Eric, I'd recommend heading over to Amazon and search in books: "fermented foods". There are several good ones there that give all kinds of wonderful recipes and methods. Ordering them 'used' from re-sellers cuts the cost considerably.

Here is a good place to start reading (link below) with info and recipes for pickles and kraut instructions. Also provides some basic info on crocks and other containers.

One thing to keep in mind is that it isn't really necessary to spend the $$ on an expensive crock. Many of us routinely ferment in many forms of food-safe containers like large glass jars and plastic buckets.

Here is a link to a few of the best previous discussions here on fermenting - some recipes included.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Fermenting

Joy of Pickling has some very good fermenting recipes. It's an excellent over-all book on pickling and well worth the purchase.

Also, if you search this forum under kimchi or kimchee you'll find a number of fermented recipes for foods like daikon radish.

There's also a Joy of Pickling recipe posted for fermented green beans.

I do agree with Dave that a Harsch crock is unnecessary (even though I have one myself). With the larger crocks weight really becomes an issue and for big batches I really prefer the food-safe plastic containers.

Carol

My thinking re size is that I should probably get something close to 4 - 5 gals. If it turns out that is too much to handle, I can always do a smaller batch.

Is there crocks that I can purchase that are a compromise between a Harsch and a Picklemaster that are recommended?

Check out TSM crocks.

Look around locally for the 'old timey' hardware stores. We have one here that sells crocks of all sizes for 1/3 what the catalogs do. I'm very happy with a 3 gal size - price, ease of slinging around, volume, etc. and have 4 of them.

I use one gallon pickle jars for kraut, one quart wide mouths for pepper sauce. I use mostly "the joy of pickling" recipes, which are very good. I've used a packet of yogurt culture to jumpstart my pepper mash and that worked great.

I was fortunate and bought 1 and 2 gal clear glass Ball Ideal jars back when they were available and affordable. Especially like because can see what is happening inside jar during fermenting and the narrow mouth makes it easy to seal off so traps the CO2 and prevents nasty yeast mold growth.

There are any number of 1 gal glass jars of pickles etc at my Sam's Club. Can't remember the brand name, but have seen 2 1/2 gal PET jars of pickles too.

Next time I go to Target will check these out...

Here is a link that might be useful: 2 gal Heritage Hill jar

tracydr writes: I use one gallon pickle jars for kraut...

My next batch of kraut will be using one too:

The batch I started in a 1 gal Ball Ideal jar 5 days ago is (I think) going to be ready in 9 days or so.

Mine was ready in about two weeks since my house temps were 78 degrees at the time. I'm thinking about starting another batch now, while my house is only 68 degrees. I wish my peppers would be ready at a cooler time of year, I was really nervous fermenting them, as my house was in the low 80s but it worked fine, I only fermented for a week, thanks to the yogurt starter and warm temps.
My large health food store sells the gallon jars empty for about $2.00 so I have just stocked up on 4 of them. Thinking of doing 20 lbs of kraut while cabbage is 19 cents a pound.
I added apples, onions and caraway to my lovely pink kraut last time, it was to die for. Froze it and it really seems to keep tasting better with time. Apples right now are .10 a pound so I feel obligated to put up apple sauce or something else with apples as well, I mean, that's practically free food!

A nice 'high five' at 43 hours:

Slumping at 142.5 hours:

This has been one of the warmest kraut ferments I've ever done. Usually I start off warm and then after a few days cool down to middle 60s or so for a couple weeks to finish off. I am so wanting to take a pH reading, but am going to wait several more days.

Tied off one of the fingers so could cut off tip & test pH without the carbon dioxide escaping...

10 days

Was able to poke the tester tip into the kraut to get a reading. Then tied off the finger again.

pH

Going to put in my 60 degree basement to age for a few more days and do a taste test. Then will can in pints to see how crisp turns out. Just an experiment.

Does anyone know the ratio of salt to pepper when fermenting. all the ones i came across was 1/2 cup salt to 1gallon of peppers. What if your buying the peppers in pounds how would you go from there

John Showme, you mentioned youtube videos. If you have one of your fermenting I'd like to see it, can you post a link to your youtube account?

Happyday,

Sorry, no canning or fermenting kraut etc videos. Just a couple hundred of my garden critter captures and family vids. Might someday do some relevant to this forum.

Maybe someone else here has canning videos?

Been waiting on the price of cabbage to go down this year to make kraut. I don't usually grow cabbage as its not a vegetable that seems to do well in my garden. For some reason, the price has been staying fairly high, around 65 cents a pound. I like to see it less then 30 cents a pound but I may need to break down and buy it soon if it's just not going to go down.