Red/Purple Sauerkraut made from Mammoth cabbages

[Mark]

I'm making red/purple sauerkraut from some of our Mammoth rock cabbages looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

The method below is based off the recipe I have already written on my blog here but feel free to ask questions about making sauerkraut in this thread or add your own recipe/alternatives/improvements. Let's make this a "sauerkraut thread" so for any other types of fermenting please create a separate thread/discussion

Beautiful looking cabbage harvest

Found a few slugs but nothing major...

Here's a cross section of how it looks inside - pretty!

Basket full of mammoth red rock cabbages

Final stage of fermenting cabbage packed into 2l jar with cabbage leaf stuffed in to keep shredded cabbage under juice.

Bubbling away in jar with simple airlock.

Bubbling away in crock pot with stone weights to keep the shredded cabbage under the juice/brine.

Crock pot and jar on kitchen bench lacto fermenting away.

 

[Letsgokate]

I've bought a few of those cabbages from the supermarket and have liked them. Planning on growing some.

 

[Mark]

Mammoth rock purple cabbages are a good heirloom variety to grow.

 

[Skippyherron]

Oooh - yay Sauerkraut - one of my favourite subjects!

The device i use is from Kraut Source (i brought them when they were on kickstarter) I do wish i had a bigger wide mouth canning jar to fit the device though. My max size jar is the ~1 litre size for now.

Let me explain the image above.
(note: the image above has broccoli and cabbage ferment - the smell was super feisty)

It's a stainless steel lid/device that attaches to a wide mouth canning jar. The flat metal disk pushes down the kraut, then a spring is added, followed by the moat lid. it gets screwed down with a canning jar ring lid. Then the moat is filled with water. The tall cylinder lid is put on top over the moat of water.

There is a side view pic down the bottom of the spring and metal disk pushing down the solids.
Last pic is it covered in the cupboard.

I just found out yesterday from Marks youtube vid that it doesn't need to be covered from the light. Thanks Mark! I won't bother with covering anymore.

Also, firstly I chop everything in my food processor, which also has a reverse chop function.
(I have arthritic hands and i can't pound/smash the kraut, so i let the machine smash it around to bruise it to get the juice out)

This batch I found some cabbage on sale and added ginger (3 coins approx) garlic (3 cloves) and chile (1 habanero) to the ferment. It took about 5 days on the bench. I don't think this was a long enough ferment as it didn't have enough 'twangy flavour' for my liking. The ginger was delicious....the chile was hot but good.

If i don't get enough liquid out of my kraut then i'll top up my jar with brine. (my usual ratio amount is 1 teaspoon of salt per 250ml water) The pic above has been topped up.

This last batch was made with a sugarloaf cabbage, salt and caraway seeds. I did get some furry white puff balls of fungus on the top of my brine. I checked my ferment every few days and just scooped them out. I had about 6 in total. I think it was from the caraway seeds.
The recipe for this batch was 1/2 tsp of salt; 1/2 a sugarloaf cabbage; 1 tsp of caraway seeds. Fermented in cupboard for 10 days. it was super tasty.

Oh and I don't sell these jars - i just find them super duper easy to use.

 

[Mark]

Wow @Skippyherron how cool is this lid!

Is there a website that sells them? Will it fit any size wide mouth jar?

Love the pics and your description thanks

I like your recipes too... I've been meaning to get more adventurous with my ferments and add things like hot chillies and ginger etc so your post has inspired me!

 

[Skippyherron]

Hey Mark,

The jar is just a wide mouth mason jar. For the device to work it must be wide mouth mason jar size.

I brought it at Kraut Source and it seems The Fermentary in Australia sells them.

There's a great shop called Nourishme Organics in Au and they sell a product called a pickle pipe.

Here's a vid about the pickle pipe. I don't own one and didn't need one as i have 3 kraut source jar devices. No i don't work for them either....its just another option for fermenting.

Mark, you're welcome to borrow a kraut source and give it a go if you're keen. We live kinda close I think. Send me a PM to sort out details.

 

[Skippyherron]

Mammoth rock purple cabbages are a good heirloom variety to grow.

Thanks for the tip on the cabbages you grow - i'll have to hunt that one down and give it a crack next winter.

 

[Mark]

I'm in love with the pickle pipe thanks @Skippyherron for mentioning this! I'm really keen to try them.

 

[Mark]

I just purchased this kit... the Pickle Pipes come with jars, weights, and a sauerkraut basher, which I needed anyway
www.nourishmeorganics.com.au/collections

 

[Skippyherron]

I just purchased this kit... the Pickle Pipes come with jars, weights, and a sauerkraut basher, which I needed anyway
www.nourishmeorganics.com.au/collections

Oh thats fabulous! I'm so glad you found it useful. I don't have a kraut basher either - yet! heheh

 

[OskarDoLittle]

I love the passion here about sauerkraut - I'm also loving the look of those pickle pipes! I tried to make coconut yoghurt...but I found it went moldy very quickly, so I've shelved that for a little while until I can be bothered sterilising everything more strictly. Is this also a problem with pickles/ferments?

 

[Skippyherron]

I love the passion here about sauerkraut - I'm also loving the look of those pickle pipes! I tried to make coconut yoghurt...but I found it went moldy very quickly, so I've shelved that for a little while until I can be bothered sterilising everything more strictly. Is this also a problem with pickles/ferments?

It's a shame your batch of coconut yoghurt went mouldy quickly.....I've only made one batch of that and used a bit of gelatine to help it set and it was wayyyyy to weirdly textured for my tastebuds.
Maybe a stricter clean first up will help, maybe there weren't enough bacteria being prolific enough to prevent any mould growing.
I'm not sure 100% but depending on the starter culture you use, will depend on if it's successful. It has to be a specific culture to start with for it to work well. (Taking a big spoon of regular dairy yogurt and trying to use it on coconut yoghurt won't work due to the differing proteins and sugars that the specific bacteria need to replicate)

Here are a couple of links that might be interesting to look at:

Smallfootprintfamilyblog

Thekitchn

For Fermenting - you can either use a starter culture (fermented carrots e.g.)
or rely on the natural bacteria present on the vegetables.(kimchi/sauerkraut)

I've found little fungi furry colonies on my ferments - but i just scoop them out and the jar is good to go.

This podcast interview with Karen Diggs is a great intro into fermenting. Or you can just read it here in the transcript

As for Pickles - i believe they're made with vinegar and i don't have much knowledge or experience in that area.

 

[Mark]

Is this also a problem with pickles/ferments?

As Skippyherron mentioned above ferments, eg dill cucumbers or sauerkraut, can go mouldy but mostly it's just a bit of harmless white stuff on top which is easy to remove if not left too long.

Black or blue mould with a rotten smell is not what you want though... it usually means that batch is kaput but it's rare - I don't lose many batches.

 

[OskarDoLittle]

Just wondering how much 'kraut bashing people do...I was surprised to see on Gourmet Farmer recently that they really went to town getting juice out of the cabbage...having (still) never made it, but eating lots of it, Id have thought that much bashing would result in a more "puréed" texture. But the 'kraut I've bought is always quite firm and crunchy. Is the store bought stuff not quite so genuine?

 

[Letsgokate]

Yeah I saw that too, I didn't know people did it like that. Not that I've made it before.