SauerKraut 101:

The glorious tangy and crisp fermented cabbage we know and love (some of you are haters but that will change) is really a very simple first foray into the world of fermenting foods. It is really as simple as it comes, you slice cabbage, add salt, put it in a jar and let it do its thing, then after a few short weeks you end up with a delicious food that keeps for extended periods, is full of probiotics and key vitamins for your body to flourish. The big ticket items to point out here are the high levels of vitamin C as well as Vitamin K, the total list of vitamins are: Vitamin A, B vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin K and Vitamin U. The minerals are iron, potassium, iodine, calcium, magnesium, manganese and sodium with trace amounts of others!

Cabbage has a decent amount of vitamin C but when fermented those numbers multiply drastically, some reports up to 700mg per one cup serving! The Vitamin K levels are also fascinating to me as it is not the most common in easily stored foods, with reports of sauerkraut containing 10mcg the Vitamin K2 per serving. If you didn’t know, Vitamin K2 is an essential vitamin for aiding the proper processing of Vitamin D in your system so to speak.

I could go on and on but back to actually making it. In my research I have found two primary methods of making Sauerkraut:

1- Dry salting and mashing

2- Brining

The dry salting and mashing method is the most traditional method for the united states, going all the way back through the colonial period. In this method you thinly slice or shred your cabbage, weigh it, sprinkle salt over the cabbage in a 2% ratio by weight of cabbage, then massage in the salt so that it begins releasing the liquids from the cabbage. Once the liquids are releasing you begin adding the salted cabbage to your fermentation vessel, whether it be a crock or jar or barrel or whatever. As you add your cabbage you very firmly mash it with the goal of releasing more and more of the cabbages liquid, you continue mashing and adding until your vessel is full, leaving enough space at the top for the liquid to fully cover the cabbage, ideally 1.5-2 inches. If done properly you will have extracted enough liquid from your cabbage that it will fully cover and submerge your cabbage to the ideal level. Then add a weight to the top of your cabbage inside of the jar to keep it submerged, cover with a lid and air lock for a nice clean sealed environment, or cover with a covering of plastic wrap and band.

The brining method looks to be the most common throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe. In this method, you thinly slice or shred your cabbage, stuff into your jar tightly packed and fill with a salt water brine solution all the way up to the same optimum fill height, 1.5-2 inches above your cabbage and then the same way as the previous method, add your fermentation weight and seal. Now the big question is how do you come up with your brine solution? Well the formula I have had great success with is a 2% salt by total weight solution. For this you have to do a little bit of basic weights and measures, you get a tare weight of your fermentation vessel so that you aren’t messed up later on, tightly pack your jar with cabbage, fill with fresh clean water then weigh the jar, subtracting the weight of the empty vessel so that you have the accurate net weight of the contents (the cabbage and water) then calculate a 2% by weight measurement of salt, drain the water into a bowl, mix in the salt until dissolved and pour back into the jar, fully covering the cabbage.

For the ease of simplicity I firmly recommend you weigh everything and do your calculations in grams, it makes it all so so sooo much easier. If you have 2000g of cabbage you want to dry salt and mash, you simply calculate your 2% salt weigh by; 2000 x .02 = 40g

If you are brining and have 3500g of cabbage and water total, you just do 3500 x .02 = 70g

It is really easy, don’t complicate it with ounces and tablespoons and all that nonsense. Use scientific measurements and the world is your oyster.

Between the two methods I personally prefer the brining method, it keeps the cabbage very crisp as you are not mashing and bruising it, as well as preventing the oxidation that occurs in the dry salt and mashing method. I find the brining method has a much more clean and refreshing tang to it as well. While there is the extra steps of filling with water, weighing, pouring out, mixing and refilling, it is still far less labor and time than the mashing method. However, you cannot fit quite as much cabbage in each vessel in the brining method as you can mashing, consider this if space is a tremendous issue to you.

So now that your cabbage is salted, stuffed in a vessel and submerged under your brine the fermentation can begin. Activity will begin quickly, the speed dependent on the ambient temperatures of the area you are fermenting. I ferment in my basement where temps are around 65 degrees F. You can ferment in your kitchen but keep the vessel out of direct light as the UV light will kill bacteria and inhibit fermentation. It is best to just let it do its thing, give it at least 3 weeks, checking sparingly just to be sure you do not have a negative bacterial growth happening or that the cabbage is no longer submerged, this is important because cabbage rising above the brine will have the possibility to rot. The old saying is “under the brine everything is fine”. If you find that your liquid has begun to barely cover the surface, mix a up a 2% salt brine solution and simply pour in to restore to the desired full level, I tend to just keep things full nearly to the brim.

If you notice a colored mold growth on the top of your fermentation you may be in for trouble and should do some research, or play it safe and toss the fermentation and start fresh. A white mold looking layer is relatively common and is generally no cause for concern. A big point here is to leave the fermentation alone as much as possible, the more you open it to peak around the more you are exposing it to oxygen, the mortal enemy of this ferment.

The ferment can easily take 6-8 weeks to reach the correct level of acidity and breakdown of the cabbage, hell you can let it go for 4 months if you want to, as long as the pH is below 4.6 the rest really comes down to taste and preference. Once you are satisfied with your fermentation, seal the jar with a solid lid or transfer the kraut into jars you can seal, such as mason jars or swing tops, then move it to your long term storing area. It really needs to be 54 degrees F or less for long term storage, so a root cellar or refrigerator are the common options.

One note here is that the tangy kick of the acidity really seems to settle in after the kraut has been moved to cooler storage temperatures, whether it be a fridge or root cellar.

Sauerkraut is a basic Lacto-Fermentation, meaning that the carbohydrates in the cabbage are broken down and consumed by Lactic Acid Bacteria, in their consumption they quickly produce Co2 and acid, the Co2 is heavier than oxygen and helps prevent bacteria growth and the acid lowers the environmental pH of the liquid which protects against food spoilage bacteria which cannot survive lower pH’s. the end result pH of a Sauerkraut should be around 3.5 pH, which is quite acidic, 4.6 pH is the food safe range, under 4.6 pH botulism bacteria cannot survive.

The Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) that perform the fermentation are not just one single strain but instead quite a large group. Every fermentation will be different due to the variance in bacteria culture present on the cabbage and the temperatures the kraut ferments at, but the dominant strains that are pretty consistently present are: Leuconostoc mesenteroides, Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus brevis. These fermentation bacteria are also the probiotics that everyone talks about in vague videos online, bacteria, probiotics are bacteria, see it’s easy to just say that. These beneficial bacteria are alive and well in your kraut so long as you do not pasteurize or can it. Canning the kraut will extend the shelf life dramatically, but it will also kill all of the beneficial bacteria, undoing one of the big perks of the kraut.

So you have Vitamins and Minerals, you have antioxidants, you have probiotics and you even get digestive enzymes in sauerkraut! see, it’s awesome so stop whining about the tangy taste or cabbage-y smell. All of the benefits of sauerkraut are what makes it such an important food staple. The history of Sauerkraut goes all the way back to Rome and it’s armies marching off to conquests, although that history was forgotten for a time, it has been present in the fermenting culture of Asia for millennia and was a core food in the American colonies since their inception. The high levels of Vitamin C made it a crucial component of the German Navy’s food supply, using it to prevent scurvy among their sailors, which is also why Germans began to be referred to as Krauts, Brits did the same thing with limes and they were called Limeys, it’s all just good old fashioned sailor diet slander humor.

All of this is to say it should be a staple in your home for improving your dietary nutrition and aiding in your pursuit of overall health! While it is not as shelf stable as a pressure canned item, when kept at root cellar temperatures it can last for quite long periods of time, some of the Romanian recipes I read claimed over 18 months! So quit piddling around, ferment some kraut and build up those food stores.

Enjoy,

Mr. Grey Pill