Hi all;
Thanks to Tom (Mr. T) for advice on salt content and his tutorial. It fired me up.
So I goes out to the farm and gets 50+ pounds of cabbage for 10 bucks (8 very large heads) and found a 10 gal crock at the local old stuff store. Next time I'll get smaller heads or a very large knife. It's hard to break down that stuff with an 8 inch chef knife.
I spoke to a few people around here about salt content and very few admit to measuring salt, they just sprinkle some on as they layer the cut kraut into the fermenting vessel. The ones that did use 1# for 50# cabbage. Tom uses about half that, so I split the difference and used 12 ounces.
I also used REAL SALT from Utah. It's unrefined and similar to the pink Himalayan stuff. I have a few issues with nutrition because I take Prilosec so I started using unrefined salt to get the minerals in my diet. It may affect the look of my finished kraut, but I can live with that.
Here's some pics of how I did it:
My homemade muddling stick. Bought the ball at Lowe's, it's got a piece of threaded rod sticking out of it. I can take it apart to clean it. They had a larger size too.
Cabbage inside crock, crock inside galvanized steel can. A piece of window film tucked down around/over crock and bungeed in place. Glass jar with marbles as weight. Lid in trash can is also a very tight fit. Got the can up off the concrete floor on some wood planks.
I'm going away for a few for thanksgiving. I'll have to give the neighbors a heads up in case they don't see me for a couple days and wonder about the smell coming out of my basement.
Comments welcomed!
ralphed
Thanks to Tom (Mr. T) for advice on salt content and his tutorial. It fired me up.
So I goes out to the farm and gets 50+ pounds of cabbage for 10 bucks (8 very large heads) and found a 10 gal crock at the local old stuff store. Next time I'll get smaller heads or a very large knife. It's hard to break down that stuff with an 8 inch chef knife.
I spoke to a few people around here about salt content and very few admit to measuring salt, they just sprinkle some on as they layer the cut kraut into the fermenting vessel. The ones that did use 1# for 50# cabbage. Tom uses about half that, so I split the difference and used 12 ounces.
I also used REAL SALT from Utah. It's unrefined and similar to the pink Himalayan stuff. I have a few issues with nutrition because I take Prilosec so I started using unrefined salt to get the minerals in my diet. It may affect the look of my finished kraut, but I can live with that.
Here's some pics of how I did it:
My homemade muddling stick. Bought the ball at Lowe's, it's got a piece of threaded rod sticking out of it. I can take it apart to clean it. They had a larger size too.
Cabbage inside crock, crock inside galvanized steel can. A piece of window film tucked down around/over crock and bungeed in place. Glass jar with marbles as weight. Lid in trash can is also a very tight fit. Got the can up off the concrete floor on some wood planks.
I'm going away for a few for thanksgiving. I'll have to give the neighbors a heads up in case they don't see me for a couple days and wonder about the smell coming out of my basement.
Comments welcomed!
ralphed
