By Leslie Shallcross
By the fourth week of September, you have almost certainly harvested most of your garden’s offerings — potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, radishes, kale, chard, turnips, mustard, leeks, broccoli. But the recent abrupt change from refreshing, crisp fall weather to vegetable killing temperatures may have caught you off guard. If you didn’t have time to bring everything in, don’t despair — some of these can stay in the ground in freezing air temperatures. But don’t wait too long. Even cold-tolerant vegetables are no match for solidly frozen soil and the cold temperatures in Interior Alaska’s winter.
You can extend the enjoyment and nutrition benefits of your homegrown produce by using a food preservation method — root cellar, freezing, canning, drying or fermentation. If you are loaded up with cabbage, I’d like to suggest fermentation and making some (debatably) delicious sauerkraut.
Cabbage, a star in many Alaska gardens, can be stored and will keep well for about 3-4 months if you can create cold (32° F) and humid (> 90 %) conditions in a root cellar, garage or arctic entry. Some vegetables need to be wrapped to prevent dehydration, but just keeping a few big external leaves on the cabbage will protect it. Keep the cabbage in a box or other container, allowing some air to circulate around your cabbages. The refrigerator also will do well for a shorter period if you wrap the cabbage with plastic so that it does not dry out.
If you have more cabbage than you can hold in these conditions, you may want to try your hand at the art of fermentation and make some sauerkraut. The ease and the fun of this food chemistry in your kitchen may hook you and there may be some extra health benefits to eating fermented cabbage. I acknowledge up front that people have strong reactions to the odor and flavor of sauerkraut but after your first great batch you may sway the negative opinions and your kitchen may become a veritable food science laboratory.
Fermentation preserves many of the nutrients in fresh cabbage and it adds beneficial microorganisms — like the ones you get in yogurt, only in much higher numbers. These microbes have been credited with improving digestion, helping the immune system, reducing anxiety and supporting weight loss and healthy blood sugar levels. Eating just a few tablespoons of fermented vegetables per day is enough to boost the beneficial microorganisms in your gut.
There are a few things that will make your kitchen science experiment successful: non-chlorinated water, scrupulously clean equipment and containers, correct proportions of salt and cabbage, a food scale and proper holding temperatures for fermentation.
Sauerkraut can be easily made in small batches in wide-mouth quart or two-quart jars. About 2½ pounds of shredded cabbage will fit into a one-quart jar. These small volume batches will ferment faster than the traditional several gallon crock full of cabbage. And they can go in your refrigerator easily when you are ready to slow down the fermentation.
To get started, sterilize your jars and utensils for packing the kraut by placing them in boiling water for 10 minutes. Make sure that bowls, knives and cutting boards are carefully cleaned and free from any contamination. The fermentation process is all about microorganisms, but they need to be the right ones, primarily those naturally occurring on the cabbage and not those from your kitchen sink. Boil some non-chlorinated water and make some back-up brine (1½ tablespoons iodine-free salt to 1 quart of water) and allow this to cool before use.
Remove outer leaves of the cabbage and rinse to remove any dirt or decayed portions. Cut the cabbage and remove the thick core. Slice or shred the cabbage into pieces no thicker than the width of a quarter. You can use a knife, a special cabbage shredder or a food processor as long as your cabbage pieces are evenly sized. Uniform size is especially important for small batches to promote even fermentation.
Weigh your sliced cabbage and place 5 pounds into a large bowl or tub — glass, ceramic or food service grade plastic is best. Sprinkle the cabbage with 3½ tablespoons of salt and mix thoroughly to distribute the salt. If your cabbage is more than 1 month old, you may add 1 tablespoon of sugar. Gently crush the cabbage with very clean hands or a utensil to start releasing juices from the cabbage. Let the salted cabbage sit for about 10 minutes or until you see juices accumulating in the container.
Pack the cabbage tightly into your sterilized jars, leaving an inch or two at the top. Fermentation takes place in an anaerobic environment, so press down on the cabbage to remove all air spaces. As you pack tightly there should be juices or brine rising to the top. The layer of brine is another piece of keeping it anaerobic. If you need a little more brine, add some of the cooled brine you prepared. You can also fit a small baggie into the top of the jar and place a couple of inches of prepared brine in the baggie, closing the top of the bag with a rubber band, to provide a weight and covering for your kraut. There are also small glass weights made to fit in a wide mouth quart jar and special tops with a vent for releasing gases that can be secured with a canning jar screw band.
Once you have created the salty, anaerobic environment, put the jars in a consistently warm spot on a tray or plate to catch any brine pushed out by fermentation. The microorganisms favorable for sauerkraut like temperatures between 60° F and 75° F with either end of this spectrum a bit iffy. The success of your scientific experiment relies on getting the right microorganisms going — I have found that temperatures around 65° to 75° F will reliably nudge them into action. The lower the temperature, the slower the fermentation. However, temperatures that are too high can lead to spoiling (the wrong bacteria). I keep a thermometer near the jars so that I can make sure that they are in the right temperature zone. Using a lamp with a low watt bulb near your jars will give you a little temperature boost if you keep your home on the cool side.
Little bubbles or pockets of gas will usually become visible in your jar and there should be a mild sour odor developing after a couple of days. The brine may even bubble up out of the jar. Check the jar periodically to make sure that the cabbage remains covered with brine. At about a week, take a little taste. It should be tangy and green cabbage will be changing from opaque to a green-white translucent color. You are likely to want to leave it for another week or so before declaring it ready to eat with brats or on a Reuben sandwich.
People in your household may be unappreciative of your culinary efforts as the fermenting cabbage starts releasing those unmistakably sauerkraut odors. This is from the sulfur gases generated by the action of yeasts and lactic acid producing bacteria on cabbage. Lest the fragrance create household friction, reassure them that Alaska cabbage will give you sweet, wonderful tasting sauerkraut unlike what you might buy at the grocery store.
When ready, your sauerkraut can be put in the refrigerator where it will keep for several weeks or longer. It may also be frozen or it may be canned. Instructions for storage and ideas for eating your debatably delicious sauerkraut can be found in the Cooperative Extension publication Alaska grown cabbage – more than just sauerkraut.
Leslie Shallcross is a registered dietitian and the Tanana District health, home and family development agent for Cooperative Extension Service, a part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, working in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She can be reached at 907-474-2426 or lashallcross@alaska.edu.
