 Cabbage grows well in many areas of Alaska. One favorite way to use cabbage is to make sauerkraut. I'm Julie Cascio with the Cooperative Extension Service of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. By definition, sauerkraut is acidic cabbage. It's the result of natural fermentation by bacteria in cabbage in the presence of 2-3% salt. Lactic acid is produced during this fermentation. This lactic acid, along with other byproducts of fermentation, gives sauerkraut its characteristic flavor and texture. Research on food preservation is an ongoing process. The United States Department of Agriculture and the Cooperative Extension Service continuously apply new research findings to their recommendations for food preservation techniques. The guidelines in this module may be revised as additional knowledge is gained that may increase the margin of safety or improve the quality of home-preserved foods. Consult your local Cooperative Extension Office annually for updated information. You may do this through telephoning us, through looking for our resources on the web, or through our publications. Let's talk about equipment needed for making sauerkraut. A one-gallon-sized container is needed for each five pounds of fresh vegetables. A five-gallon container is the ideal size for fermenting about 25 pounds of shredded cabbage. Food-grade plastic and glass containers and lead-free stone crocs work well. Other 1-3 gallon non-food-grade plastic containers may be used if, lined with a clean food-grade plastic bag, be certain that foods contact only food-grade plastic. Do not use garbage bags, trash liners, or plastic buckets not meant for food use or that have been used to store non-food products such as cleaning supplies. You'll also need a knife and cutting board or food processor or a mandolin to slice cabbage, a tamper such as a wooden spoon or a plastic potato masher, canning and pickling salt, a scale, a large mixing bowl or pan, a measuring spoon, and then you'll need something to weight down the cabbage. It may be a muslin cloth, a fat plate that fits snugly inside your container and a non-metallic weight or a brine-filled plastic bag. Let's grab our cabbage and get ready to slice it up. Mature, large-headed types of cabbage, weighing 6 to 15 pounds with a solid white interior are the most desirable for sauerkraut. Red cabbage may be used, but the color changes during fermentation and not everybody likes what results. Work with about 5 pounds of cabbage at a time. Remove the outer leaves and any portions that don't look very good. Anything undesirable. Wash them and then drain them, which I've already done. Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the core. Then you're going to cut it into thin shreds, either using a mandolin, a shredder or a knife. We're going to start with a mandolin. You do have to be careful. You're using a tool like this not to get your fingers close to the blade What you're looking for is uniform shreds of cabbage and you want to get them about the thickness of a quarter. If you have larger shreds of cabbage, pick those out, put them aside. You can use those later for cabbage or another kind of cabbage dish for coleslaw. Having shreds of cabbage that are the same thickness is because of the fermentation process. You want them all to ferment about the same length of time. So they all need to be about the same thickness. Sometimes you'll have to cut up some of the cabbage toward the end so that you can use the nice pieces. You can also, if you don't have a shredder, just use a knife and cut all the shreds from your cabbage by hand. When you add the salt to the shredded cabbage, it causes the juices to be extracted from the cabbage. This juice contains fermentable sugars. The microorganisms present on the cabbage leaves will, in the absence of oxygen, use these sugars to produce the lactic acid. The acid is then what preserves the cabbage. It's very important to use the correct amount of salt when you're making cabbage. Less salt will cause the cabbage to spoil rather than to ferment. So if you want a product that has less salt, you still use the same amount of salt while you're fermenting the sauerkraut. But when the crowd is finished and it's been fermented, before you're ready to eat it, you can rinse off some of this excess salt. And we need just a little bit more cabbage in here. We're looking for five pounds of cabbage. The proportion of salt that you need to the cabbage, five pounds of cabbage to three tablespoons of salt. When we've gotten a little bit more cabbage, we're going to measure it out, taking out our larger pieces. Sometimes, depending upon how you're holding the cabbage, you can see how this one is really thick. And since it's the rib of the cabbage, you really need to make sure that it's thin enough. And again, these can be either used in your compost pile or used for other cabbage dishes that you don't need to ferment, such as coleslaw or cooking it on the stove with some nice sausage. Good things to eat. See how much cabbage we have. Let's see if I can do this balancing act so the container doesn't fall off of my scale as I'm putting the cabbage into measure. Okay, we have just about two and a half pounds. Okay, and we're going to add this to cabbage that we already have measured, which is another two and a half pounds, into our large container. We're going to mix this five pounds total of cabbage with three tablespoons of salt. And I want this to be measured properly, so I'm going to use a straight edge and sprinkle it all around. My cabbage. And then mix it thoroughly. After I get this mixed thoroughly, I'm going to let it sit for five to ten minutes for that wilt to occur so that the natural juices again come out of the cabbage. While we have been waiting for the cabbage that had the salt mixed into it to wilt, I've also chopped up some other cabbage, shredded it very finely, and I wanted to show the difference between cabbage, this is five pounds of cabbage with three tablespoons of salt added to it and how this is beginning to wilt and this is five pounds of cabbage that has not had the salt added to it yet. A salt that we've had wilting the longest is in this container. We're going to transfer it to a suitable fermentation container. Firstly, ferment. In smaller containers, if you have smaller amounts of cabbage, and later we'll show you the quart jar method for fermenting cabbage and making sauerkraut. Right now we're going to go through the method for fermenting cabbage, large amounts of cabbage in a larger container. Take that down, but in the meantime I want to get this cabbage started wilting. So again, our method is the same. Notice that in this cabbage we have some darker pieces of cabbage from the outer leaves and these outer leaves they're not going to hurt anything but you need to know that at the end of your fermentation process the darker green cabbage will be a darker color. It's nothing bad, it just means that the color is different. Since we have five pounds of cabbage we're adding three tablespoons of salt and mixing it thoroughly to set aside to wilt. Now this cabbage that's wilted we want to press down. We can use a tamper it's made for that purpose a wooden spoon or in this instance we're using a nylon potato masher. Notice there's some metal here I do not want to touch the cabbage with the metal I only want to use the nylon for the plastic part. Metal can interfere with the fermentation. And as I'm packing this you'll notice that the juices are beginning to show up. It takes some energy. So the strong person in your house is a good candidate to recruit for this part of the method. And we're going to repeat we've already done the shredding as I've mentioned. We have some cabbage that's wilted and we work with five pounds of cabbage at a time and layer it. You get a better opportunity to get as many juices out of the cabbage as possible. Cabbage that's fresh out of the field you will find that it doesn't take as long for it to wilt and that you will get more juices. If you purchase cabbage or take cabbage that's been stored the juices take a little bit more coaxing. You even need to add a little bit of sugar to help those juices be made more readily. You can use your hands as well to press the stone. This glass or this plastic container is fun. Glasses too because you can actually see the layers that you've put into the container. I'm going to continue pressing this and we're going to wait while the next part next layer of our cabbage is wilting. If the final batch of cabbage is less than five pounds adjust the salt. One pound of cabbage needs one and a third teaspoons of salt for proper fermentation. Since we have two pounds of cabbage in this container we would add two and two thirds teaspoon of salt. Right in this container we have four five pound batches of shredded cabbage. So it makes the cabbage. The cabbage should be covered with one to two inches of liquid. And here we have when we press down on the cabbage because it likes to float to the top of the juice. We can see that there's about oh and three quarters of an inch of juice on top. If that's the case, if the juice doesn't cover your cabbage or there's not enough you may add some boiled and cooled brine. The concentration of this brine is one and a half tablespoons of salt to a quart of water. Do not add plain water as this will dilute the salt concentration that's necessary for proper fermentation. There's two methods of covering the cabbage and waiting it down to keep it underneath the brine and I'm going to show you both of them. The first one that I'm going to show you you cover the cabbage with a thin white clean cloth you want to tuck it down on the sides so that any floating tendrils of cabbage are caught underneath and after you get the cloth tucked in on the sides you place a plate a flat object that just fits beautifully inside the container and then you want to put a weight on it and the weight needs to press the cabbage down underneath the juice. That's one of the methods that you can use and the weight could be weight like we have here it could be jars filled with brine that are seated on top just so that it's heavy enough to keep the cabbage underneath the juice. The other method that I want to show you uses a plastic bag and brine you fill it with brine in case there's a leak in the bag. Take your plastic bag I don't want to lose any of this wonderful juice the brine concentration is the same and because we need more brine we use a gallon of water to 6 tablespoons of salt. Replacing it on top of the fermenting cabbage and getting it all the way out to the sides you may need to adjust the amount of brine that you put into the cabbage or into the bag so that the cabbage stays underneath the brine in fact I think I'm going to add a little bit more liquid to this bag but the idea to use the thickness of two bags just in case the one that is actually holding the brine gets a puncture in it get the air out tie it securely in this instance we could just zip it shut the filled bag seals the cabbage from exposure to air and prevents the growth of film yaster molds it also serves as the weight the bag should be of heavy weight, watertight plastic and of course be food safe do not use plastic garbage or trash bags the amount of the water in the bag as I mentioned can be adjusted watch as you have the sitting and fermenting for bubbles rising inside the fermenting liquid this shows you that fermentation is occurring a room temperature of 70 to 75 degrees is best for fermenting usually takes from 3 to 4 weeks to completely ferment though it may work slower if it's kept at cooler temperatures hotter temperatures can be a danger and you can have more spoilage than actual fermentation taking place if you weigh the cabbage down with a brine filled bag as we're showing here don't disturb the container until normal fermentation is complete and usually bubbling seizing tells you that that fermentation is complete if you use the plate and weight method the first method that I showed you check the crowd 2 or 3 times a week and remove any scum as it forms now that I've shown you how to prepare sauerkraut in large containers I will show you the quart jar method you start by preparing the cabbage in the same manner as for the large container method using a grater or knife to ensure uniform slices combine with the salt in the same manner that we previously demonstrated then after allowing the cabbage to wilt you pack it tightly into sterilized jars and as you're packing you want to leave a head space of 2 inches takes a little bit to get to that 2 inch space because we'll start with 2 inches but as we pack it of course it gets compressed quite nice and juicy and this was about 2 pounds of cabbage so as you can see that these liquid on top of the cabbage is about 2 inches of head space between the top of the liquid and the edge of the jar you can either do one of a couple of different methods in order to keep the cabbage below the brine pack a clean cloth into the head space to keep the cabbage in the liquid and then put some kind of a weight on top of it or you can use small plastic bags filled with brine and use that to keep the cabbage I'm going to use that method today and pour the brine in using the double bag method. I like the brine filled bags because I think that it does a good job of keeping the cabbage submerged I want to make sure though that it fits snugly into all the corners so that no air gets inside remember we're looking for an anaerobic environment another option which you could do because the brine filled method is to take the bag out have the cloth inside put the lid on top of the rim of the jar and put a band around it and tighten it not so tight or not too tight but tight enough to keep air out again we're looking for that anaerobic environment let it ferment 6 days sometimes it takes a little longer if you have cooler temperatures in the room where the sauerkraut is working until the liquid has a chance to settle and the bubbles no longer rise to the surface this sauerkraut has been fermenting for 4 weeks at 70 degrees fahrenheit during the first week bubbles rose to the surface and broke during subsequent weeks bubbles continued to form but not as actively they just kind of sat in the sauerkraut now that the bubbles have stopped fermentation is probably finished another indicator that fermentation has stopped is color change from opaque and white to golden yellow and translucent smell it it should smell like sauerkraut and then taste it to check for characteristic flavor we're going to remove the bag there's been sitting holding our crout underneath the brine take a non-metallic spoon or utensil it tastes like sauerkraut you may notice residue on the inside of the container this is salt sediment left behind from moisture evaporation it's not going to hurt anything fully fermented crout may be stored in the refrigerator in the freezer or on a shelf after being canned in the refrigerator sauerkraut can be kept tightly covered for 2-3 months sauerkraut before storing it in the refrigerator can use any kind of non-metallic container and scoop it in this particular container is a freezer container you can check that by the package the words on the package we want to make sure it has enough juice and we're going to have to add a little of the brine that we have cooled in on the side so we have enough brine to cover this can be stored in the refrigerator for 2-3 months as long as it's kept tightly covered you could take your original container and put that in the refrigerator depending upon whether you have enough place in your refrigerator for it to store set that aside and put it in the refrigerator a little later to store it in the freezer pack your crout and juice a lid plastic moisture vapor proof freezer container a glass jar leaving one and a half inch head space for expansion or in plastic freezer bags make sure that you mark the freezer bag or the lid of your container with a permanent marker say the date frozen indicate that it's sauerkraut because when you have containers in the freezer it's sometimes difficult to distinguish where they are and you can store it in the freezer for best quality no more than 8-12 months for canning the sauerkraut place your boiling water canner on your heat source with enough water to cover the jars by at least one inch crout can either be hot packed or raw packed to hot pack empty the crout from the container that it was fermented in into a large heat source and bring it to 185-210 degrees that's a simmering temperature do not boil we'll be back when our crout has come to a simmering temperature we're going to pack our hot sauerkraut into our hot clean jars up to a half inch head space and we'll put in the juice to fill in those holes a little too much if we get it too full the problem ends up being that the juice will run over the edges and very well can compromise the seal we do need to make sure that we clean the rims of our jars as that liquid brine can be very sticky then we're going to take the lids that have been softened according to manufacturer's directions about two minutes in hot water and add the lids that will keep the rings on that will keep the lids from popping off during the processing we'll add our hot liquid hot jars to our boiling water and the boiling water bath and as soon as that comes back up to boil we'll add our timer for the correct processing time it's important to start the processing time when the water comes to a boil jars should be processed for 10 minutes when they're pint jars and 15 minutes when they're quart jars after the processing time has elapsed, remove the jars set them upright and allow them to cool and when they're cool of course we're going to label to raw pack, pack your clean jars with one heated and liquid leaving a half inch headspace again this time you're going to start with cool water in your canner and bring the whole thing to a boil start your processing time again when the boil comes up it will be processed 20 minutes for pint jars and 25 minutes for quart jars if you have fermented your cabbage into sauerkraut you will pack it only using the hot pack method so we're going to remove the brine filled bag from the top that has held the crout underneath the brine during the fermentation process we're going to put it into a pan of cool water up to the rim of the neck of the jar and we're covering that pot and putting it on our heat source we're going to bring that to a boil for 10 minutes alternately, if you wanted to take it out of the jar you could pour the crout into a container and put it on the heat source again though you want to boil it for 10 minutes this is different than what I told you about processing with a hot pack for sauerkraut that had been processed or fermented rather in a larger quantity with the one quart jar method that added measure of safety of boiling the liquid and the crout together for 10 minutes before you place it into the jar then you will follow the hot pack procedure so now we've gone over three methods of storing your sauerkraut you can either put it in the refrigerator in a tightly covered container store it in the freezer in a freezer proof container or make it shelf stable by heat processing it and storing it on the shelf when the canning process is complete and your jars have cooled for 12 hours check the seals by tapping the jar lids if some jars did not seal reprocess the unsealed jar lids using a fresh jar lid reprocessing must be completed within 24 hours alternatively you may freeze the contents of unsealed jars or refrigerate and use within a couple of days rings may be removed from the jars when the cooling process is complete and you've checked the seal label your jars with the date the processing method and processing time and of course it's good to put the product on there too sometimes when they sit on the shelves for a while you may not remember what's in each of those jars store your canned goods in a cool dark place for best quality use sauerkraut within a year people often have questions about spoilage in sauerkraut spoilage of sauerkraut is indicated by undesirable color off odors and soft texture if your crowd has spoiled here's some things that may have gone wrong soft sauerkraut may be due to insufficient salt uneven distribution of salt or air pockets caused by improper packing measure your salt accurately mix it well with the cabbage to get rid of those problems and pack it carefully and be sure to weight it properly to get rid of air pockets pink kraut is caused by the growth of certain types of yeast usually it's on the surface of the kraut these yeasts may grow if there is too much salt again if there is an uneven distribution of salt or if the kraut is improperly covered or weighted during fermentation rotted kraut is usually found at the surface where the cabbage has not been covered sufficiently to exclude air during fermentation scum may also form on the surface this scum does not cause trouble as long as it's skimmed off before it stops the fermentation process remove it every day or so for spoilage which occurs on the surface you may be able to remove the spoiled kraut and use the rest molds that grow on the surface of kraut can change the acidity making it susceptible to spoilage microorganisms that are harmful molds grow best when they get some air try to keep the kraut container air tight check your kraut often for mold and quickly remove any that you see darkness in kraut may be caused by improperly trimmed cabbage that's the darker green leaves give a darker color in the kraut that's not bad but it also may be due to insufficient brine in the fermenting cabbage exposure to air or a long storage period in the kraut after fermentation is complete may also result in darkened kraut another cause of darkening may be high temperatures during the fermentation stage processing stage or during storage these are some ideas on what may have gone wrong with your sauerkraut if spoilage occurs