Cabbage Into Kraut

Remember when I posted on my first attempt at making Homemade Raw Sauerkraut? Well here is my second attempt. I planted cabbage in my garden this year for this very purpose. Here is one of two that I made into kraut.

I followed the recipe from The Prairie Homestead since she made it sound so easy. I removed the outer leaves, sliced them in half, cut the core out and halved them again.

Next I brought my Pampered Chef slicer out since it is very sharp and I wanted to make a quick job of it.

Just look at the beautiful even slices!

This is where you are supposed to add sea salt and let it sit for about 15-20 minutes. I didn't have any sea salt on hand. All I had was some curing salt and Himalayan pink salt. Ravishing Raw actually prefers to use Himalayan pink salt so that is what I chose to use.

I ground 1-1/2 tablespoons of the salt and distributed it throughout the layers of shredded cabbage. Then I let it sit for 15 minutes while I started shredding the next cabbage. Once the time was up I began to pound on the cabbage with the end of a wooden spoon. Then I started squeezing it with my hands until I had a nice amount of brine juice. I was pleased with the results.

Next I put it into an old pickle jar and pounded it down with the spoon to get the bubbles out. After I finished with the first cabbage, I continued shredding the second cabbage. I was nearly done shredding and all of a sudden I felt pain and jumped! Did I mention the blade was sharp?! I nearly sliced the end of my fingertip off!! It bled pretty good, too.

After that I was really crushed as I still had a lot to do to get a good brine and I had to squeeze it with my hands. There was no way my wounded finger was going to handle the salt.

Since the cut was on my right hand and I'm right-handed, I used the spoon in my left hand to try and finish up. I tried the one-handed squeezing. Didn't work so good. I was so disappointed. I put the remaining cabbage into the jar and made some salt water brine to cover it with. Then I used a cabbage leaf to hold the cabbage under the water. Pretty hard to do with one hand and it's not my dominating hand.

Maybe it will turn out anyway, especially the cabbage at the bottom of the jar. One can hope, right?

Saving My Kraut:

A couple days in and my kraut isn't looking so good on the top. I wasn't too happy as this wasn't my first attempt at kraut making. See Homemade Raw Sauerkraut for my first attempt (which I will give another shot once I get this down right).

After doing more research on sauerkraut troubleshooting, I came across Nourishing Treasures stating, "Sauerkraut can survive without oxygen, but mold, yeasts, and other harmful organisms can't." Ahhh! Lightbulb moment! Somehow I needed to get all of my cabbage beneath the brine and as hard as I tried, it kept floating to the top. The cabbage leaf wasn't doing the trick and I had nothing else to hold it down.

How was this possible? Make Sauerkraut had a brilliant idea! Take a cabbage leaf and cut it into a circle to fit your jar, OR cut a piece of plastic to fit! I searched the house looking for an old plastic lid of a Cool Whip bowl and finally found one. Probably the last one I saved since I usually don't buy Cool Whip any more.

First I removed a good portion of the cabbage in the top of the jar in order to get rid of anything that might be spoiled. I also wiped down the insides of the jar up to the brine. I was going to cut the lid down but it looked very similar in size so I tried it out and to my wonderful surprise, it was a perfect fit!! I pushed it down and removed any cabbage that I missed, leaving about an inch of brine on top.

I think I've got this one covered!!

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