Food: Sauerkraut the Mountain Way - Recipe and Tutorial

Yesterday, we made kraut. My sister Missy, Mom, Dad, and myself that is. Mom's kraut ROCKS! We have it often on Sunday when we eat dinner at her house with the family. It goes with almost any meal. We made 47 quarts and 6 pints. I took pics to during to share with everyone.

The amount you make would depend on how much you like kraut I suppose. Yesterday Dad said when we were all living at home they made around 40-50 quarts a year. Now with just the two of them there they make 20-30 quarts so there is enough to share with us all at the family dinners on Sunday. 
Missy had 6 basketball sized cabbages yesterday and that was 50 quarts of kraut. My other sister Opal has 5 of the same size that still needs worked up next week. We are going to have kraut coming out our eyeballs and I am excited. I LOVE it!

With that said, if you don't have a large family, and don't love kraut... you wouldn't want to make 6 basketball sized cabbages into kraut. Use your own judgement on how many you need.  REMEMBER I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL. I AM LEARNING TOO AND CAN'T BE RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR KRAUT FLOPS. LOL. {Mom's been making this for at least 50 years so I am pretty sure it won't}
Here we have the cabbages.

and the ingredients: distilled vinegar, pure cane sugar, and preserving salt.

Wash, wash, wash those jars.... it took a while!

Be sure to sterilize them. There are several methods... you can sterilize them by running them through your dishwasher I've heard or by boiling them in a canner.  Someone even suggested heating them in the oven at 250. However, using the dishwasher would probably be the quickest and easiest.

Peel the outer leaves off and feed to your rabbits.

Put the cabbage in the sink, rinse it off, and start cutting.

Until it looks like the picture below. You don't want to use the stalk {center piece} in your kraut. You can eat the stalk. Mom just cuts it up and lets it soak in water mixed with a teaspoon of each: preserving salt, sugar, and vinegar. She just leave it sitting on the sink. They are done in a few days and we eat them right up. If you had a quart worth you could store them in the same method as your kraut but you would want to use a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon. They never last that long at our house though. They are gone in no time.

Slice the cabbage into pieces small enough to go into your food processor.

Then run it through.

Ours ended up looking like this. You can make bigger chunks or even strings if you want. It still works.

Pour into a large bowl.

Begin filling your jars.

Pack the cabbage in well but not extremely tight. Make sure not to fill all the way to the top. About like the jar on the left. The one on the right was waiting for more cabbage to be chopped.

Once all your jars are filled with cabbage add one tablespoon of preserving salt into each jar.

Next add one tablespoon of vinegar.

Then add one tablespoon of sugar.

Get yourself a funnel and some hot water. It needs to be hot but NOT boiling. We heated ours on the stove. You can see the steam in the picture. Pour the hot water into the jars. Make sure you have enough to cover the cabbage.

Stick a knife into the mixture to allow the water to go all the way down in there.

Then add even more water. Make sure the cabbage is covered.

Now add your lids. It is OK to use old lids and rings. Just make sure they are clean and sterlized. You don't want them to seal so old ones will work for this. Screw the lids on, but don't tighten them down real tight. You want the cabbage to be able to work.

Now your cabbage is ready to store and work itself into kraut.

Put your jars in a cool and very dark place. This WILL be a messy process and you wouldn't want to store it somewhere that you mind having spillage. Mom has always stored her kraut in her basement on wood shelves that Dad built. It is underground and there are no windows. Your kraut should be ready to eat in about 3 weeks but the longer it sits, the better it is.  And just to remember the past, when I was growing up we used one of these suckers to chop up our cabbage. Now that was a lot of work!

Photo found at The Collectors Corner .
I shared this post at Fresh from the Farm: Farm Photo Friday.