Sauerkraut or fermented cabbage is one of the easiest lacto-fermented foods to make and a great place to start your home fermented foods journey.
Sauerkraut was made famous because before the age of refrigerators, sailors that spent a long time at sea would become very sick and possibly die from vitamin deficiency as they would get a disease called by a lack of vitamins called scurvy.
However sauerkraut, made by lacto fermenting thinly sliced cabbage in its own natural juices is rich in vitamin C, which (although unknown at the time) prevents scurvy.
And while raw cabbage contains some Vitamin C the process of lacto fermentation increases the amount of vitamin C considerably in lacto fermented cabbage.
The power of sour!
Making fermented cabbage in a fermentation crock is super simple about 4 steps should do it!
How to make Fermented Sauerkraut (Fermented Cabbage)
- Thinly slice the cabbage (no not super thin like matchsticks just as thin as you feel like – it doesn’t really matter – but 4-5mm is good). To fill a 1 litre fermentation crock you will need about 1 medium sized cabbage or 600-700g.
- Add salt (pure salt like sea salt not table salt) to the cabbage (refer How Much Salt should I Use – Guidelines) so 1 kilo of cabbage needs 30g of salt so 700g of cabbage needs about 21 grams of salt.
- Massage salt into cabbage and leave for at least 1 hour, leaving it for longer makes the next step easier!
- Scrunch the cabbage vigorously between your fingers until you get a fair bit of juice out – it’s a little bit of hard work – a couple of minutes should do it.
- Plonk it in your fermentation crock and put the weights inside to keep the cabbage under the level of the salty water (the brine).
- Put the lid on the crock and fill the lid rim with water and if the room temperature is around 21°C or 70°F leave for 3 weeks before tasting! I am sorry fermenting is for patient people! (You can check after 4 days – it should smell sour and the cabbage should taste a bit sour too. Then pop the lid back on and leave alone you naughty person you!)