About 4 or 5 years ago, there was a recipe in Countryside from a woman on making saurkraut in trashbags. It sounds wierd but it was the best saurkraut we ever made and we are looking for it again and I cant find it in any of my cookbooks or files or old Countryside magazines. Does anyone have it or something like it? Thank you so very much.

-- Traci Laing (SandTLaing@aol.com), September 06, 1999

Answers

I use food-safe bags that I bought from the local school cafeteria, they use them to wrap whole pans of hot dogs etc. This recipe is from Farm Journal's Freezing and Canning Cookbook. Wash, drain, wiegh, shred. 3 TBS pickling/canning salt to each 5 lbs. Pack, stomp, mush until juices form after every few pounds added to bag- lined bucket. Leave 5 inches or more head space. Make sure juice covers cabbage, or cover with 1.5 TBS salt to 1 qt boiling water. Fit one food-grade bag inside another. Fit this double bag on top of the cabbage omitting as much air as possible. Fill the double bag with brine solution 1.5 TBS per qt of boiling water. Add brine until the bags form a weight and cover. I use the outer bag of the doubled bags to keep dust from entering the cabbage, and knot the innermost bag. Fermentation time (does not state if temperature is average or constant) 75 degrees, 3 weeks; an additional week for every 5 degrees cooler. Book does not recommend temperatures above 75, as other organisms might be favored.

-- Kendy Sawyer (sweetfire@grove.net), September 10, 1999.