Sauerkraut

[wheels]

Aye Up, I'm only 56! It's just that we had lot's of sheds!

Nothing was thrown away.

That said, my family were 'Chapel', and mostly 'Band of Hope' (Teetotal), so where they came from....?

Phil

[Laripu]

Aye Up, I'm only 56! It's just that we had lot's of sheds!

Nothing was thrown away.

That said, my family were 'Chapel', and mostly 'Band of Hope' (Teetotal), so where they came from....?

Phil

56! A young lad! I'm 57.

Everything else you wrote probably means something to people in the UK, but I had to look up Band of Hope to see that it's a temperance organization in Leeds. So you having an airlock for brewing is like me making pork sausage. Ancestors turning over in their graves, etc.

But "Chapel"? What's the context? I think I may have been in a chapel once or twice, for a wedding, perhaps.

Leeds. About which I know only one thing: the Who did a great live album there. There ain't no cure for the summertime blues. There wouldn't be, for me... living in Tampa, where the high today was 25°C.

[Laripu]

OK, I think I understand Chapel too: non-denominational? or of a non-traditional denomination?

[wheels]

Sorry, after a couple of drinks I forgot that we're a World Wide forum. 'Chapel' is often used in this context to refer to a non-conformist - someone who is not of the Church of England. They include Methodists, Congregationalists etc who historically tended towards abstinence!

That said, religion is probably a subject best left to elsewhere. I shouldn't have raised it.

Phil

[Laripu]

Sorry, after a couple of drinks I forgot

See? Your teetotal forebears were right!

That said, religion is probably a subject best left to elsewhere. I shouldn't have raised it.

It's hard to offend me: I'm an atheist who's parents were Jewish, living in an area with a large proportion of young-earth creationist, evolution-denying Southern Baptists. My wife and her family are German Catholic, except for one who's a Jehovah Witness. Two of my cousins have also married Catholics, but one married an Orthodox Jew.

So to summarize: I don't care if someone wants to cut off a bit of skin from male infants' weenies ... but I insist on stuffing meat into pork casings. And forbidding beer and scotch... well that's just heresy.

I'd rather grill a steak than burn someone at the stake. Throwing to a party and being a host sounds like more fun than taking communion and eating the host. Planes are for transportation, not building demolition.

And there's ususally something I can learn from someone else's culture.... and appropriate for my own use.

[Laripu]

I need to improve my setup a bit. Using a glass jam jar as a weight isn't quite the right thing, even though it's worked.. I need to get a pair of circular glass weights of a diameter that will fit into the mouth of the gallon jar. I'll probably have to actually buy that online.

I found some on-line. They're 2.33", and there were seven of them for $10 plus $6 shipping. Not bad.

I can use 3 or 4 at a time, if I want two fermentations going at once.
Here's the source:

http://home.beeline-online.net/revrick/jarweights.htm

Next weekend I'll be putting the ferment in smaller jars, refrigerating, and then eating some. Soon it will be time to make sausage again too.

[DiggingDogFarm]

Heck, you don't need an air lock.

You can keep things super simple if you wish.

I typically ferment in wide mouth canning jars (have for the past 30+ years), both quart and half gallon.
I fill the jar to within about an inch of the rim.
I top off with brine all the way to the rim, I then insert an empty 1/2 pint Ball quilted jelly jar into the larger jar to catch any expansion. (the jelly jar should fit snugly against the lid)
Making sure that the brine still comes to the rim of the canning jars, I then top the jar with a loose lid (no band), and top with a pint jar filled with water. That creates an air-lock.
The jar is not opened until fermentation is complete.
No mold or yeast growth.

Cheap and effective.

~Martin

[Laripu]

Heck, you don't need an air lock.

You don't need an airlock in New York State. My parents made brined cucumber pickles (Jewish dill pickles) for decades in Montreal, Canada, and never needed more than a loosely screwed on lid while fermentation was going, tightened later, and kept in a cold room in the cellar. Cold places have much less airborne mold.

But I live in Tampa, Florida, where we fight mold continuously. I need an airlock.

[DiggingDogFarm]

I fermented sauerkraut without an airlock when I lived in Florida for 5 years.
No problems with mold.


~Martin

[wheels]

Martin

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by, "1/2 pint Ball quilted jelly jar"? Can you elaborate please?

Phil

[Laripu]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by, "1/2 pint Ball quilted jelly jar"? Can you elaborate please?

Sure, even though you addressed Martin, I can supply this info. Ball is an American company that makes (among other things) good quality, inexpensive jars for canning. In particular, many people (e.g. my wife) use them for jams, jellies and other preserves. See: this link.

Some people also use them for fermenting (which I wouldn't recommend), or as jars in which to put vegetables that have been fermented (which is fine).

I think "quilted" refers to the pattern in the glass.

[Laripu]

I fermented sauerkraut without an airlock when I lived in Florida for 5 years.
No problems with mold.

OK, if it works for you, great! There are probably as many ways to ferment vegetables as there are ways to ferment beer. Your success speaks for itself, and you probably have more experience in lactofermentation than I do.

I'm used to using an airlock from 23 years of brewing beer, and I have a bunch of them, so I dont even have to spend the $1.50 they cost. So far so good. It may not be necessary, but it hasn't hurt.

[wheels]

Sure, even though you addressed Martin, I can supply this info. Ball is an American company that makes (among other things) good quality, inexpensive jars for canning. In particular, many people (e.g. my wife) use them for jams, jellies and other preserves.

Many thanks, they're what we know as Kilner jars - also after the name of the manufacturer.

Phil

[DiggingDogFarm]

You can use any small, squat jar that'll fairly closely fit inside the rim of the larger jar.



~Martin

[Laripu]

The Brussels sprouts and daikon kimchi turned out great, just like there previous one. No surprise since all the flavorings were the same.