Finishing sauerkraut to storage

[Samkraut54]

Hello, I'm new to this forum!
My family made sauerkraut in a very large barrel when I was very young, and I've recently made my own for the first time since childhood.
I've followed a recipe and it's doing well, and I have a question I cannot find addressed anywhere..
It's in a really wide mouth gallon jar, half full, held down by a very nice fitting thin fitting plastic lid, which itself is held down by a pint jar of salt water, and there's been brine covering it all times by about 3/4" very well that we've skimmed little pieces of mold from while the kraut was always well below the surface,
which left a ring of residue that 3/4" above the sauerkraut level that we kept wiped off as well as best we could.
So now we're about to remove it from the gallon jug as it's most likely finished and it looks wonderful..
and I cannot imagine yet how to be sure that any of that previous residue inside the jug doesn't get into the nice finished product as we pull it out.

This same concern of course is why I couldn't ever imagine how to taste it in stages to see if it's ready..

How on earth can you get a perfectly mold-free product lifted out to taste, through an obviously sometimes moldy top surface?
No recipe I've ever seen even addresses this issue.

Thank you everyone!

 

[itsjmswilson]

Hello, I'm new to this forum!
My family made sauerkraut in a very large barrel when I was very young, and I've recently made my own for the first time since childhood.
I've followed a recipe and it's doing well, and I have a question I cannot find addressed anywhere..
It's in a really wide mouth gallon jar, half full, held down by a very nice fitting thin fitting plastic lid, which itself is held down by a pint jar of salt water, and there's been brine covering it all times by about 3/4" very well that we've skimmed little pieces of mold from while the kraut was always well below the surface,
which left a ring of residue that 3/4" above the sauerkraut level that we kept wiped off as well as best we could.
So now we're about to remove it from the gallon jug as it's most likely finished and it looks wonderful..
and I cannot imagine yet how to be sure that any of that previous residue inside the jug doesn't get into the nice finished product as we pull it out.

This same concern of course is why I couldn't ever imagine how to taste it in stages to see if it's ready..

How on earth can you get a perfectly mold-free product lifted out to taste, through an obviously sometimes moldy top surface?
No recipe I've ever seen even addresses this issue. For more information visit cloud storage service

Thank you everyone!

Welcome! And congratulations on getting back into making sauerkraut—sounds like you’re already doing a lot of things right by keeping the cabbage submerged and cleaning the residue above the brine line.

For tasting or removing finished kraut, most people don’t try to pull it through the surface residue. Instead, carefully remove the weight and top cover first, skim off anything floating, and wipe the inside walls above the brine as clean as possible before disturbing the cabbage. Then use a clean fork, tongs, or spoon to lift kraut from below the surface rather than dragging it along the sides of the jar.

A little residue above the brine line isn’t uncommon during fermentation and doesn’t automatically mean the batch is ruined—what matters more is that the kraut stayed submerged and smells and looks good overall.

For tasting during fermentation, many people simply use a clean utensil to reach under the brine and take a small sample from below the surface, then re-cover it.

Your childhood barrel memories make this extra special—hope the first batch turns out great!

 

[Samkraut54]

It turned out wonderful! Thank you!

I'm not sure I'm going to try this submerged method again though... towards the end when it should be ready the liquid brine on top was getting really really cloudy and growing yeast (I read that yeast was ok though) and mold on its top so fast like the brine itself was constantly growing mold so nearly immediately after skimming it off that I wasn't sure about pulling the finished kraut up through that really cloudy brine almost already being moldy on top even though the mold was just getting started, not to mention that the entire thing smelled of that yeast so much that I was almost tempted to throw it all out. I had even added more salty water to the brine just to be sure halfway through because I was losing brine from removing the mold so often. I found a brand new unused adapter to 1/4" clean tube attached to a little wet-vac to get that mold out of there so that's why I was losing a little brine each time.
but then finally when I took it out, I rinsed the kraut very well, finding that the recipe I followed used way too much salt anyway. Wow Really Salty!, so was the brine so cloudy because of that maybe? I read that too much or too little salt could make it not work right. The rinsed final sauerkraut is Wonderful though! It worked! It made two quart jars full.

Now I'm wondering about next time using an airlock system on individual quart jars. Have you ever tried that way? I found a fermenting air lock kit at a garage sale that's never been used, and I've made wine before with an air lock system. I never knew about fermenting with an air lock though before I found that kit at the garage sale.

That old wooden barrel is still in my family being used for a table, so the memories are still alive and well! It's wonderful to not only remember childhood but also taste the memories too! I Love It!!

Thank you for answering so very much.