Sunday July 9, 2017 Guerneville CA.
Sauerkraut for the trip
Seemed like a good day to continue prepping and loading the van for the Continental Divide trip coming up soon.
Making sauerkraut
One of the things I did was go to the store again to get a container to make some sauerkraut for the trip. The old lady Sue up in Oregon had showed me how to make the stuff from scratch a long time ago. She said her job as a kid was the stomper as the cut cabbage needed to be compacted into a fifty five gallon barrel and all the air has to be removed to prevent molds from growing. We made some up there one year in a crock. It was easy, just cut the cabbage up and salt it and pack it in something. Seal it up, leave it out in room temp and wait. But the neat thing is you don’t have to wait. She said they started eating the stuff right away which was a lot like eating coleslaw as it slowly fermented and turned into sauerkraut. By eating some each day some is removed from the top so there is no mold problem to be concerned about and if there was any mold she said she clean it off and throw it away.
Gut flora
So I can make some up a batch and eat some most days without keeping it cold, so I thought I’d try doing this on this trip, the main reason being I’m trying to improve my gut flora to maybe help with this corn allergy problem I have. And the truth is making it this way is way better than what you get at the store.
Making the stuff
So anyway, I purchased a plastic container to use on the trip to try making the stuff. When I got home I cut up some cabbage and salted it and packed it in the container to start the process. One of the most important things in making this is to keep air off the top and Sue showed me the best way to do this is to put some water in a plastic bag and put it on the top of the cabbage. The bag with the water in it flows around the top and seals it up good.
On the way home from the store I stopped at Joe’s and we visited for a bit, then I headed on home.
Fluids and grease for the van
It was a fairly warm day so I put off most of the van work until evening. I checked the fluids in the transmission and the transfer case and they were good. Then I got the grease gun out and greased the drivelines. Checked the air pressure in the tires too.
I loaded a few thing in the van and that was pretty much my day.