Santa brought me a book this year on natural fermentation. In it, among other strangely interesting things to rot, is sauerkraut. Home fermented sauerkraut is a completely different beast than store bought. Not only is the flavor different but it is still alive. Yes, that is what I said. Alive.
Home fermented sauerkraut teems with live lactobacilli and what give it its sour taste is lactic acid, a byproduct of these lactobacilli living out their happy little lives feeding on the cabbage. This zombie sauerkraut is reputed to be very healthy, I am not sold on this but it tastes good.
Sauerkraut
10 pounds Cabbage (Green, Red, Nappa, Bok Choi, whatever)
5 tablespoons salt
2 gallon crock or food-grade plastic bucket
1 plate that fits inside the crock/bucket
1 weight (clean rock, jug of water, etc.)
kitchen towel to put over everything to keep out the bugs.
1. Shred cabbage. I used the rotary shredder attachment for my mixer. You can also do it with a knife, mandolin or grater. Put the shredded cabbage in the largest bowl you have.
2. Sprinkle the cabbage with the salt. Mix well with you hands.
3. Load it into you crock or bucket (the cabbage, not the bowl). Mash it down with a tamper of some sort. You can use a potato masher, clean length of 2x4 or even your fists. The salt draws out water from the cabbage and you want that water to rise to the top so no air gets to the cabbage.
4. Put the plate on top of the cabbage and the weight on the plate. This will keep the cabbage under the brine. Then top the whole thing with a towel and let it sit in a warm spot for a few days.
5. Once every few days skim the scum off the top of the brine and rinse it off the weight. Try to get any mold off the top if it appears as well.
6. After 4-6 weeks you should have sauerkraut. I usually portion and freeze it. You can also boiling-bath-can it because it is acidic enough or just eat the whole batch and use the juice to seed a new batch.
7. Sauerkraut juice also tastes good in a bloody mary BTW.
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