How to make Sauerkraut!

How to make Sauerkraut

Ingredients:

8 cups finely chopped cabbage, purple or green

1 tbsp. Himalayan or sea salt

 

Wash and drain cabbage well.  Cut off any outer leaves that don’t look good.  Cut and save one of the nicer leaves and put it to the side.

Add the sliced cabbage into a large mixing bowl, along with the salt.  Massage the salt into the cabbage.  Try grabbing handfuls and squeezing it like a sponge.  Repeat until cabbage starts to get soft.

The cabbage will produce a juice from squeezing.  Do not drain the juice!  That will allow the cabbage to ferment.

Massage until the cabbage is the consistency of being steamed.

Get a few handfuls of cabbage and stuff it into a mason jar and add a bit of the juice, just on top.  Press the cabbage down as tightly as you can with something, and continue to pack the cabbage in until the jar is full.  Add some more juice.

Take the piece of cabbage you set aside earlier and fold it up so that it will fit inside the mouth of the jar.  Use it almost like a lid.

Put the lid on and leave it out at room temperature for about 4 days.  Keep out of direct sunligt.

Be sure to take the lid off once a day to release any gasses that may build up from the fermentation process.

You can start taste testing around day 3 or 4 until it has a taste you like!  Once it’s there, put it in the fridge to slow down the fermentation process.