Making your own sauerkraut

Savez-vous planter les choux à la mode, à la mode… Do you know this children´s song about planting cabbage? And do you know how to make sauerkraut?

Down our way, the cabbage is cut into thin slices. The Chinese use them whole. Each country has its own method and recipes, but whatever the case, the principle remains the same – it needs to be lacto-fermented.
Don’t worry – it happens all by itself!

How to proceed
For 5 kg of cabbage, use 50g of salt, 2 soup spoons of juniper berries and 1 soup spoon of cumin.

Wash your cabbage, remove the cores and keep a few nice leaves to one side. Using a cabbage cutter, chop the cabbage into fine slices.

Put a first layer that is 5 cm thick into the bottom of your pot and sprinkle it with salt, a little juniper and cumin.

Use a pestle to press down and make the juice and air come out.

Repeat the operation until the pot is 4/5 full (leave enough room for the stones).

Cover with the remaining leaves, place the stones, add a little water to the sealing rim and close the jar.

The preparations are now finished.

To ensure that the process begins correctly, keep your pot at room temperature for 5 to 7 days, and then put it somewhere cool, in a cellar for example. Your sauerkraut will be ready in 1 month, but you can keep it for several months and even up to one year if it is completely submerged in its juices. It will only get better with time.

The material:

Stoneware pots. Enamelled and lead free, they are equipped with a water sealed lid: bacteria in the air cannot get in!

The cabbage cutter. This large mandolin slicer has three blades. Place the cabbage in the sliding wood frame and with each push the blades cut three slices in one go.

The pestle. Made from solid beech wood, you can easily pat down your cabbage to get the juice that is essential for lacto-fermentation.

Find out more:
there are 2 books about lacto-fermentation available.
Méthode pratique de lacto-fermentation by Annelies Schöneck and Des aliments aux mille vertus by Claude Aubert and Jean-James Garreau
You can also see our feature How doe lacto-fermentation work/