Make Your Own Sauerkraut

Now to make sauerkraut is very easy as in you only need two ingredients and lots and lots of time. Sauerkraut means “sour cabbage" and is produced in Poland Germany and Russia in fact in any number of countries. It is finely cut cabbage that has been fermented, a cooking process that fell out of favour over her in Briton for some years but is gaining in popularity once more. Sauerkraut has a very distinctive flavour and a long shelf life.  And it keeps for ages in a air tight jar.

For you basic Sauerkraut you will need

2.5gk/ 5lbs hard white cabbage

3 sea salt

Now the process of making Sauerkraut is called lacto-fermentation, now this sound technical but it is just pickling by any other name . Basically you use the yeast of the cabbage and air born bacteria to do the work. And do not worry because I use a word like bacteria in cooking . When there was no such thing as  frozen food, supermarkets and no way of getting fresh food in the long cold winters sauerkraut provided a source of nutrients. In fact Captain James Cook always took sauerkraut on his voyages, to help prevented scurvy. Versions of sauerkraut appeared in China and it cane into Europe by Genghis Khan. Apparently the Tartars carried it in there saddlebags as they swept across Europe. Considering this that is why it probably took root in mainly Eastern European cuisines.

Now lacto-fermentation happens in three stages , the first is anaerobic bacteria lead to fermentation and produces an acidic environment that favours later bacteria. In the second phase the acid levels become too high for many bacteria. And in the third stage the fermentation of any remaining sugars, lowering the pH. Now all this sounds very complicated but it just happens naturally all you have to do is keep an eye on it and not let it get to warm or to cold. The ideal temperature is about 21c or 70f so about room temperature or just above. So basically the sugar in the cabbage ferments in to vinegars, the cabbage contains the natural lacto-bacteria so you do not have to do anything to help the fermentation take place.

Now you do not have to use salt but it does give it some flavour. Now if you are using good hard white cabbage then all you need to do is remove the outside leaves and give it a bit of a wash. Make sure that it is free from all dirt or soil on the outside.

Take your cabbage and cut it in to quarters then in to eights. Then shred this as fine as you can and mix with the salt. Make sure that the salt is worked in to the cabbage so you have a good mix. Now you need to put the mix in a bowl. Now it should make its own juice but if it does not after the first day or so add a little water, not a lot a little. Just cover with a cloth and let it sit on the side and do it thing.

After about 2 or 3 days cover it with a clean cloth. Then weight the cabbage down with a plate or something like that and something on the plate to press the cabbage down. Check the sauerkraut daily to see if a white scum is forming. Do not worry if it does that is just part of the process.  Remove a white scum as it forms then replace with another clean cloth. Best to use a cloth that has just been in boiling water just to make sure that you are not introducing anything that should not be there. Now if you have it in a room at a constant 21c/70f it should take about 10 to 14 days but if colder it will take longer. Whatever you do, do not let it get to hot 27c to 80f will make it ferment to fast and it will go mushy.

Once you have master it you can make it with red cabbage, flavour it with spices and keep it for several moths in an air tight jar.