John very interested in this.  Or this type of preserving.  Please excuse my lack of experience.  What is a turn?  Does your mother recommend any books or publications for this.  Does it ferment better this time of the year rather latter like early fall.  How do you know when it is finished.  When you put it up do you just do a regular old boiling water bath?
     

Quote from: rick91351 on August 09, 2014, 02:09:01 PM
John very interested in this.  Or this type of preserving.  Please excuse my lack of experience.  What is a turn?  Does your mother recommend any books or publications for this.  Does it ferment better this time of the year rather latter like early fall.  How do you know when it is finished.  When you put it up do you just do a regular old boiling water bath?
     

Rick "turn" is just an expression which refers to canning process of one variety at one time or everything that is processed will be canned at once.  Books I don't think she has ever used any.  Most of which she does is just what she has learned or been passed down for her life of 81 years.  It does ferment better in certain conditions.  Cool dry locations are the best and it is usually done when the cabbage is ready.  Seems that everything comes due about the same time so it's a busy time of the year for those who can.  Corn, tomatoes, beans and the like.  There are a few steps I left out to just give an overview but if you are interested I can send you something from start to finish.  She has gotten modern in her later years with using a salad master to cut the kraut rather then the conventional kraut cutter tray.  And of course the bucket is a lot lighter and does the same job.  Every 3-4 days she would skim off the top water which rises and bubbles.  In about 14 days she would taste test it to see if it has the sour taste associated with kraut.  If not leave it a couple  more days and retaste it.  Then just can it up as you stated in canning jars.  She usually like to layer it in 2 head lifts meaning that you add two headed of sliced cabbage and 3-4 Tbs of salt.  Mix thoroughly and tamp it down in the bucket.  It serves several purposes.  Removes air space, tenderizes, and makes room for additional kraut.  Then repeat with another two head lift layer the same as the first.  Generally depending on the size head will dictate how many heads it takes to fill the bucket.  Do not fill over about 4/5 of the bucket allowing room for the liquid to rise without running over.

I talked her into trying something and I will let you know how it turns out.  She doesn't use the "heart of the cabbage" but generally discards it.  I actually like it but not 12 heads worth.  So she is going to try to can it like dill pickles and see how that turns out.  When we slice it we do so down to the heart area.   

MMmmm.  I haven't seen home made kraut for decades. 

Yeppers you moms sound like mine.  You would ask her how she did something and it was like well you just do it......

Spicing a dish or making her rolls or____ she had no recipes really she did it....  Amazing!!!

Kraut is on my list this year.  Just finished a related project, home made pickles, done the old fashioned way in a crock filled with brine, cukes, spices, a couple of grape leaves and about a weeks worth of time.  Never made them this way before (without vinegar) but they are fabulous.  Made them in our walk-in basement to keep the temperatures constant and reasonable (about 70 degrees).  The mixture fermented on its own like it is supposed to.  We will be playing with the spices, but they are very good. 



Good thing it worked because we are about to have a large number of pickling cucumbers coming out of the garden.  So far we have frozen peas & raspberries, and canned beans, and pickled some beets.  Today my wife made the first batch of blackberry jam! 

Cukes are really starting to produce, so I started 2 more batches of lactobacillus brine pickles tonight, one with all the cukes picked today, another with a mix of cukes picked over the last week or so.  You're supposed to do them as fresh as possible, so this is partly a test of using the less-fresh cukes that have been sitting in our refridgerator's crisper.  I'll post some pix after a few days when the fermentation should be going strong.

One more attempt to promote pickles!  A natural source of probiotics, easy to make, tasty!   

Pick some pickling cucumbers, a few grape leaves, get 5.5 oz (1/2 cup) pickling salt, a few cloves of garlic, spices, and a gallon of water without clorine in it.


Mix the salt and water until dissolved


Mix up some spices... I use pickling spice, some dill seed and dill weed, fresh dill if available, garlic gets added later


Put spices and grape leaves in the bottom of your container.  Grape leaves add tanin which keeps the pickles crisp.


Add fresh cucumbers that have had the ends trimmed.  Pickling cukes work best, smaller is often better.  I added some crushed garlic as well.


Cover with the brine solution


Weight the cukes down with some plates to keep them submerged.




Put where temperatures are fairly constant around 68 to 70 degrees.  Wait a few days, skim surface daily from days 3 through 7.  Fermentation should start by day 3 leaving small patches of bubbles on the surface.  Fermentation should slow or stop by day 7 to 10.


Taste after 7 to 8 days.  Once they taste right put pickles in refridgerator.  They should keep a couple of months if you keep them submerged in brine.  You can re-bottle if you want.


Eat pickles on a frequent basis.  Make more as more cucumbers ripen...

The fruits of our labor.  48 pints of kraut from 12 heads of cabbage.  Took a little longer to work than expected.  The temperature has a good bit to do with how fast it makes.  Originally for the 1st two weeks it was in mom's cellar.  A little too cool so it was moved to her sunroom.  All in all it took about 26 days to get the right level of sourness.  Taste testing every other day to monitor it.  Now on the shelf until supper time during the winter.  Oh yeah we did have a mess last night with kielbasa and mashed potatoes.   

The PB and J

12 Midnight
hungry
Franz Old fashioned white bread
Imperial margarine (or real butter)
Adam's Old Fashioned chunky; peanuts, salt
Smucker's strawberry jam

Thick
Slathered
Gits on yer fingers and face
Milk....outa the jug

Another, the works

2:10AM
wake to horrendous surging cramps

2:23AM
begrudging trudge to the hopper
forcing stubborn, hesitant twin rabbit pellets
(I'll be back)

2:57AM
Happy to have made it
Noise ridden convulsing spitting salad shooter
the one thousand sheet wipe

knowing this will happen has never stopped me


When the little woman is out;
Adam's and jam (any) on crackers
Over the sink
Or
Adam's on chips (any)
Or
Adam's on Adam's

Big spoon



I could live on peanut butter

I have lived on peanut butter

But

My palate is more refined now, more mature

I require milk

(akshly, a plain open faced PB and bread followed by a swig of cola is purty durn good too)

Well, we did something different a few weeks ago. We made an experimental quart of sauerkraut. A single quart right in the mason jar. Chopped some cabbage, kneaded in some salt and then some caraway seeds. I packed it in a quart jar placed a cabbage leaf on top. Then I used an 8 oz jar full of water as a weight. Covered loosely and left it on the counter in a corner of the cool laundry room. It bubbled gently and after nearly a week we sampled it. After 10 days it was pretty darn good. By the time we pronounced it good though 25% was gone.     Very easy.  Have to do more....  no photos though.

Quote from: Redoverfarm on September 09, 2014, 11:26:53 AM
The fruits of our labor.  48 pints of kraut from 12 heads of cabbage.  Took a little longer to work than expected.  The temperature has a good bit to do with how fast it makes.  Originally for the 1st two weeks it was in mom's cellar.  A little too cool so it was moved to her sunroom.  All in all it took about 26 days to get the right level of sourness.  Taste testing every other day to monitor it.  Now on the shelf until supper time during the winter.  Oh yeah we did have a mess last night with kielbasa and mashed potatoes.   

Ha!  I never saw this thread before... and I thought I read everything up until now, guess not.
I will have to go through this and try some of these things out...

In the spirit of sharing, I made my first home-made bread this week.  It came out fantastic!

Glad it turned out Don.  Around 14 days is a normal run but like I said Temperature has a lot to do with it.  Made another run this past summer and with it in the warmer room it matured in 16 days.  But then again that was 5 gallons worth.

Freshly dug Ramps with fried potatoes courtesy of my son yesterday before he went back to school and Country Ham courtesy of my daughters 4H project.  Doesn't get much better.

The expression on her face is partly due to it weighing nearly 30#.

Looks great, John.  I still remember the aroma...

  The wife put a small roast in the crock pot this morning.....

Then called me early afternoon to say it should be done, but hadn't put anything else in with it....

Soooo....... I peeled taters, threw in carrots, corn, lima beans, and a bit of onions......

I think it might have needed a little cabbage........

But after a couple of hours, tasted great over a few slices of toast........

Hope she likes it.

Hey, I am planning to have Pizza for dinner tonight.

I was looking around last night for pioneer ovens that kids can build. This looked neat, hoping to make camp pizza this summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPQVFQmwZMU