*zy·mol·o·gy

Cabbages grow so beautifully in the garden.  The grandness of the outer leaves are just beautiful, actually quite ornamental.  Of course, the outer leaves are very useful here as rabbit food and do not go to waste.  

This year we planted 15 or more heads of cabbage over a course of a month, so we have some coming ready at different times.   Our first 5 heads were harvested just a few days go in order that we could make our attempt at sauerkraut!

You not only need cabbage to make sauerkraut, but you also need a crock. OK, so you don't NEED a crock, you can make the kraut in a glass container, a food grade plastic pail but not in reactive metal containers.   We found this 3 gallon crock at an awesome hardware store ( Halls Hardware of Milton, Fl) in a neighboring town in our area.  Hall's had crock as large as 5 gallons available as well, but I felt like the 3 gallon was sufficient. 

We  ended up using only 3 of the large cabbages that we picked before the crock was full.  The other two heads of cabbage will go in a gift basket for two of our neighbors along with other veggies and some fresh eggs as an early Christmas gift.

Shredding with a knife as fine as we were able, then layering half of each cabbage head with a sprinkling of salt and caraway seeds until we reached the top.  We also added some onion about mid way through the crock. 

Now we just wait.  I hope to be able to report back to you on how delicious our kraut turned out!  We will likely freeze some of the finished kraut as well as can some.   We visited many different websites before we proceeded with this exciting venture. Yes, I said exciting. It seems anytime I have something new to embark upon, I feel excitement.  

 Real Food Fermentation by Alex Lewin is actually an excellent book on fermenting foods. 





zy·mol·o·gy (Source: Dictionary.com)
[zahy-mol-uh-jee] –noun Biochemistry.
(formerly) the science dealing with fermentation and the action of enzymes; enzymology.