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Yesterday I shredded 5 pounds of cabbage and got it salted. I use just a tad bit less than 2 teaspoons of salt per pound of cabbage. I use canning salt because it has no additives that will affect the fermentation.
I have a cabbage pounder but for a small batch of kraut, it’s easier to do it by hand but my hands get tired so I figured I would massage it as much as I could and then get Vince to finish it. Vince made multiple trips to town yesterday – finding things he needed took all day, so I decided to put the cabbage and juice in a big pickle jar and put it in the cooler with ice overnight.
Late last night I went upstairs to make sure the lights were out, doors were locked, garage doors down, etc. (you all do that, right?) and I checked on the cabbage. There was so much liquid I decided to go ahead and get it in jars. So, technically this was a yesterday project but it’s counting for today.
First off . . look at this counter with the electric plug on the side. I’m so happy with that plug. The Instant Pot was plugged in and now the mixer/food processor was moved over near the sink where I could rinse the cabbage, and easily rinse my hands without having to walk across the kitchen from the sink. I shredded right at 5 pounds of cabbage. See my notepad on the right? I knew I’d forget how much I weighed since I had to do it in batches so I wrote it down.
I knew I wanted to make some different varieties so the one on the left has caraway seeds, the one next to it has cayenne peppers and the other two are plain. I try to use one fermenting lid like the one on the left jar because it has a little dial I can turn to the date on which I started this batch. The others are called “pickle pipes” and they are like a baby bottle nipple. There’s a little hole in the end of the nipple that will let gas escape but not let air in.
Typically, an outer leaf from the cabbage is used to keep the cabbage from floating up and then a fermenting weight is placed on top. Instead of using cabbage leaves, I used grape leaves in two jars and horseradish leaves in two jars. They both have tannins which, in theory, will keep the veggies crisp.
These will now sit in the basement garage where it stays nice and cool and there’s no sunlight coming in. Only a few lights on in there IF I’m downstairs canning. I’ll start checking the taste of them after about 6 days. They will sit in this container because there will likely be a bit of overflow as the contents of the jars ferment.