[casa rakkaleff] but will the kraut sauer?

[leff]

Sauerkraut, the very word says "something you buy in a store". Why would we try to make it ourselves? It's this whole self sufficiency thing we've been getting in to. In fact, this whole blog looks like it's turning into a self sufficiency blog. You could say it's all about living the good life, but you'd never say something that dumb.

cabbage, ready for the processing

Anyway, yeah, we had about 6 pounds of cabbage that Rakka snagged from the farmers market. Two different types, but both white so we went for it. The recipe was for 25 pounds, but we only have two big bowls. They say to do it in 5 pound batches, but our bowls aren't that big, so we did two, 2.5 pound batches. As you'll see, we were able to merge them later.

Sauerkraut has the shortest ingredient list of anything we've made so far: cabbage & salt. The salt, which you add in little bits at a time, pulls the water out of the cabbage, wilting it. In just an hour and a half the volume decreased by half, to the point where if you pressed it down it would be submerged in it's own juices.

pickling salt and 5ish pounds of cabbage

So now we've got juicy, wilty cabbage. All we have to do now is let it sit around for three weeks or so. That's where the sour comes from. We're talking fermentation here. There will be scum that has to be scraped from the top every day, and when the bubbles stop we know it's ready.

pressure keeps it under water

I left it in the kitchen; I hope it doesn't stink up the place. Updates, obviously, will be forthcoming. And if this works out, you know what's next right? Oh, yeah, it's Kimchi.

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Posted By leff to casa rakkaleff at 9/13/2009 09:45:00 PM