Homemade Sauerkraut: Like Hip Knitting for Foodies

Last night, I told a friend I'd made sauerkraut, and he responded by wrinkling his nose and saying "sauerkraut smells like grandmas." Yes, my generation of picky eaters, sauerkraut probably does smell like grandmas. Not my grandma; she smelled more like pumpkin pie and vanilla wafers, but I get it: saukerkraut is an old, weird food.

Whatever. If my generation of American twentysomethings had their way, food would only ever taste like shredded iceburg lettuce and heartburn-inducing pizza sauce. Like every old, weird food, saukerkraut has its time and place: on brautwursts, smothered in mustard, or in an electric frying pan making cozy with polish sausages. Or on reubens with corned beef and provalone. Mmm.

So sauerkraut may not be an every day food, but when you need it, there's no substitute, and there's no competing with the crunch and stinkiness of homemade sauerkraut. My mom's always been a fan of weird, old recipes that take years to make. Growing up, at any given time there was a) a glass tea jar full of echinacea roots and vodka in the basement cellar, b) several kombucha mushroom mothers hanging out in the fridge, c) a jar of sourdough starter fermenting on the countertop, and d) a crock of sauerkraut lurking by the mixer. Suffice to say, I'm used to having weird food ingredients hanging out, aging, which is exactly what sauerkraut does (for about 6 to 8 weeks).

It's really best to use a sauerkraut crock, but women have always been very inventive about making makeshift sauerkraut containers. My grandmother and her mother I'm sure at one point made a large batch of sauerkraut in an old bathtub. This year, mom got tired of wrestling with her 20 lb 5 gallon crock and made a batch of sauerkraut in an old gallon glass pickle jar. As long as it's nonporous and sealed, you can make sauerkraut in anything - anything you won't be using for the next 6-8 weeks, that is.

I took mom's large crock and traded it for a new 1 gallon crock I found at a gardening store in Ann Arbor.

5 gallon kraut crock

Once you pick a container, making sauerkraut is easy. Really easy. It has two ingredients:

fresh cabbage, chopped and sliced (not diced)

salt

That's it.

How many cabbages you'll need depends on how large a batch you'd like to make; if you want to experiment with just one gallon, find yourself one medium/large cabbage to start. I wanted to fill my 5 gallon crock more than halfway, so I got one large cabbage and one monster cabbage - roughly 4 and 8 pounds. When you prepare the cabbage, keep in mind you want it sliced, not finely chopped. I used my food processor's chopping blade to process the cabbage cut into small pie-shaped pieces.

Monster cabbage!

You want the salt that you use to be good quality - NOT iodized. I'm a big fan of kosher salt - it's fresher, more healthful and more flavorful than table salt.

Wash and dry the inside of the crock or container, then begin layering the sliced cabbage. Layer the cabbage evenly about one inch thick, then firmly tamp it down with a tamper or makeshift tamper (I used the end of a water glass). Press the layer down evenly so the cabbage is well packed, then sprinkle the entire layer generously and evenly with salt. Lay down another layer of cabbage and repeat this process with all the cabbage, making sure the layers are tightly packed. Make sure the container is still 1/3 empty - you'll need this space to seal the kraut.

Once the container is packed and salted, double line the inside of the crock with two heavy duty garbage bags, being sure the bags have plenty of room around the lip of the container. Press the garbage bags down in, then fill the cavity with water, taking care that no water makes its way into the container with the cabbage. Press the garbage bags down inside, packing the cabbage and sealing it off from the air.

Now, place the crock (carefully!) in a corner somewhere where you'll remember it enough to keep the water level up.

In six weeks, I'll drain the water out and taste it to see how tender and tart it is. If it tastes ready to me, I'll can it. If it still tastes bland and isn't tender enough, I'll let it mellow another two weeks.

To can the kraut, simply pack it into freshly cleaned, warm glass canning jars, seal the jars with clean, dry lids, then heat the jars in a pot full of water on the stove until warmed through. This process will probably take about 20 minutes. After the jars are removed, their seals should pop down as they cool. If the seals don't pop, you'll need to warm them longer.

Now your house, too, can smell like a grandma.