Canning Sweet N Sour Red Cabbage

I canned my first batch of the home grown red cabbage, shredded, wanting to get sweet and sour red cabbage. Upon opening the jars (tried several), I discovered that the cabbage had become so sour/tart as to be inedible. I followed the recipes that call for a lot of vinegar and not that much sugar, so what went wrong? And how to prevent this happening again. I want the stuff to taste like the little jars that cost so much, truly mildly sweet and sour, not like fire-engine vinegar.

Add a little sugar to taste when heating it. If you want it cold just chill after opening and heating. I prefer it cold although its good hot. We tried this years ago and it came out wrong. Blech wrong. Really salty.

We do have good luck with canning cole slaw. The recipe used was too sweet. Then we found we could reduce the sugar by 75% and it tastes great. Amazingly the cabbage is still some what crisp after hot water bath canning.

You could rinse some of the vinegar off, too. I do that with pickled beets and with the canned cole slaw I make. Just put it in a colander and run some water over it.

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You could rinse some of the vinegar off, too.

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I completely dumped out the canning juice and tried to "save" the batch, but the cabbage itself had become SO tart as to be inedible. I tried soaking it to pull some of the sour out; no good. So, it has to be the recipe with which I canned it, or it went on pickling itself after being canned, which doesn't make sense since there were no bubbles or loose seals. I am perfectly wiling to pressure can it if I can get the right taste next time, which is a blended sweet and sour, not too much of either.

You could try adding sugar and refrigerating overnight... no way to tell if that will help unless you try. Otherwise, you have to chalk this one up to "education" and then start experimenting with different recipes until you find one you like. You can't cut the amount of vinegar down, but you certainly can add as much sugar as you want/need to get the desired flavor.

I'm afraid that pressure canning (so you could cut the vinegar) would give you a very cooked cabbage; probably not what you're looking for.

Summerthyme

If you do have to throw it out, you might try sharing it with the animals. My dog and chickens love fermented food.