How do I drain sauerkraut? One of my favorite sandwiches is the Reuben. One problem I tend to have when making this at home is the sandwich is damp from the sauerkraut.

I buy sauerkraut from the store. Before putting it on the sandwich, I put a little bit of sauerkraut in a small strainer and push on it with a fork. I mix it up and keep pushing until I hit diminishing returns on time spent v. liquid removed.

However, my sandwiches still are damp from sauerkraut juice, and have liquid running down the sides and making the bread soggy. It appears I am not removing enough liquid. I would rather not spend an hour squeezing the liquid out.

Is there a better way of draining the liquid from sauerkraut than the method I describe above?
At every restaurant I've ever worked at we warmed the sauerkraut on the griddle while the bread and meat were grilling. This evaporated much of the moisture in addition to making sure the sauerkraut was warm enough to not make the sandwich cold.

So we'd have the sandwich warming up open faced, cheese on each face. Then meat and sauerkraut would be warming individually. Once the bread was crisp and the meat/sauerkraut were warmed up you'd place the meat one piece of grilled bread, then the sauerkraut, then you'd squeeze on either mustard, thousand or Russian dressing and then top with the other piece of bread.