Don’t think we’ll need to make sauerkraut again for a very long time – we put away 28 heads of cabbage (at about 5 lbs each) for regular sauerkraut, the kind that is just made with 3 tablespoons of salt per 5 lbs of shredded cabbage. That made about 15 gallons – which is sitting in the kitchen happily fermenting. We weighed the top of it down with gallon sized freezer bags filled with salty water (in case one of the bags breaks it won’t mess up the salt brine that the cabbage is fermenting in). We also put away another 30 lbs of cabbage for German style “Delicatessen” sauerkraut. In between each 5lbs layer of shredded, salted cabbage, we added about 5 juniper berries, one grape leave, about 1 dozen green grapes, 1 cup shredded sour apple, 1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds, and about 1 dozen peppercorns.
It was a little challenge finding juniper berries in the local grocery stores. In one of the stores, the lady I asked about juniper berries first asked me to repeat the word 3 times, then asked me what I needed them for. When I told her it was for making sauerkraut, she looked at me, in a pitying sort of way, and told me, honey – we don’t do it that way here. (luckily there is Wegmans)
We also picked potatoes – Jeff used the single plow to dig up the rows, and the potatoes were literally just rolling out of the ground. We picked up 24 buckets of potatoes, which ended up being about 17 bushel. They are spread out on the middle bay of the upper barn to dry a little. We’ll have to pick through them and sort out the damaged and cut ones, and then store the rest in crates in the bottom of the barn where it is cool and dark.
