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#1
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cucumbers, onions, etc.
On Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 10:57:15 AM UTC-4, Ecnerwal wrote:
In article , George Shirley wrote: I made kraut last fall, first time in many years that the fermenting didn't go bad and grow hair. Came out pretty good. Used a sterilized plastic bucket, bottled water, canning salt. ... I think that sterilizing everything first and using non-iodized salt, keeping a close eye on the bucket (which had a cloth over it) and dipping out anything that looked odd did the job. Keeping it clean and effectively air-locked seems to be the best route and traditional in many places where it's a staple, with fancy airlock crocks as opposed to the open-top cloth over arrangement that somehow became USA standard. I had just come off of processing 50 pounds of plums (after 20 years of "perhaps a plum, perhaps 2", the trees went big this year) so I was refreshed on the "a properly tightened (not over-tightened) canning jar lid vents gas pressure but does not let air back in" from all the canning, and carefully ignored all the bad advice to "burp" canning jar kraut (or the other "advice," mostly obviously paid, for buying airlock tops for canning jars). It's bubbled away without blowing up just as the plums in the canner did. Since it's a huge apple year as well, I also tried the "add 25% apples" step that is evidently traditional in some areas on several of the jars. The only one with grot on it is a literal science experiment where the experimental variation was salt level, and the one at a dubiously high salt level has some white mold on top. That was also done with red cabbage, and you can see it getting pinker as the lactic acid forms, more swiftly in the one at 2% salt, slowly at 4% salt, and hardly at all at 8% salt where the mold is showing up. Those also involved student help in the experimental setup and sanitation might not be so good as a result. If your cabbage is not dried out, you should not need any water at all - shredded cabbage mixed with 2% salt (by weight of cabbage or cabbage and other stuff - apples, carrots, etc.) should develop enough brine to cover (when it's packed down and weighted) in about 30 minutes. Some claimed that was more reliable with "farmers market" than "store-bought" due to store-bought being held for longer, but the red used for the science experiment was store-bought and made plenty of brine despite that. If going with a larger batch in a plastic bucket I would use a lid and an airlock; from the home-brew store, not from overpriced pickle suppliers... ;-) But I need to wait a couple more weeks to see how I actually like the first small batch before I contemplate going there. I did use non-iodized salt. The advice for "airlock-type" kraut I'm more-or-less following went something like: Sterilize the crock (jar, whatever) and don't touch it for 2 months (at 60-70F). The lack of air (displaced by CO2 early in the process) is supposed to keep the problem of things growing on the surface from occurring. With the jars, of course, I can look - and other than the one, which probably did not produce so much CO2, or not at a fast rate, since it is at a salt level the lactobacillus don't consider friendly, there isn't any yuck going on there. -- Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away. For an airlock, I use a plastic bag filled with water and tied. It goes inside another plastic bag just in case of leaks. The bag is big enough to cover the surface of the fermenting kraut and press around the edge of the crock to keep water out. It's flexible enough to let the fermentation gas escape and the weight of the water keeps the kraut pressed below the surface of the fluid in the crock so it doesn't go bad. Paul |
#2
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cucumbers, onions, etc.
On 10/9/2015 3:24 PM, Pavel314 wrote:
On Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 10:57:15 AM UTC-4, Ecnerwal wrote: In article , George Shirley wrote: I made kraut last fall, first time in many years that the fermenting didn't go bad and grow hair. Came out pretty good. Used a sterilized plastic bucket, bottled water, canning salt. ... I think that sterilizing everything first and using non-iodized salt, keeping a close eye on the bucket (which had a cloth over it) and dipping out anything that looked odd did the job. Keeping it clean and effectively air-locked seems to be the best route and traditional in many places where it's a staple, with fancy airlock crocks as opposed to the open-top cloth over arrangement that somehow became USA standard. I had just come off of processing 50 pounds of plums (after 20 years of "perhaps a plum, perhaps 2", the trees went big this year) so I was refreshed on the "a properly tightened (not over-tightened) canning jar lid vents gas pressure but does not let air back in" from all the canning, and carefully ignored all the bad advice to "burp" canning jar kraut (or the other "advice," mostly obviously paid, for buying airlock tops for canning jars). It's bubbled away without blowing up just as the plums in the canner did. Since it's a huge apple year as well, I also tried the "add 25% apples" step that is evidently traditional in some areas on several of the jars. The only one with grot on it is a literal science experiment where the experimental variation was salt level, and the one at a dubiously high salt level has some white mold on top. That was also done with red cabbage, and you can see it getting pinker as the lactic acid forms, more swiftly in the one at 2% salt, slowly at 4% salt, and hardly at all at 8% salt where the mold is showing up. Those also involved student help in the experimental setup and sanitation might not be so good as a result. If your cabbage is not dried out, you should not need any water at all - shredded cabbage mixed with 2% salt (by weight of cabbage or cabbage and other stuff - apples, carrots, etc.) should develop enough brine to cover (when it's packed down and weighted) in about 30 minutes. Some claimed that was more reliable with "farmers market" than "store-bought" due to store-bought being held for longer, but the red used for the science experiment was store-bought and made plenty of brine despite that. If going with a larger batch in a plastic bucket I would use a lid and an airlock; from the home-brew store, not from overpriced pickle suppliers... ;-) But I need to wait a couple more weeks to see how I actually like the first small batch before I contemplate going there. I did use non-iodized salt. The advice for "airlock-type" kraut I'm more-or-less following went something like: Sterilize the crock (jar, whatever) and don't touch it for 2 months (at 60-70F). The lack of air (displaced by CO2 early in the process) is supposed to keep the problem of things growing on the surface from occurring. With the jars, of course, I can look - and other than the one, which probably did not produce so much CO2, or not at a fast rate, since it is at a salt level the lactobacillus don't consider friendly, there isn't any yuck going on there. -- Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away. For an airlock, I use a plastic bag filled with water and tied. It goes inside another plastic bag just in case of leaks. The bag is big enough to cover the surface of the fermenting kraut and press around the edge of the crock to keep water out. It's flexible enough to let the fermentation gas escape and the weight of the water keeps the kraut pressed below the surface of the fluid in the crock so it doesn't go bad. Paul That's pretty much what I did Paul, except the zip loc bag sat on top of an inverted plate so I could see if any muck formed up around the edge. Worked fine so will do it again sometime. |
#3
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cucumbers, onions, etc.
On Friday, October 9, 2015 at 6:13:31 PM UTC-4, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/9/2015 3:24 PM, Pavel314 wrote: On Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 10:57:15 AM UTC-4, Ecnerwal wrote: In article , George Shirley wrote: I made kraut last fall, first time in many years that the fermenting didn't go bad and grow hair. Came out pretty good. Used a sterilized plastic bucket, bottled water, canning salt. ... I think that sterilizing everything first and using non-iodized salt, keeping a close eye on the bucket (which had a cloth over it) and dipping out anything that looked odd did the job. Keeping it clean and effectively air-locked seems to be the best route and traditional in many places where it's a staple, with fancy airlock crocks as opposed to the open-top cloth over arrangement that somehow became USA standard. I had just come off of processing 50 pounds of plums (after 20 years of "perhaps a plum, perhaps 2", the trees went big this year) so I was refreshed on the "a properly tightened (not over-tightened) canning jar lid vents gas pressure but does not let air back in" from all the canning, and carefully ignored all the bad advice to "burp" canning jar kraut (or the other "advice," mostly obviously paid, for buying airlock tops for canning jars). It's bubbled away without blowing up just as the plums in the canner did. Since it's a huge apple year as well, I also tried the "add 25% apples" step that is evidently traditional in some areas on several of the jars. The only one with grot on it is a literal science experiment where the experimental variation was salt level, and the one at a dubiously high salt level has some white mold on top. That was also done with red cabbage, and you can see it getting pinker as the lactic acid forms, more swiftly in the one at 2% salt, slowly at 4% salt, and hardly at all at 8% salt where the mold is showing up. Those also involved student help in the experimental setup and sanitation might not be so good as a result. If your cabbage is not dried out, you should not need any water at all - shredded cabbage mixed with 2% salt (by weight of cabbage or cabbage and other stuff - apples, carrots, etc.) should develop enough brine to cover (when it's packed down and weighted) in about 30 minutes. Some claimed that was more reliable with "farmers market" than "store-bought" due to store-bought being held for longer, but the red used for the science experiment was store-bought and made plenty of brine despite that. If going with a larger batch in a plastic bucket I would use a lid and an airlock; from the home-brew store, not from overpriced pickle suppliers... ;-) But I need to wait a couple more weeks to see how I actually like the first small batch before I contemplate going there. I did use non-iodized salt. The advice for "airlock-type" kraut I'm more-or-less following went something like: Sterilize the crock (jar, whatever) and don't touch it for 2 months (at 60-70F). The lack of air (displaced by CO2 early in the process) is supposed to keep the problem of things growing on the surface from occurring. With the jars, of course, I can look - and other than the one, which probably did not produce so much CO2, or not at a fast rate, since it is at a salt level the lactobacillus don't consider friendly, there isn't any yuck going on there. -- Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away. For an airlock, I use a plastic bag filled with water and tied. It goes inside another plastic bag just in case of leaks. The bag is big enough to cover the surface of the fermenting kraut and press around the edge of the crock to keep water out. It's flexible enough to let the fermentation gas escape and the weight of the water keeps the kraut pressed below the surface of the fluid in the crock so it doesn't go bad. Paul That's pretty much what I did Paul, except the zip loc bag sat on top of an inverted plate so I could see if any muck formed up around the edge. Worked fine so will do it again sometime. I'll try the inverted plate idea next time I make kraut. Paul |
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