To me Sauerkraut is easily the best beginners ferment! You learn so many of the basics while building your confidence and end up with a tasty result. It's a great base recipe too - you can experiment with different flavours and is the base of my Scrap-chi recipe.
My free Ebook covers the need-to-know stuff (including how I sterilise jars) - so I won't double up here. I highly recommend you check it out, especially if you're new to all this!
I will cover a few of the basics for those who are learning.. if you just want the recipe you can skip to the bottom 🙂
S A L T
P E R C E N T A G E
One absolute essential of fermenting is calculating salt percentages. It's much easier in grams!
For Sauerkraut I aim for 1.5-2% salt by weight.
Once you've cut up all the cabbage you're using, weigh the total amount in grams.
If you ended up with 1340g cabbage total, multiply by .015, and you will get the quantity of salt you need ie. 1340 x 0.015 = 20.1g salt
If you're using additional ingredients (like jalapeños for example), count it towards your total weight.
SO WHAT DO YOU NEED?
Cabbage
Sterilised Jar(s) with lid
In this video I used a ~900ml jar and it perfectly fit ~1kg of cabbage
Fermentation weight
available here
Salt
non-iodised, finely ground is best
Pounder
you can use a rolling pin or something similar, so long as it's clean.
M E T H O D
1. Get prepared - make sure your equipment is clean and your jars are sterilised.
2. Remove the core and any dead leaves from your cabbage and thinly slice it. It doesn't really matter how you do this - so long as it is fairly consistent. The thicker parts of the cabbage (closer to the core) can be cut finer as they take longer to soften... This will make your life easier!
3. Weigh all the cabbage in grams. This is easiest on a digital scale where you can us the tare function.
4. Calculate the amount of salt you need as above (remember its the total weight in grams x 0.015)
5. Add the salt to the cabbage and massage it in - this takes a good 10-15 minutes. The salt will dissolve, water will start to leech out of the cabbage and it will become soft. You know its done when it's reduced in size (at least halved) and is very wet. You should be able to pick up a handful and squeeze like a wet sponge. At this point you can mix any spices or flavourings in (see below).
6. Tightly pack the cabbage into you sterilised jar and use your pounder to compress it further, this is also helpful to get the air bubbles out as you go. There should be a ~2cm space at the top. When you're getting close, pour in the remaining brine liquid - this should cover the cabbage.
7. Clean the rim of the jar, then top with a fermentation weight to keep the cabbage below the brine as it ferments. Tighten the lid and store in a cool, dark place.
8. Leave to ferment for 10-21 days. Don't forget to burp your jar - to release built up gases that are formed during fermentation. Using clean hands you can open the jar, lift the weight and sample your kraut. Work quickly and cleanly as you don't want too much oxygen getting in. I personally don't check until fermentation has slowed - around day 8-10, but this depends on the climate and your personal taste.
9. Remove the weight and move the jar to the fridge when you're happy with the taste and enjoy!
V A R I A T I O N S
There are a million ways you can flavour your kraut! a few of my personal favourites are:
Jalapeno Kraut
I smoke, remove the skins then slice fresh jalapeños. I use ~2 per kg of cabbage. Be sure to add their weight as part of the salt calculation in step 4.
Spices
A little goes a long way! For most spices, start with a maximum of 1/2 tsp per kg of cabbage
Caraway, Coriander, juniper berries, peppercorns - you can pretty much add any combination you like!
Fennel seeds and chilli flakes are a favourite of mine.