Homemade Fermented Sauerkraut

Did you know that the sauerkraut you buy in the shops is definitely not the real thing? Usually it's just cabbage in water and vinegar. Authentic sauerkraut is fermented and contains only cabbage and salt - with maybe some herbs. The lactobacilli bacteria that naturally lives on the surfaces of the cabbage works to create a wonderfully tasty true pickled taste which is very different to vinegar and has a lot of health benefits, too. It becomes a 'probiotic' like the yoghurt products you can buy in the shops, but obviously without all the added sugar! Sometimes you will find true sauerkraut in the shops but it's almost always been pasteurised, which kills all of the beneficial bacteria and thus makes it almost pointless.

In the world of home fermenting, we want to learn to work with, and not against, the naturally occurring beneficial bacteria - it is surprising that we don't sterilise the equipment we are going to use: namely a jar and something to smush-down the cabbage inside the jar (we use a wooden rolling-pin). Instead, we just give them a good clean with normal washing-up liquid and rinse them thoroughly. An interesting thing about lacto-fermentation is that if done correctly, the good bacteria will completely crowd out any small amounts of undesirable bacteria during the fermentation process, and the lactic acid produced by the good bacteria kills putrefying types. Also, we want as much of the lactobacilli as possible to make it all work! Just make sure you buy organic cabbage to prevent chemicals getting in and spoiling the fun. 

Okay - to the method!

Just wash your cabbage. Either colour works well but in my opinion red has a more satisfying texture. And it looks nice. Now cut it in half and cut out the core (very nice to eat raw actually).

Now just take a nice sharp knife and shred the two halves of the cabbage. Cutting the cabbage finely will help it get broken up during the next step which is to knead and crunch it with your hands. 

Next put the shredded cabbage into a big bowl (it will reduce down a lot shortly - don't panic) and add 1 teaspoon of sea salt or other unprocessed salt for each 1kg of your prepared cabbage. It's not too important to be very precise. Now, get in there with your hands and really squeeze and crunch the cabbage until you start to draw out plenty of liquid as pictured below. Do this for as long as you can; the more liquid bought out at this stage the better. 

Once you've got plenty of liquid at the bottom of your bowl, transfer it along with the cabbage into a large jar. Now it's time to get your wooden rolling-pin or other wooden heavy instrument and bash and grind down the cabbage for around another 5-10 minutes until the liquid is sufficient to completely cover the cabbage. This is important as exposed cabbage may get mould in the fermentation processing time and spoil the batch and all your hard work! 

 

Once that's done, simply cover the jar with its lid and squeeze tightly closed - fermentation is an anaerobic process and too much oxygen might spoil the process.

Now just leave the jar in a room-temperature place for at least two weeks, slightly loosening the lid around every 3-4 days to allow the gases to escape. If you can wait for more than two weeks, your sauerkraut will taste even better, but it will still taste great after two weeks.