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Homemade sauerkraut in a glass jar
Angela Braun

Traditional Sauerkraut

A simple, down-to-earth recipe for traditional sauerkraut.
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Time to ferment 5 days
Course: Preserve
Cuisine: German
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1.5 kg white cabbage (1 - 2 heads)
  • 1 tbsp sea salt without additives or anticaking agents

Equipment

  • Cutting board
  • Sharp knife or a food processor or kraut slicer
  • large bowl
  • Kraut tamper or a clean bottle or just your fist
  • Jars with lids or
  • Sauerkraut pot
  • Weights

Method
 

  1. Sterilize the sauerkraut pot or the jars and lids. You can read up here, how to do that properly.
  2. Cut the cabbage head lengthwise in half and quarter it. Remove the outer leaves and put them to the side; we'll need them later.
  3. Now you can generously cut off the stalk part, which is too hard (and bland) to make sauerkraut from. Weigh the cabbage.
  4. Finely slice the cabbage quarters, either with a knife, in the food processor or with your kraut slicer.
  5. Put the cabbage slices in a large bowl.
  6. Now, add salt to the cabbage, roughly 1 tablespoon of salt per 1.5 kilograms of cabbage.
  7. Roughly mix the salt into the slices and taste them. It should be salty but not oversalted.
  8. Start kneading the cabbage slices thoroughly to break open the cell structure and knead the salt in. This takes some time; the larger the amount of cabbage, the longer. The slices will lose volume during this process, lose their usually opaque appearance and become glassy, and brine will form. If you can't for the life of you squeeze out enough liquid from the cabbage - after a fair amount of wrestling with it, of course - cover the bowl, let it rest for 45 minutes and knead it again.
  9. Put a handful of the cabbage into the kraut pot or a jar and press it thoroughly down with your fists, a clean bottle or the kraut tamper. It's important to apply sufficient pressure to get all the air bubbles out. Fermentation only works without oxygen, so if there's air in the jars, the kraut will spoil. While pressing you can see the brine welling up.
  10. Alternately add cabbage and press it in with the bottle or tamper until the pot or jar is full. Leave room to the edge of about 2 cm (1 inch). I know that some people recommend leaving more room in the jars but I found that the risk of spoilage due to too much residual oxygen in the glass, even after fermentation, is higher.
  11. Now, take one of the outer cabbage leaves you put aside earlier, rinse it and cut it so that it can cover the cabbage in the jar. Put a weight on top and thus fix the cabbage slices under the brine.
  12. Close the jar with a lid but don't screw it too tightly. When the fermentation process starts, it's likely the brine bubbles out of the jar and that works best when the lid is still a bit loose.
  13. Put the jars in a place without direct sunlight and at temperatures between 15 and 22°C (60 - 70 °F). After a few days, the brine begins to bubble and foam, and it usually presses out of the jars. Now's the time when you're glad you put the jars on a baking tray.
  14. Let the cabbage ferment for about 5 - 7 days (the colder the place, the longer the fermentation process takes, which can be up to 14 days). Check the jars daily and fill up with brine if necessary.
  15. You can either taste the kraut and - when it's to your liking - store it in a cooler place of about 8 - 12 °C (45 - 55 °F) or you wait until the initial process of bubbling over is finished and put it in a cooler place then.

Notes

Closed jars can be stored in a cool, dark (but not necessarily pitch-black) place for up to one year.
Once you've opened a jar, put it in the fridge and consume it within 1 - 2 weeks.