Help me pick a cabbage for sauerkraut
 

I need your help! Last year the cabbage grew great! It just turned out to be a smaller variety.

I don't need Megaton. I need less than basketball size bigger than softball.

Do you have a preference for sauerkraut cabbage? Where do you get your seeds?

flat dutch

We grow at least 4 varieties every year with at least 4 plantings / year. The same variety grown in spring or summer won't be as good for kraut as when grown in the fall. Many people love our cabbage for kraut in the fall. It grows slower so is denser / heavier. Also it had had a few frosts so tends to be a bit sweeter. For us any of the Vantage family of cabbages are good.

Carol

So a few frosts is good?

I have had great luck with one called Capture from Johnnies the last few years. It makes good sized tight heads that hold fairly good in the field. Most of the heads I picked this year were about the size of very large cantaloupes weighing in between 5 and 8 lbs. I have had it make a few bigger heads and a few smaller heads but it is very consistent in its size.

Megatron is just too dang big. I grew it for a few years and found it ridiculously large and it wasn't very good tasting compared to one like Capture. A couple of the larger Megatrons I grew made basketballs seem small.

Bill

Yes frost sweetens up all cole family crops. Cabbage will take down to about 25 no problem and even closer to 20 if it's only for a few hours like over nite.

As far as size goes, most of the Vantage family cabbage will size up depending on how close you plant them. At about 9 inches or less in the row, you will get smaller heads of about 4-6 lbs. At 12-15 inches you will get some mega heads. We always have some 10+ pounders due to skips with the finger planter (our tractor goes a bit too fast for us to get every finger). But that's OK for us as we have a couple of restaurants that want the huge heads. They claim they go thru their shredder better.

Carol

I have an old book on German cooking and etiquette someplace around here.
In it there is a pictuer of these pointed cabbage they are making huge vats of sauerkraut with.
Most if not all of these pointed types are supposed to be sweeter than the rest.

[QUOTE=Wi-sunflower;688314]Yes frost sweetens up all cole family crops. Cabbage will take down to about 25 no problem and even closer to 20 if it's only for a few hours like over nite.

As far as size goes, most of the Vantage family cabbage will size up depending on how close you plant them. At about 9 inches or less in the row, you will get smaller heads of about 4-6 lbs. At 12-15 inches you will get some mega heads. We always have some 10+ pounders due to skips with the finger planter (our tractor goes a bit too fast for us to get every finger). But that's OK for us as we have a couple of restaurants that want the huge heads. They claim they go thru their shredder better.

Carol[/QUOTE]

Yes the bigger heads do go through the shredder better.

I need to update and post that I bought Late Flat Dutch and All Seasons from Victory Seeds.



[url]https://www.victoryseeds.com/mobile/cabbage_all-seasons.html[/url]

The Late Flat Dutch will bat cleanup for the All Seasons. A 90 day good size and a 110 day monster should stack up well for my buddy who asked me to get these.

I'm only gonna grow a few of each but the other seeds will all be planted and made into sauerkraut in Hemingford NE

Thanks for all the info and knowledge you folks passed on! I wasn't sure about frosts ansld cabbage. Now I am headed in the right direction.:)

I have been on the hunt for a recipe that starts with a culture. THoughts?

[QUOTE=Black Krim;689326]I have been on the hunt for a recipe that starts with a culture. THoughts?[/QUOTE]

You dont need a culture in my opinion.:)

Worth

No you don't need a culture. BUT, you can speed up a lactobacillus ferment with some whey so you can use less salt.

You need fresh whey and you can make your own easily. Just get a quart of a plain unflavored yogurt. Be sure it's 1 with "active cultures". Take a strainer and line it with paper toweling. Place over a bowl or jar. Put the yogurt in the strainer and let drip into the bowl. What's in the bowl is whey and what's left in the strainer is "Greek " yogurt.

Depending on how big of a batch you are making, you only need a couple of tablespoons of the whey to inoculate the batch.

Carol

Great hints on using whey - I'm going to try that this year.
As for varieties, I am definitely no sauerkraut expert, having only made it for the first time last fall, but I used a red cabbage variety for one of my batches, and the resulting dark pink color is really striking, and the flavor was way better than the green cabbage batch I made. I can't really say what variety of red cabbage it was, because I grew three different red ones, and didn't keep track of which was which at harvest.

[QUOTE=Worth1;689330]You dont need a culture in my opinion.:)

Worth[/QUOTE]


I figure this works once the house is inoculated with good stuff....

[QUOTE=Wi-sunflower;689437]No you don't need a culture. BUT, you can speed up a lactobacillus ferment with some whey so you can use less salt.

You need fresh whey and you can make your own easily. Just get a quart of a plain unflavored yogurt. Be sure it's 1 with "active cultures". Take a strainer and line it with paper toweling. Place over a bowl or jar. Put the yogurt in the strainer and let drip into the bowl. What's in the bowl is whey and what's left in the strainer is "Greek " yogurt.

Depending on how big of a batch you are making, you only need a couple of tablespoons of the whey to inoculate the batch.

Carol[/QUOTE]

ok. WIll try this. THank you.

When I was in Missouri, a friend did a small spring-planted cabbages trial; "Parel F1" was the one she liked best for sauerkraut.

I wish I could find it online, but a few years ago there was a wonderful article in SSE's quarterly magazine about cabbages grown in late 19c/early 20c Newfoundland for sauerkraut, back when sauerkraut and its vitamin C were vital for folks' health -- really fascinating stuff. (There's a sentence that 15-year-old me could never imagine writing...)