and cauliflower in salt water before you can them? Something to do with little tiny worms hiding in the cracks and crevasses. Who knew? None of those jars made it to the table. Thankfully.  

 

I think no matter how experienced we think we are...we all make mistakes. Nature's way of keeping us humble I suppose. And alive. 

[Midnightmom]

31 minutes ago, Jeepers said:

Oh, and the quart jars of pickled mixed veggies. They were beautiful too. Carrots, broccoli heads, cauliflower etc. Did you know you are supposed to soak your fresh picked broccoli and cauliflower in salt water before you can them? Something to do with little tiny worms hiding in the cracks and crevasses. Who knew? None of those jars made it to the table. Thankfully.  

 

 

I'll have to ask Mary (Mary's Nest) about soaking the broccoli and cauliflower before using it to make Giardiniera (fermented).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u71D0bLp64I

 

 

21 hours ago, Jeepers said:

(RE: sauerkraut)  Next time in the kitchen where I can keep a closer eye on it. 

 

Yes, Jeeps. You are supposed to keep a "close eye on it!"  You have to "burp" it every day, so she suggests you keep it in the kitchen - or somewhere else that you will see it everyday as a reminder that you are fermenting it.

 

 

 

Here is her fermented sauerkraut video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO90h3xB3oc

 

And here are pics of the kraut I made!

 

 

       

 

[Jeepers]

Your kraut looks delicious! Mary fermented her veggies. I just made a brine and then waterbath canned mine. I guess I was making more of a pickle. This was back in the 1980s. No internet.

 

If I remember correctly, it was recommended using a salt bath for brussel sprouts too. Mostly compacted or leafy vegetables where bugs or worms could hide. The salt would kill them but you still had to find and remove the deceased. 

[Joyfilled]

Oh, my. I'm learning so much by all y'alls posts! And I have to admit, I giggled a bit, too....

 

My salt/sugar story: When we first moved in, we invited the Pr and his wife over for dinner. I made some cinnamon nachos for dessert to serve with ice cream. Before they came, I took one out and tasted it. I gagged!! It burned my mouth! What in the world???? Hubby had brought home some "sugar" from our old place and dumped in with our current sugar, not realizing it was part of our stash of salt. Moral of the story: always taste your desserts before dinner.

[Joyfilled]

1 hour ago, Midnightmom said:

 

I'll have to ask Mary (Mary's Nest) about soaking the broccoli and cauliflower before using it to make Giardiniera (fermented).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u71D0bLp64I

 

 

 

Yes, Jeeps. You are supposed to keep a "close eye on it!"  You have to "burp" it every day, so she suggests you keep it in the kitchen - or somewhere else that you will see it everyday as a reminder that you are fermenting it.

 

 

 

Here is her fermented sauerkraut video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO90h3xB3oc

 

And here are pics of the kraut I made!

 

 

       

 

 They look awesome!! I really want to make some now. And I want a Reuben sandwich, too.

[Annarchy]

3 hours ago, Jeepers said:

Also the advantages of storing canned food without the bands on. 

????  Please tell.  DH doesn’t like my unbanned jars.   

[Mt_Rider]

I made a batch of sauerkraut in a bucket in the basement.  It came out wonderful.  

 

I made another batch a couple years later...same way, I think.       ......this is when living rural helps cuz you can DUMP THAT THINK WAAAAAY OUT one the far side of the property!       

 

Have no idea what happened the second time.....must have caught some wild yeasties.    

 

MtRider  ....you've got the right stuff, Midnight! 

[Jeepers]

Annarchy. it's recommended you store your canned goods with the band off now. The reason is if something didn't seal right, the lid will bulge up or even lift off. If you leave the band/ring on then the lid has nowhere to go and you could easily miss a jar of food going bad.

 

The same idea applies to stacking your unband jars. Stacking the jars can hold the lid onto a jar that isn't properly sealed.  It can happen with a false seal too. 

 

I've had a couple of false seals in my life. It's where a jar looks like it is sealed. Even the lid is concave. But in reality the jar isn't properly sealed. The best way to tell if you have a false seal is to know what a properly sealed jar sounds like. If you tap the lid with your fingernail or a spoon you will hear a ringing sound. If the jar isn't really sealed you will hear a dull thud sound. That's just the first clue. Make sure you hear it whoosh when you open it and then smell it. For me, if I don't hear it ring when I tap the lid, then I won't use it. I always tap the top before I open a jar. Always.

 

I'm guilty of stacking one jar on top of another. I don't do that any more.

 

I imagine it's even more important to follow the rules now since the rubber compound on the lids is much thinner now and most of the lids come from China. 

 

False Seal:

Living Homegrown