SAUERKRAUT HOMEMADE FERMENTING

This is soooo simple to make and soooo good for your gut health, honest ingredients and at a fraction of a shop brought jar.  A great ingredient to sneak it in your family’s sandwiches or dinners for a healthy gut boosting dose of probiotics, if like my family they turn their nose up to the offer of a fermented side dish but never turn down a melted cheese and deli meat stuffed Reuben sandwich ! Which is loaded with sauerkraut !!! Then this is they way to go !

Prep time 5 minutes / Resting time 1 hrs / Canning 5 minutes 

4-14 Days Fermentation 

Equipment ball mason wide neck jar, sauer venting lid and glass weight.

I use sauer stones and fermenting lids, from Amazon as they are worth the very small investment for doing the job properly 

over and over again.

Ingredients 

(makes 2 small ball mason jars)

1 large sweetheart cabbage or Napa cabbage

2 tbsp Himalayan sea salt

4 tbsp water if needed 

Shred the cabbage finely and place in a bowl, sprinkle over the salt and scrunch the cabbage and salt together massaging really well.  Leave to stand for a couple of hours, during this time the salt will leach out the liquid from the cabbage creating a brine liquid, this brine you will need to cover the cabbage for a successful ferment.  I can’t help myself and keep going back and massaging and squeezing the liquid out of the cabbage during the waiting time!

When your ready to jar the cabbage first sterilise your jar or jars, I bake my dry jars, sauer stones and lids in a 180 C or 356 F for 10 minutes and for this fermenting process I leave the jars to cool.

Once your cabbage has released it’s brined liquid pack the cabbage into your sterilised jars, push the cabbage down really tight so it is really compact, pour over enough brine to cover the cabbage by at least one inch.  This is important as any exposed cabbage can grow the wrong bacteria.

Once you have packed the cabbage as tight as you can place the sterilised glass weight on top, screw on the lid and leave in a cool place out of direct sunlight after 5 days you can check the taste of your fermented cabbage, I generally leave mine until day 7 as I find this has the best balance tang of freshness with a hint of sweetness, this will be personal to you, more sour less fermented day etc.

You can see the cabbage has become paler in colour and you will see some bubbles rising to the surface this is a good indication that your sauerkraut is fermenting well and ready to store and eat.

Once your fermented cabbage is to your liken place in the fridge and enjoy your own healthy fermented gut protecting sauerkraut on its own or stuffed into a classic Reuben sandwich or cheese melt

I start a new fresh batch every 7-10 days so I have a continuous supply.