Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Sauerkraut?

I never could eat plain kraut but a friend got me to try hot kraut he made with habaneros mixed in. I fell in love with that and got him to share the recipe. Usually cook it with Polish sausage
ETA:
The recipe I was given is a tablespoon of canning salt, half tablespoon of white vinegar with the quart jar packed tightly then cover with water. Place lids and rings on jars but don’t seal/tighten them. The jars will work for at least a month, likely more. Best to have a towel or pan under the jars to keep the mess to a minimum. Seal them when the fermentation stops.

I don't care for it by itself. I do enjoy it with brats. rubens and pork.

Right from the jar or can with a fork.

Good sauerkraut is awesome but I’ve never tried making it myself. One day I will but for now I’m buying the Costco sauerkraut. I’m sure it’s nowhere close to homemade and I’m sure homemade sauerkraut is not as good as DigitalDans sauerkraut (Dans secret ingredient….add a half a teaspoon of napalm per quart) but it’s better than anything else I’ve tried. I have to have sauerkraut and red cabbage when I make a pork roast or Schnitzel otherwise it feels incomplete.

Nice!

Opened a jar of kraut just a few weeks back. Mighta come out of that same kitchen. It was great!

Nice work. The three boys are on their own, my wife won't touch it so it is a couple of Rubens a year for me when we are in Idaho for the summer.

Making me feel guilty for not making any this season. Busy with an out of state hunt, then the shoulder surgery.

I have a couple heads out in the well house where it stays cool with the taters. I wonder if they might still be good, have to check tomorrow. Maybe now that I'm allowed to use the arm some I can whip up a few jars.

Sauerkraut with a sore shoulder?

For chitts and giggles I made two whole heads into sauerkraut.
Saw it at a festival years ago, finally tried it this year. Having so much cheap cabbage, it was the perfect time.

Remove the heart,
fill the hole with canning salt,
put it in a non reactive container, (hole up)
make brine and cover the heads,
Weight them down.

Now I don't know what to do with it!

My vision was on Reubens, but it creates a sliding layer that makes them
harder to eat. The crunch is nice.
Thinking about cabbage rolls with them,
but when you change a classic....

Could always just chop it up, but that ruins the fun.

I would think the bacteria are dead when you seal it, or it would explode. Good tasting I am sure, but the best health benefit is in eating the live bacteria.

Oh man that’s looks great! I love homemade kraut! My mouth waters just looking at it!

I’ve had poor luck making it myself. I have the slicer and the crock, but my kraut spoils in the crock.

My dad used to grow his own cabbage for it, Dutch White, which I can’t locate any to buy, but can any variety of cabbage be used to make kraut?

How long do you let it ferment in the crock?

My wife makes a small batch of kraut every year. Water salt and ferments it in a crock.

We have a couple friends that raise cabbage. One has a commercial cabbage farm the other has a large dairy farm and raise all kinds of stuff. They keep us supplied in cabbage. We mostly eat it plain or on brats.

Fermented cabbage has some good health benefits. Between that and all the other fermented stuff I consume, I should be pretty well preserved.

Ribs-n-Kraut time!

https://www.cleanfoodliving.net/ Here's a resource for home made fermented foods.

Make sure everything you use is clean
Cabbage, salt, stomp it until juice covers the cabbage.
Weight it down to keep the cabbage under the juice. Cover. 1 to 2 months 70 degrees is the perfect temp.
Cooler slows things down, warmer will make it stronger. Too warm could cause trouble.

Nasty mold on top is no big deal.
Carefully skim it all off, the kraut underneath will be fine.

Sauerkraut is the product of cabbage being consumed by a succession of naturally occurring bacteria. As waste from one causes a habitat unsuitable for it, it creates the perfect condition for the next. Each increasing the acidity. Eventually it’s no longer suitable for much of anything, and preserved.
This from a Microbiologist friend, who gave me heck for throwing away 5 gallons of kraut years ago. We forgot about it, and it was moldy when found. I dumped it in the garden, to find it seemed fine under about 3” of ugly stuff.

Yeah Dillon, the shoulder is sore, but not unusable for light weight stuff. My cabbage carving knives weigh less than the limit I'm allowed at this time. I can lift the head up to the counter with my fairly dumb left hand. Would hate to try slicing with that one, might lose a finger or two.

Haven't tried the whole head kraut yet. Not sure I've got anything big enough for it. I do have a big plastic food service container that I use to put the jars in to keep the juices from getting on stuff should they overflow when fermenting, that might hold a whole head.


Alaskajim, I've used a couple of different varieties of cabbage over the years. One I like as it seems easy to grow and gets pretty big is the Late Dutch Flat variety. Far as I know, when it comes to kraut, cabbage is cabbage and they will all ferment. Maybe there's some slight difference in taste? Now you've done it, I may have to do experimental taste tests one year.

5 gallon plastic bucket.
Hit up a restaurant, sandwich place.
They get pickles and such in them.



If you know it's not scented or contaminated with something,
a plastic bag works. Just use it in a bucket or something to support it.


A good friend makes his in heavy, clear food grade bags.

Haven't made any in a couple years, but I like it made with 1/2 white cabbage and 1/2 red cabbage.
Gives it a beautiful color and even the kids like it.

That’s a lot of Reuben sammiches 😁

I have never in my 64 years tasted the stuff. Couldn’t get past the stench.

I do 50 lb of it every year with my cabbage grows right otherwise it's seven or eight bucks a head around here I had a teaspoon of caraway seed to about every other head real light just so it's a hint of it in there