Quarts or pints?

For pints measure 1 pint of shredded cabbage into a bowl and work 2-3 teaspoons of canning salt well into it compressing and squeezing it well with your hands so juice begins to collect from the cabbage. Pack it tightly into a boiled, sterilized pint jar and leave 1-1 1/2" headspace. The quid will collect ontop of the cannage.

Stretch and snap a clean plastic food grade glove over the jar rim covering down over the threads. Set the jar out of the sun or bright light where the air temps are consistently 70-75 degrees and watch the glove. Over the next 3-5 days the glove will fully inflate and then slowly begin to deflate. Once the glove has fully deflated remove it, skim off any mold that may have developed, and taste the kraut.

If it taste as you like it is done. If you want it to develop a sharper flavor replace the glove and give it a couple more days. Then either put in the fridge or heat, can, and process per standard kraut canning instructions.

There are variations: to do quarts use 1-2 T of canning salt depending on how salty you want it. For larger jars use the recipe of 3 T of salt to each 5 lbs. of cabbage. You can also add 1/2 to 2 tsp. of sugar for sweeter German flavored kraut, and you can also add Pickle Crisp when canning it if you want it crisper.

John and I have both posted some pics of this process but in case you can't find them I linked to some below. Just scroll down and click on the pics.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: kraut with a glove

Interesting idea, worth trying. I've been using a plastic sandwich bag filled halfway with water to "seal" the top of quart jars of kraut while they're fermenting. Gases can force themselves out, but nothing can come in.

Thanks for the details! I guess it just sounded too easy, and I thought there had to be more to it!

I'm going to start slicing cabbage...

:)
joanne

I'm glad you mentioned Pickle Crisp. Last year I just made 20 lbs of kraut so I was able to freeze it. I'd like to make about 60-80 pounds this year since I ran out around Feb or March. I need to can it but we like it crispy. Thanks!

Okay, cabbage is shredded and packed in jars. I had 6 pounds of cabbage, and ended up with 2 quart and 3 pint jars.

I'm sure it won't happen, but I'm curious - what if it blows off a glove? Can i just stick the glove back on and go with it?

:)
joanne

"I'm sure it won't happen, but I'm curious - what if it blows off a glove? Can i just stick the glove back on and go with it?"

Joanne,

It most certainly can happen and has happened to me more than once. A tiny pin prick in a finger or two will let gas escape when the glove inflates too much & the hole will close up when pressure decreases. If the glove blows off, just put it back on.

john

So, none of my gloves blew off. But on 2 of my pint jars the gloves never blew up! (or if they did, they completely deflated in 3 days.) But on another pint jar the glove did inflate.

Are they okay? I'm still waiting for the glove to deflate on the quart jars to open them and taste.

or if they did,

You need to have the jars where you can watch them, monitor them several times a day. And monitor the room temperature, so you can know that the gloves actually inflate and fermenting is happening. Air temps where the fermenting is taking place is very important as I mentioned above. And the quality of the gloves is also important - no leaks and a tight band on the jar as well as being food grade plastic.

I have done 25 pints, 10 quart jars and three 2 gallon jars now and I have never had a glove fly off and I don't poke a pin hole either so it is easy for me to know if all is happening as it should be. 3-4 days for pints is about right for me given my room temps, 6-7 days for quarts, and 2 weeks for the 2 gallon jars. But that is on my kitchen counter where I can watch them all the time and with room temp of 74-75 degrees. There is no way I wouldn't know if one of them didn't inflate.

If gloves never inflate then no fermenting is happening. That is a sign that there was not enough salt in that jar.

No way to know what is happening or if they are okay without seeing the jars. I guess all you can do is taste it.

Dave

Okay, i got my taster to try out the sauerkraut, and she immediately spit it out and said it was too salty. Once she got over the saltiness, she did say the cabbage part tasted fine.

Obviously, it's going to be salty, since that's what makes it ferment. But now I'm ready to can it - what can i do to decrease the salt? Can I rinse it?

Surprised it is too salty since we are using the minimum required for safe fermentation. But we all have different salty taste buds and mine are salt lovers.

You can rinse it well and then make new brine for canning it using 1-1/2 tablespoons of salt per quart of water.

Dave

How much do I pack in each jar for canning? I had it packed extremely tight for the fermenting (maybe too tight!) Should I just put in some of the rinsed kraut, and then top it off with the new brine?

See link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Canning Sauerkraut