Sauerkraut

Quantity: 2 quarts

Ingredients

3 lb cabbage finely shredded (save 2-3 whole outer leaves for later though)

1 lb yellow onion (sliced into strips)

2 cloves garlic minced

2 1/2 tbsp non-iodized salt

(If you don't want onion or garlic in the sauerkraut, use a 4 lb cabbage instead. You will get about 1 quart of sauerkraut for every 2-2.5 lbs of vegetable matter.)

Instructions

Sanitize containers (I use 1 quart mason jars, but you can use a bucket or other large enough container). Soapy water is enough, but you could also sanitize the containers with boiling water too if you wish to. Just be careful if you use boiling water.

Put sliced cabbage, sliced onion, and minced garlic into large clean bowl. I recommend making sure the opening of the bowl is only a little bigger than a dinner plate you may have, but make sure the bowl is big enough to hold all of the dry vegetable matter.

Add the non-iodized salt to the bowl. The goal is 2-3% salt by weight. You can use the guide below if you are making a different amount than 4 lbs of sauerkraut.

With clean hands, knead, squeeze, and crush the vegetable matter in the bowl. This process will take probably 5-10 minutes. You are trying to bruise the vegetable matter by breaking its vascular system in order to release as much water as possible from the vegetable matter.

Place a plate on top of the crushed vegetable matter in the bowl and weight the plate down for 15-30 minutes. You are trying to draw out even more water by pressing it.

Put the vegetable matter in your containers (in my case, mason jars), being sure to press down the vegetable matter to fit as much into the container as you can. Add the water from the bowl into these containers as well. Your goal is to have all of the vegetable matter under the water in your container. If the water does not fully cover the vegetable matter, make some 2-3% salt by weight brine (1/3 tbsp [1 tsp] - 1/2 tbsp per cup of water) and add that to the containers until the vegetable matter is fully submerged. The guide linked below shows the amount of salt to add by weight per cup of water for brine.

Weigh down the vegetable matter in the containers. If you are using a small enough container like a 1 quart mason jar, you can use cabbage leaves to press everything down. The midvein/midrib of the cabbage leaf is a natural spring, so if you press the leaf into the container with the bowing facing downwards (so the same direction as though you were using the cabbage leaf as a bowl), the leaf may keep everything submerged in the brine. You can also use glass weights, a small sandwich bag filled with 2-3% salt by weight brine, or a non-pourous rock (if you use a rock from outside, be sure it's cleaned by scrubbing it with soapy water and boiling it for 20 minutes, you only need to scrub and boil the rock the 1 time).

Set containers in an area away from sunlight and about 55-75F (13-24C) for 2-3 weeks. You may need to "burp" the containers from time to time (1-2 times a day during heavy fermentation) to prevent carbon dioxide buildup in the containers. Burping is done by opening the lid of the containers to let the carbon dioxide gas escape and closing the lid again.

Lacto-Fermentation Salt by Weight Guide