How to make sauerkraut the easiest way possible
›› Ruben Anderson
Fermented foods are an effective and delicious traditional way to preserve the harvest, and they contain probiotics that aid digestion and may even have larger benefits for people with various gut conditions. If you like sauerkraut, you will love home-made sauerkraut—but the big ceramic crocks are expensive, heavy, and need daily attention while fermenting.
So, here is an unbelievably easy and inexpensive way to make sauerkraut without weights, airlocks, or maintenance while fermenting.
Buy a two litre Fido jar for $11.99 at Capital Iron. Do not use cheap home décor jars—they may crack as fermentation builds pressure, whereas the jars from Italy or France are designed for food preservation.
You need a little over 2 kilograms of cabbage. Weigh your cabbage at the store when you buy it so you can calculate how much salt to use.
One kilogram of cabbage needs 25 grams of salt, or 2.5% of the cabbage weight in salt. For sauerkraut let’s just use regular table salt—one level teaspoon weighs seven grams. Once you start fermenting pickles you will want to switch to sea salt or canning salt and then you will need a tiny scale.
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Cut the cabbage into quarters—and please be very careful. The worst knife injury I have ever seen was from slicing a giant block of cheese. The chef’s hand slid down the back of the knife and over the point, cutting him very, very badly.
Cut the core out of one quarter and slice the cabbage into ribbons about 1/8” wide. Grate the core and use it too.
In a large bowl, sprinkle one quarter of your salt evenly on the sliced quarter cabbage. Massage the salted cabbage enthusiastically to begin bringing the juice out.
Stuff the salted cabbage into the Fido jar and tamp it down so it is very, very tightly packed.
I like to thinly slice one garlic clove and scatter it over the surface of the cabbage—mixing in a few grams of caraway seeds and a few juniper berries is another traditional flavour.
Repeat with the other three quarters—slice, massage with one-quarter of the salt, pack tightly in the jar and sprinkle with a clove of garlic or other spices.
This should take you twenty minutes or so. Then you just seal the Fido jar and clean your knife.
Over the next 24 hours I might tamp the cabbage a couple of times to help it release juices—the jar should be full up to the shoulder. If the brine has not covered the cabbage by the next day, mix a teaspoon of salt in a cup of water and add enough to get an inch or so over your cabbage. This is not strictly necessary when using a Fido jar, but sauerkraut juice is healthful as well.
Once you have tamped the cabbage down and added brine if necessary, put the jar in a warm, dark cupboard so light does not degrade the nutrients. Do not put your kraut in a cool place, the fermentation bacteria need to be warm. In the first week the gas being generated will vent out past the gasket and can bring some brine with it so put your jar in a dish to catch overflow.
In Fernwood’s mild climate, we like to wait six weeks before eating. Once you have opened your jar of delicious sauerkraut, store it in the refrigerator.
Would you like to read MUCH more about this? Go to tiny.cc/sauerkraut.
