My first thought was that she had a point--organic sauerkraut on the shelf is pricey, and fresh sauerkraut is shockingly pricey--but making sauerkraut must surely be a massive chore. I already dread the cooking chores I do now, like when I make pizza sauce; it always seems so thankless to do this all alone in the kitchen after a long day. But I looked online for instructions on how to ferment sauerkraut, and I became excited by the prospect! Furthermore, the effort required isn't too onerous, and the return is substantial. I have fermented several batches of sauerkraut now, I have worked out most of the details, and I want to pass along my accumulated knowledge so that you can ferment your own sauerkraut.
Equipment
I don't mind paying for quality, but I'm big on cheap stuff. You can find specially-formed sauerkraut stoneware crocks with weighting stones to hold the sauerkraut under the brine, but you can get fine results with good equipment costing a lot less. Some people will recommend 1-quart glass jars, but I have discovered that one cabbage will yield over a gallon of kraut when chopped, and it is a lot easier to manage one large container (as long as you can still lift it) rather than several small ones. The popularity of homebrewing is your friend here, because I got most of this stuff at my friendly local homebrewing supply store for less than $30:
2 Gallon Plastic Fermenter with a drilled lid ~$10
This is a food-grade 2-gallon plastic bucket with a handle. The lid is airtight enough for our needs, with a rubber grommet inside the rim. There is a hole drilled in the top for an airlock; this hole is also fitted with a rubber grommet which grips the airlock nicely.
S-Bubble Airlock $2
This is a one-piece airlock made of transparent plastic with an S-trap. You pour liquid in the top to the fill line. Easy to operate, but not so easy to scrub out, should you ever need to do so.
STAR SAN $10
This is a sanitizing cleaner. It's a syrupy super-concentrated organic acid; you will dilute about a teaspoon of this per 16 ounces of water, and you will not even need 16 ounces of this cleaner to spray out your equipment. It tends to generate a lot of foamy bubbles, so STAR SAN enthusiasts encourage you: "don't fear the foam" because it breaks down on contact with oxygen, and any residue should be digestible by microbes during fermentation. Because it's super-concentrated, a small bottle will last you a long time.
Chemical Resistant Spray Sanitizer Bottle - 16oz $4
Spraying is the easiest way I have found to apply STAR SAN.
Vodka for the airlock
You want liquid filling the airlock's S-trap which will not promote yeast growth, but which will not poison nor add funny flavors to your sauerkraut. I got cheap 100-proof Vodka from my friendly local liquor store.
Plate for the fermenter
Cabbage is slightly buoyant, and you want to hold the sauerkraut under a layer of brine. You can find special ceramic "stones" and pretty glass discs for this, but I found a cheap ceramic dinner plate works well enough; just find a circular plate that fits in your fermenter and won't float. I got mine at Target.
You'll also need knives and a cutting board for cutting cabbage, wooden spoons for stirring kraut, a quart measuring cup for dissolving brine.
Groceries
1 head of cabbage (makes over a gallon of kraut)
There are lots of cabbages you can use for this: red, white, savoy, etc. Red cabbage will turn the liquid a bright magenta color. I usually use a regular greenish head of white cabbage from the produce aisle.
Salt (NOT IODIZED)
You can use sea salt, or kosher salt, or even special sauerkraut salt which is finely ground so it dissolves quickly. Whichever salt you use, this salt MUST NOT be iodized. I have heard that iodine will turn BLACK during the fermentation process, and I suspect that it's not good to eat. You will use several tablespoons of salt per head of cabbage, so make sure you have plenty on hand.
Water
Some folks recommend special unchlorinated water. I just use tap water.
Starter Culture
I definitely recommend a starter culture. Supposedly you can make sauerkraut without a starter culture; I tried this, but fermentation was SO SLOW and my sauerkraut didn't taste very good; my grocer suggested that the cabbages at the store have been rinsed off a lot, and this may have washed away the naturally-occurring germs needed for fermentation. You can buy special vegan starter cultures, or you can use cheap yogurt starter culture like I use. Sauerkraut and yogurt are both referred to as "lacto fermented" foods; they use friendly bacteria which eat carbohydrates and produce lactic acid. Removing carbohydrates takes away food for bad germs (yeasts and molds are very bad germs for vegetables), and lactic acid slowly poisons bad germs. A good starter culture helps idiot-proof your operation and almost guarantees good results. Furthermore, a prepared starter culture typically contains several species of bacteria which operate at different levels of acidity and give a more complex taste to your sauerkraut.
Process
Sanitize
Carefully measure 1 teaspoon of STAR SAN into your 16 ounce spray bottle, and top it off with water. Shake it gently to make sure the syrupy STAR SAN gets mixed properly.
Spray your sanitizer solution all over your fermenter; 16 ounces should be plenty of sanitizer, so feel free to get it soaking wet. Make sure you get the inside of the airlock, the nooks and crannies of the lid, the plate (or stones), and so forth. Obviously make sure there are no chunks of anything or hairs or whatnot inside your fermenter parts.
Let your fermenter drain and dry out for at least 2 minutes. I try to flip everything upside-down at an angle so air can circulate. You might want to shake out the S-trap on your airlock to drain any major puddles.
Supposedly STAR SAN breaks down in contact with oxygen, so I assume that any solution left in the spray bottle will soon go bad. Don't save the leftover solution until you make more sauerkraut next month; use it up cleaning your countertop or shower or something.
Cut Cabbage
Wash your cabbage and throw out any parts that look sketchy. Store-bought sauerkraut is shredded in fine strands, but yours does not need to be so perfect; you can just chop it to half-inch flakes. In the center of the cabbage is a solid cone-shaped core; don't chop the core, just toss out the core. Put your chopped cabbage in the fermenter bucket. Like I said earlier, a good head of cabbage should give you about a gallon of kraut.
Open a packet of starter culture and sprinkle it on your chopped cabbage.
Sprinkle a tablespoon of salt on your cabbage.
Use a wooden spoon to mix up your cabbage. Make sure the starter culture and salt are spread around your batch of chopped cabbage. Feel free to get rough with the cabbage.
Place your plate (or stones) on top of your chopped cabbage. I put it in face up, to minimize any bubble under the plate.
Add brine
Put a tablespoon of salt into your quart measuring cup, top it off with water, stir it so the salt dissolves, and pour it over your chopped cabbage. Repeat this with quart after quart of brine until there is an inch of brine covering your chopped cabbage.
Seal it
Put the lid on your fermenter. Make sure the lid is sealed all the way around.
Before you put the airlock on, pour some vodka in the top of the airlock. The airlock should have a "fill to" line so you know when to stop. Now insert the airlock in your pre-drilled lid's rubber grommet hole.
Now put your fermenter in a cool, quiet place for about a month. Your sauerkraut is now fermenting. The fermentation might get vigorous and generate gas and foam; this could leak out the top of the fermenter and spill stinky sour liquid on the floor. If this happens, clean it up. What I'm saying is: put your fermenter on an easily-cleaned floor in your basement, NOT on top of your mom's beautiful piano.
Mark your calendar for a day 4 weeks later (or longer); this is when you should open your fermenter. Don't open it early to check on it.
Opening day
I have never had a batch of sauerkraut go truly badly, and the starter culture helps out a LOT, but you might find the following bad things:
- You might find that your fermenter has leaked brine. Clean it up. If the brine leaked out the top, then your sauerkraut is fine.
- You might find some wilted pieces of cabbage that weren't underwater. These pieces went bad; throw them out, and you can still eat the rest of your sauerkraut.
- You might find mold on the top. You should be able to scrape this mold off and still eat your sauerkraut.
- You might find your sauerkraut has turned black or dark brown. This suggests that your salt is iodized, but it could be that some other germ has taken over fermentation. I'm sorry, you should throw out your batch and DON'T EAT IT.
If you have any other problem, I cannot help you; do not write to me because I am not a diagnostic expert on this. And if you skipped a step or skimped in someway, I really don't want to hear from you.
Future Work
I can't resist tinkering with recipes, and neither should you. I have added various other vegetables, herbs, and spices to my sauerkraut with positive results, including:
- Onions
- Garlic
- Dill
- Caraway Seeds
- Carrots
- Ginger
- Chopped chili peppers
- Daikon radish
I must warn you DO NOT add fruit nor sugar before fermentation in order to sweeten your sauerkraut. Sugars feed yeast and yeast is our ENEMY in lactic acid fermentation. You can sweeten your sauerkraut when you cook it, but NOT when you ferment it.
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