Get thee to the harvest forum and you'll find out more than you'd ever want to know about kraut making. It's on that home site.

When I make it it does not scum, so you will be fine. But now that I have tasted beet kraut, there is no going back to regular.

ArCal, I'm betting your kraut will be absolutely wonderful. I think it's time for a tasting.

Wish me luck. My current batch is a week old.

Jim

Agree that Harvest Forum is the canning and preserving forum here but it is't on the Home Site. It is part of the gardening forums.:) It is linked right at the top of this forum's from page.

Also agree that scum formation isn't required - it is a sometime thing depending on how the kraut is kept covered. Your air temps are a little low so fermentation will be slower. 70-75 is the ideal.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: How to make Kraut - NCHFP

There's only one thing that I can suggest. Making up a separate brine solution and putting it in a plastic bag big enough to cover the top of your container, will prevent adventitious yeasts or mold spores from coming into direct contact with the cabbage.

This allows any gases to escape, while preventing invasion of unfriendly substances - thus eliminating a need to remove scum, and/or mold from the top of the kraut.

If the brine/liquid on the kraut lowers below the top, some brine can be used from the bag to replace any lost due to overflow fermentation.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

80 lbs of shredded cabbage... didn't expect to have so much again this year but no one else wanted to take any home after it was cut so... 2 5 gal buckets later. This time I used turkey roasting bags to hold the brine since it was large enough to cover the entire surface. Didn't want to use the metal paper tie so I just tied it into a knot... pretty slick I thought until took a peak at it yesterday just to see how it was doing and both bags had deflated...knots still in place but the brine water had seeped into the bucket. We had to scoop out cabbage from each bucket so now we have a 3rd bucket of the 3 gal size... This time we used a 2 gal zip type freezer bag. Hope it holds water this time.

My grandmother [We're talking about 1940s here.] had a crock dedicated to kraut and another dedicated to pickles and would not allow anything else in these two crocks. She got lots of stuff growing on top.

Agree, the scum is a sometimes effect, not something that is needed for good 'kraut. I never had luck with the plastic bag of brine on top, either, so I use mesh bags full of (clean) stones. Works great, but I make small batches, might take some doing to get a bag big enough to cover a 5 gallon bucket! :) Beet kraut sounds intersting, I stopped making as much sourkraut when I realized I could make homemade kimchi (with the bonus of no fishy things added to the ferment)! Yum to lacto-fermentation!

When sauerkraut is done, you can freeze or store some in the fridge to preserve the good probiotics and crunch, instead of canning it.