Why make 30lbs of sauerkraut?

Ryan Mooney

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Why not?!

Its high in vitamin C and other nutrients, has a lot of good-for-you probiotics and is actually pretty tasty.

But what to serve it with you ask?

Well.. Here's some ideas that we've done. What's your favorite way to use it?

Serve it with some perogie's. Even the pre-frozen ones are pretty good. If you're up to making your own it also works quite well as part of a dumpling/perogie filling.

Makes a great Reuben even better. Really its good on a lot of sandwiches but any that have a rich fatty meat like Reuben it helps balance it out.

Make some SaurBrauten and use as an accompaniment:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sauerbraten-recipe.html

Sauerkraut Potato pancakes: http://mybestgermanrecipes.com/sauerkraut-potato-pancakes/
or just use as a topping on regular ones :)

Add some other shredded veggies and serve it as a slaw on the side of almost any dish. We actually make a "half sour" kraut for this with 2 carrots, 1 apple, 1/4C dried cherries, 1tbsp caraway, and 1.5 tbsp pickling (=3 tbsp kosher) salt with enough cabbage to make a really full 1/2g batch - ferment on the counter for 4-5 days then eat like a salad. Delicious!

Sauerkraut bacon potato soup: http://natashaskitchen.com/2015/10/28/sauerkraut-soup-recipe-kapustnyak/
Or Ham, bean and sauerkraut: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/ham-bean-and-bacon-soup-with-sauerkraut.html
I prefer to add the kraut at the end right at serving time, cooking it destroys a lot of the nutrition and also ruins the crispy character that's the reason I make fresh anyway.

This is one of my own devising that I got the boss started on sauerkraut with (she "didn't like it" before this):
brown 1lb of meat.
thinly slice a bunch of potatoes (bunch == ~2lbs +- depending on the size of your pot)
Using a medium sized dutch oven (I think? mine is about a 1g pot but haven't measured might be a smidge bigger)
Put a thin layer of the prebrowned meat down cover completely with a layer of potatoes, top with a generous sprinkle of salt, black pepper and paprika
Repeat layers until the pot is full or you run out of meat/potatoes. I usually do ~4 layers. The top layer of spuds should be a smidge thicker than the others.
Cook at 350 covered in the oven until a butter knife easily slides all the way down.
Poke a bunch of holes all the way through with the butter knife (kind of randomly/evenly stab around)
Mix 1/2C sour cream with 1/2C of milk (whisk) and pour over the potatoes
Top with a sprinkle of cheese
Put back in the oven to cook uncovered for another 15minutes or until the cream mix has kind of baked in and the cheese is a bit bubbly.

Serve with a nice sprinkle of fresh paprika on each serving and a healthy side serving of sauerkraut. The sauerkraut helps cut the richness of the meat/cream sauce and balances the meal out.
 
I was going to make some once, but not sure what happened. I'm totally game.

IT sounds like a great idea.

How long will it last? Do you have to do any heating to can it?
 
i don't think you have to heat it brent, if i remember correctly, saurkraut is fermented. something like the korean kim chi.

I know it's fermented and can be eaten fresh, but that's a pretty large quantity, so was wondering about more for long term storage, kind of like making pickles.

I've canned some using a hot water bath, mainly to make sure the jars seal, and have also fermented them in the past, but the fermented ones never really lasted long enough to worry about storage, LOL
 
Used to make 50 lbs a season. Then the price of cabbage priced it out of range to make it cost effective. Can't grow my own I always end up with worms (extra protein?). Now we use the stuff from Aldis. Not the best but better than most. When we did process kraut after curing we would bottle and water bath.
Love in on a pork roast put in pan about 30 minutes before you pull roast out. Also serve with mashed potatoes. Reuben is another favorite.
Before Dad passed away day before he insisted on having our kraut. Mom fought him as to much salt but he won out. He was happy about that.

After all this talking about kraut I'm getting hungry.
David
 
My grandparents used to use the big 12g crock and fill it every year. It would last all winter in the cool part of the cellar so if you refrigerate it it will stay good for ~3-4 months.

Personally I don't like it as much canned as it makes it soggier. The raw stuff has a nice crispy texture in comparison. If you do want to can it, its pretty acidic so a hot water bath suffices, you don't need to pressure can it. Make sure its fully fermented out first though. Process for 25minutes - the hot pack method from here works pretty well:
https://www.freshpreserving.com/hom...ut-recipe---ball-fresh-preserving-br1147.html

If you're just starting out 1/2g jars are a great way to try out a small batch. Simply screw the lid down tight then loosen it off 1/2 a turn to let the gas escape.

The other thing I would highly recommend is to salt the cabbage then let it wilt for ~3 hours and then pack it for fermenting. Sauerkraut fermentation is (must be) anaerobic. If there are trapped air pockets you'll end up with funky nasty things growing in them. Pre-wilting the cabbage allows you to pack it more tightly. Since we've been doing this we haven't lost a batch (and the one we lost where we didn't do this was ugly squared - I had to nuke the crock from orbit).

Here's our basic kraut recipe:

  1. Slice cabbage into 1/4" slices (it takes about 3lbs to fill a 1/2g jar)
  2. Add 1tsp of pickling salt per lb of cabbage or about 1tbsp for 3lbs (double for kosher - do not use table salt or you'll have way to much iodine in your diet)
  3. toss in a bowl and let it set for 3+- hours until its looking soft and there is a good amount of brine forming in the bottom.
  4. Pack into the jar tightly and top with the natural brine
  5. Let ferment at least 4 days for a "fresca" version or up to 6 weeks for the full monty.
  6. Every day shove a knife down the sides/middle of the jar to let the gas out.
  7. Strongly suggest putting the jar into a bucket or bowl at least for the first few days in case of fermentation overflow (hard lesson learned).

Some tasty variations (all scaled for a 1/2g batch):

  • Add 1/3C dry white wine on top - this has an added advantage of dropping the ph and discouraging nasty bugs increasing your chance of success (plus now you have wine..).
  • Add 1 tbsp of caraway (also excellent combined with the wine above!). Caraway reduces probability of subsequent emissions post consumption.
  • As above: add 2 carrots, 1 apple, 1/4C dried cherries (or cranberries or currants), 1tbsp caraway - best only partially fermented (the 4 day variant), eat like a salad.
  • Add 2 to 8 tbsp red pepper flakes (to taste), a generous squirt of sriracha (between 1-5 tbsp+-) and a tbsp or so of rice wine vinegar. Do the 4 day ferment and you have a lighter kim-chi variant.
 
Used to make 50 lbs a season. Then the price of cabbage priced it out of range to make it cost effective.

Check around, the place we got ours from was down to $0.29 per lb which is pretty good (under $9 for a 30lb batch). It was a farmers co-op market and it only took us about 8 years to find it (and they're closing it next year so.. the search resumes :mad:). If we had gotten into the 100lb range it was down to $0.19 per lb but that was a bit much even for us (still under $20 though). Before that we were buying boxes at a restaurant supply for close to the same price (around $0.25/lb if I recall) but that was enough we needed to split them with some other people. Starts being less compelling at full grocery store prices.
 
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