Home-brew sourkraut and Dill pickles

[islandpiper]

A month or so ago a local friend's Grandpa brought me a huge cabbage. I dug back on the storage shelf and got one of my dear old Mom's crocks and made sourkraut. I'd be betting safely if I said i had the only crock of kraut going in Louisiana at that time. Not so much German influence here as there was in Wisconsin. It turned out good. In fact, it was GREAT.

Today, i dragged out the next size bigger crock and started a batch of real by-golly cured dill pickles as my garden cukes are running away with the place. No vinegar, no alum.....etc. Just washed the cukes and the crock, added dill seed and some garlic (and one jalepeno) and salt water. In ten days or so I should be in dill pickle heaven ( if they ferment like they should).

Anybody else here make home-fermented foods? The beer will come later in the Fall when it cools down a little.

piper

 

[jdupre']

OK, I'll show my ignorance. Making pickles with no vinegar? I thought vinegar was the next ingredient in line after the cucumbers.

There's a lot of German family names around here, but virtually no German culture to be had. Talk to any person with a Spanish, German or even Jewish last name and chances are he has a Cajun accent.


Joey

 

[islandpiper]

Joey, the lightly salted water lets the LACTOBACILLUS thrive. They nibble on the natural sugars and starch in the cukes or cabbage and produce several different acids, plus they release minerals and vitamins from the veggies, so the juice then pickles everything in it. And the juice can be used for other things when the pickles are gone. About the only rules are to skim the surface if it gets scummy and keep the veggies submerged with a clean rock on a plate, or a heavy plastic bag of fresh water. In Michigan we'd leave all this in the cellar to work. Somehow they missed putting a cellar under my house here in louisiana or I just haven't found the cellar door yet.

Now, lots of pickle recipes do call for vinegar. They are fast and foolproof. But, like lots of things there is a difference in the finished product.

piper

 

[oldsparkey]

The only thing I do is the onions and cucumbers in white vinegar with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

Slice white onions and cucumbers ( the thickness is a personal taste , I like thin) , add to a glass jar in layers with a little salt and pepper then cover with vinegar and set in the frig to cool. Eat anytime after a day.

Chuck.

 

[wilded]

If you do not want to ferment your pickles here is a sure fire recipe for some made with vinegar.

Dill Pickles, the Best

The following is a recipe for some of the best crispy dill pickles you will ever eat and you make them yourself. They are ready to eat in just one week. They are simple to make but need to be kept in the refrigerator from the day you make them. Simply wash your jars in the dishwasher and place on a clean counter top. Wash cucumbers and cut into quarters and then cut lengths to fit in your jars. In each jar place a couple of peeled garlic cloves, three or four springs of fresh dill and a couple of fresh red chili peppers, jalapeño peppers or serrano peppers. Mix one part white vinegar to two parts water in a large sauce pan and stir in as much Kosher salt as the mixture will absorb. Around one half a cup of salt per gallon. Bring the Water/Vinegar salt brine to a rolling boil. Fill the jars with sliced cucumbers and place in the sink or a tub in case you spill some of the boiling brine. Pour the boiling liquid into the jars filling each one. Screw the lids on tight and run warm water over each jar and place on a towel upside down on the counter top. In about five minutes turn each jar upright, after cooling, place the jars of your homemade pickles in the refrigerator. Let them sit for one week before you start eating them. You can also enjoy the pickled peppers if you like. These pickles are so good you won’t believe that you made them.
Enjoy, Wild Ed



You will need the following:
Fresh Cucumbers
Fresh Dill Weed
Fresh Peppers
Fresh Garlic Cloves
Kosher Salt
White Vinegar
Water
Jars and Lids

 

[Kayak Jack]

I don't have the recipe now, but I remember that a key part was to NOT wash the cukes. Bacteria in the dirt was part of what started fermentation while the cukes were in a strong salt brine. Then wash them, and put them into jars with dill, garlic, and grape leaves.

Interesting how something so simple as a dill pickle has varying recipes. We always made 25-30 gallons of kraut every year. Cured and smoked bacon and ham, and made our own maple syrup. You can always tell a German farmer- but you can never tell him much.

 

[wilded]

That is kind of like wild grape wine. If you cook the juice out of the grapes they will not ferment properly. It is the live wild bacteria that does the work. :shock:

 

[wilded]

Kayak Jack, I would sure like to have your Kraut recipe when you have time. Thanks, ET :mrgreen:

 

[Kayak Jack]

We never used a recipe. In a large crock, shred cabbage about 2" deep. liberally sprinkle on sugar and non-iodized salt. sugar goes only in he first layer. Use a wooden stomper to smash hell out of the cabbage until you get a bunch of juice. (Our stomper was a 10" long section of a 6" wide branch {with bark removed, and wood cleaned} with a broom handle in it as a handle - pretty high tech. I think the broom handle was painted yellow.)

Keep shredding two inch layers, sprinkling non-iodized salt, and stomping until your crock is full. Add a weight - we had a wooden grate made of slats - and a clean (scrupulously washed) stone or two to hold the grate down under the juice. You may want to spread a clean, piece of plastic over the kraut to separate nails etc. in the grate from the kraut. Keep the crock in a cool place, like a barn or garage.

After a week or two, it should be done. We didn't eat the top inch or two of kraut. Take out a batch, rinse it, and cook, or, snitch some raw. It's good fried with pork chops or sausages. Good in a crock pot with pork brats, beer, garlic, and caraway seeds (all carefully measured by the handfuls).

 

[islandpiper]

I make it in smaller units. I have a gallon crock and use a small plate for a presser with a zip lock bag of water on top. I don't use sugar, just salt in moderation. A week or ten days will do it. Then, bag or jar it and into the fridge. No worries regarding storage time......a gallon doesn't last long. There JUST HAS TO BE vitimins in the juice. After you eat home brewed the store bought canned stuff just never will suit you again.

piper

 

[Kayak Jack]

Lots pf vitamin C. Refrigeration shouldn't be necessary. That's whey they fermented the food in the first place. Like corning beef, curing ham, smoking bacon, etc. It's how food was stored. Dehydration and jerking samo-samo.

But, modern housewives like refrigeration, I know.

 

[islandpiper]

Refrigeration stops the lactobacteria, otherwise, it just keeps fermenting and getting stronger and eventually turns to mush. Even a cellar in a cool spot will do it. Again, no cellars here. Eat fast.

piper

 

[rpecot]

There's a lot of German family names around here, but virtually no German culture to be had. Talk to any person with a Spanish, German or even Jewish last name and chances are he has a Cajun accent.

I have a lot of German blood on my mother's side, but not much German culture that I can remember being brought up with. The only German influence I can recall is that my Grandmother loved sauerkraut. Oh yes, and "Gesundheit." :?

 

[oldsparkey]

Oh yes, and "Gesundheit." :?

That is a by product from to much pepper on the sauerkraut.......

Chuck.

 

[graybeard]

FWIW, WWI went a long way towards erasing German heritage in the US. In 1910, Cincinnati had 3 daily papers published in German, German language theaters, and hundreds of streets named after settlers. By 1919, the papers and theaters were bankrupt, and many of the streets renamed. (Not all, we still have Erchenbrecher Avenue, and Fields-Ertel Road).

Once the United States entered the war, a search for spies and saboteurs escalated into efforts to suppress German culture. Many German-language newspapers were closed down. Public schools stopped teaching German. Lutheran churches dropped services that were spoken in German.

Germans were called "Huns." In the name of patriotism, musicians no longer played Bach and Beethoven, and schools stopped teaching the German language. Americans renamed sauerkraut "liberty cabbage"; dachshunds "liberty hounds"; and German measles "liberty measles." Cincinnati, with its large German American population, even removed pretzels from the free lunch counters in saloons.

Know the Teddy Roosevelt quote about hyphenated Americans that's making the rounds?

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities,

What the email doesn't mention is that Roosevelt was referring to German Americans and Irish (Catholic) Americans who wanted the US to stay neutral in the early days of WWI. The US was lending and selling to the Allies, and making a tidy profit, despite being officially neutral.

Oops, time to get off my soapbox.

 

[islandpiper]

Near an old hometown of mine, LIberty NY, there is a place called Revonah Hill......until WW I it was Hanover Hill.

The dills are bubbling away quietly in the corner behind the kitchen island by the way.

piper

 

[Kayak Jack]

In his album, "America - Why I Love Her", John Wayne said the same thing. Much more pointedly and more forcefully.

 

[islandpiper]

Honestly, the first batch of dills went bad. Must have gotten the wrong "bug" in them. The second batch is doing good, another couple of days and they'll be real knockouts.

piper

 

[Wannabe]

piper,
How's the dills comming along?
Bob

 

[islandpiper]

Bob, i put them into a gallon jar and into the fridge. They are done, taste great, just not really sour. I'll try to get a picture if I can get a minute to do it. (before i eat them all)

The crocks empty now, so i can make another batch of sourkraut when I see cabbage at a good price.

piper