Cabbages & Sauerkraut

Today was a day for making sauerkraut...  it started in the garden with cabbages ready to harvest. We had picked the first head last week, the largest out there, weighing in at nearly 8 pounds.  

 

This was the largest one out there today:

 

 Here they are, ready for trimming up.

That really big one?  Sheesh, that's as heavy as a large newborn!

 Trimming off the outer leaves and the odd bugs that think the vegetables are pretty cool...

 

 Jake has this really great cabbage shredder that came from his grandparents.

 

 

 

 

Adding 3 tablespoons of salt for every 5 pounds of cabbage and mashing it down so the juices start to release: 

We put 15 pounds of shredded product and salt into this fermenting crock we picked up at Territorial Seed Co. in Cottage Grove when we were heading back from Portland the other weekend.

 

The last 10 pounds of cabbage went into this 2-gallon jar with the salt. Look how juicy it got already, there was no water added - just the juices released from the cabbage.

We will check it in a couple of weeks and expect it to be ready for eating and canning.