Sauerkraut Sunday

September 30 was Sauerkraut Sunday. In preparation, Hilda watered the cabbage on Saturday. We are still woefully dry. The cabbage needs to be well-hydrated so it will give up enough fluid to cover the leaves during fermentation. The first time we made sauerkraut way back when, I did not understand that it was an anaerobic process. The sauerkraut was not completely covered with brine, and it rotted.
Pat and Nancy came over to help. Hilda put all the leaves in the dining table so we could set up an assembly line.

 

Production line

Hilda trimmed off the outer leaves and washed the cabbages at the sink. She piled them up for Pat, who cut them in quarters.  Hilda also took the pictures, which is why we don’t have one of her.

Pat cuts the cabbages in half

I put on my wire mesh glove and sliced the cabbage on the sauerkraut cutter. It’s like a mandolin with three blades and high wooden sides. It came with a tongue-and-groove safety box, but it is cumbersome to try to keep ones fingers behind the box while keeping the cabbage correctly oriented over the blades. The glove is way better. Pat can’t do the slicer. Despite showing gruesome training videos for the Red Cross for 19 years, the risk of seeing actual blood gives her the willies.

I slice the cabbage with my hand protected by a glove woven from plastic-covered wires

Nancy weighed the cabbage one pound at a time, which is all that would fit on the scale. When she got 5 pounds in a giant bowl, she added the salt and mixed it. The salted cabbage was packed into a crock.

Nancy mixes the cabbage and salt....

...and packs it into a crock.

We put 20 pounds of salted cabbage in our big crock. Pat and Nancy put 5 pounds in one crock and 2.5 pounds in another to take home. We weighted the top with zip-top bags filled with water.  In a short time, the salt pulled water from the cabbage (a process we call osmosis in the business), and it looked as if there would be plenty of brine. The bubbles that signaled successful fermentation were evident before bedtime. Now we wait until the bubbling stops.
After we got the sauerkraut processing all cleaned up, we adjourned to the deck for nachos, salsa, and guacamole. It was nice to be out on the deck, even if a bit cool. We hardly used the deck all summer long because of the heat. The chickens wandered around in their run, keeping us company with their gentle chicken noises.