With harvest season upon us, the fields are generating a variety of fruits and vegetables. It is now time to seriously begin preserving this food for the Winter.
Over the past few months, we have been making jams and preserves of all sorts. One common denominator to this work is an attempt to bring the acidity of our produce to high enough a level to achieve shelf stability. With most fruits this is readily achieved since they are for the most parts high in Citric Acid. If not, we tend to add Lemon juice to the mix to both achieve the right Ph and ensure jelling with our Apple pectin. With most vegetables this is achieved by making a brine with a sufficient amount of vinegar.
There is another natural manner to achieve acidity and that is Lacto-fermentation. This process uses a naturally occurring bacteria on the surface of most vegetables to ferment and achieve an acidic brine. The most common vegetables used would be for example pickling cucumbers or cabbage (ie. Sauerkraut). Since we had a good harvest of small cabbages from our raised beds, we decided to attempt our first Sauerkraut.
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| Beautiful little cabbages ready for Lacto-fermnetation |
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| Shredding Cabbage is not all that difficult nor time consuming |
The next step is to blend the shredded Cabbage with salt. For about 25 lbs of Cabbage, one cup of salt should do. The salt is used to extract the juices from the Cabbage and you will be surprised as to how much juice they contain.
To obtain this juice, you typically need a little bit of resourcefulness. In the old days, crocks were specifically designed for this purpose. Today, these crocks are hard to come by. The idea is to place your cabbage in a container and press it until the juice is released.
In our case, we decided to make a Ukrainian style Sauerkraut, combining the Cabbage with one third by weight shredded Carrots. We jerry-rigged our Sauerkraut crock using a plastic food container, a lid to press the shredded vegetables, and a pot full of water to weigh down on the lid.
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| Within a day, the vegetable juices overcome the shredded mixture |
It is important to use sanitized instruments for this process. You do not want to grow any other type of bacteria but the Lactobacillus. A cloth cover is also important. This mixture will readily attract fruit flies.
Over time, the juices will show signs of fermentation. They will bubble and begin to create a foam which can be regularly skimmed off the top.
Within 3-5 weeks, the process is completed and the Sauerkraut should be ready. It can be placed as is in a cold cellar for storage and used as needed, or it can be packed.
We canned ours in mason jars for storage and added a vinegar brine to ensure shelf stability (although not necessary if the right level of acidity is already achieved). We took the opportunity to add a few spices.
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| Sauerkraut for the Winter months |
Elsewhere on the farm. we were quite surprised to see that our wax beans are doing extremely well in the Growing Dome's hydroponic tables. We are just about ready to make our first harvest.
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| Given up for dead, the wax beans have come back with a vengeance |
Also ready to pick were our Polish hot peppers.
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| Growing Dome hot peppers ready to pick |
This was all the impetus we needed to process our first Hot Pepper jelly. The resulting fiery red jelly goes really well with cheese and crackers.
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| Red Hot Pepper jelly ready for our Tea Room gift baskets |
We are always looking to identify the flora and fauna of the farm, so this week will end with a caterpillar which we spotted on our Raspberry plants.
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| The Tiger Moth Caterpillar or "Woolly Bear" Caterpillar |
Folklore dictates that the more black on a "Woolly Bear" caterpillar, the harsher the Winter. Let's hope this is the sign of an easy Winter!
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