Re: [NN]RE: question about whey Digest Number 2647

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/27/2004 5:38:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

writes:

If you are making kraut or kimchi, you don't technically NEED

any whey at all. Just some salt and maybe a little vinegar (I add

a little kimchi juice for luck, but the old recipes don't). Cabbage

contains it's own bacteria, and historically no one used

whey as a starter. The salt inhibits the baddies enough that the

lactobaccilli get a head start (vinegar does the same thing).

That said, a little milk solid won't hurt anything except

aesthetically. I use a coffee filter to get whey from kefiili ...

there might be bad stuff in the filter, I guess, but since I

drink coffee too I'm getting coffee filter aura anyway. If

you leave the kefiili or yogurt or whatever on the filter

for longer (a couple of days even) then you get cheese.

It takes a long time to get whey from a coffee filter

.... just let it sit on the counter with a cover to keep the flies off.

You can also use cloth, like unbleached muslin. It will

take longer than cheesecloth, but you won't get the

solids.

-- Heidi Jea

..

>>>> My grand mother and father made sauerkraut in large crocks.

Slice the cabbage thin.

Sterlize the crock by washing with hot soapy water and rinsing with a dilute

cholrine bleach solution.

Make the brine using well water and kosher salt in a non reactive pot. The

salt concentration should float any well respecting egg.

Pack the sliced cabbage into the crock 2/3 full

consider adding a couple of handsful of caraway seed.

Add the cooled brine to cover the cabbage by a couple of inches.

Weigh down with a plate and heavy rock... or use a peice of hardwood disc cut

to easily slip inside the crock and weigh down with a rock

Let it do it's thing for a few days.

Skim off any scum that forms.

Replace the brine volume as necessary.

That is really ALL there is to making this classic peasant food of many

virtues.

mjh

http://foxhillfarm.us/FireBasil/

[Guest guest]

>That is really ALL there is to making this classic peasant food of many

>virtues.

>

>mjh

For what it is worth, that is the recipe in " Keeping food fresh " for

any number of vegies! Make a brine, cover some vegies, let it sit.

Then they put it in the " cellar " . Sheesh I wish I had one of those!

-- Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

>

> >That is really ALL there is to making this classic peasant food

of many

> >virtues.

> >

> >mjh

>

> For what it is worth, that is the recipe in " Keeping food fresh "

for

> any number of vegies! Make a brine, cover some vegies, let it sit.

> Then they put it in the " cellar " . Sheesh I wish I had one of those!

>

> -- Heidi Jean

I once read on a kefir site that if you use whey in making kraut,

you won't need to use salt, and if you use salt to make kraut you

don't need to add whey. Here is a link for making kefirkraut.

http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirkraut.html

Darrell