When it comes to Sauerkraut, most diners can be easily divided into two camps – those who love it, and those who had Polish sauerkraut in NYC and hated it. The recipe and tips below are for German Sauerkraut, a modest and much tastier variation of the stuff you get on your hot dog, and a great thing to make at home.

Basics

Sauerkraut, like Kimchi (only a distant relation in taste), is produced by pickling (lacto-fermenting) a leafy vegetable in a brine of its own juices and salt. Due to the anaerobic nature of the fermentation process and the natural bacteria thriving in the brine, it’s a safe and healthy food, great for keeping around in a dark and cool corner of the house, ready to be served with a multitude of pork dishes or sausages.

Chemically, Sauerkraut is a little miracle show of its own. Fermentation happens in three stages, each of which produces its own pH range, initially supporting, later killing, the bacteria required for it. It also happens from the “inside”, using bacteria already present on raw cabbage – no additional tools or substances required.

Setup

Like always, when working with a pickled good, cleanliness is key. Both the pickling jar (I suggest at least one gallon, either plastic or stone) and your working surface and tools should be as clean as the Queen’s buttocks, as they say in London. Scrub with 2 per cent chlorine solution, then rinse everything in steaming hot water.

You need:

• Cabbage – for your first try I’d suggest about 5lbs
• Salt
• a pickling container
• spices: caraway seeds, dill seeds, celery seeds

Prep

1. Using a knife or box grater, chop or grate the cabbage, heart in or out, coarsely. Place into pickling container. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of salt onto each layer of chopped cabbage.
2. Add some caraway seeds, dill seeds, and celery seeds as well.
3. Push the whole thing down hard. I’m using a potato masher, but your fists, feet, hands, or any other implement work equally well. Just compact it really, really, well.
4. Add the next head of cabbage, season, pack. Repeat.

Fermenting it

1. After all the cabbage and spices are in the pickling container, place a plate or anything else able to fit snugly on top of the cabbage inside the container. Push down hard to squeeze water out of the cabbage, creating the brine we’ll ferment the sauerkraut in.
2. Place something heavy (I am using a ziptop-bag wrapped brick) on top of the plate. Cover the container with a towel to keep dirt, dust, flies, and anything else out.
3. Place container into a cool and dark area of the house. I have mine in a corner of the kitchen.
4. For the first day, check on your cabbage every other hour. Push down on the plate until the brine covers the cabbage and rises a little bit above it.
5. If your brine doesn’t come up above the kraut, mix a little bit of salt water and add it to the container.
6. Every day or so check on the container. Push down the plate some more.
7. If mold appears on the surface of the brine, don’t freak. This is normal where air touches the solids in the brine. Simply skim off as much as you can, wash down the plate in hot, soapy, water and clean well. Make sure no soap residue remains. Place plate back, and wait.
8. As the cabbage ferments it will lose volume. That, too, is normal and doesn’t mean the “cabbage is rotting away” as one person once told me.

After a while, depending on temperature and cabbage, you’ll get your first scoop of sauerkraut. Simply keep tasting the cabbage and if it starts tasting sour, fresh, and still crunchy, you’re ready to go. You can take parts of the kraut from the brine without having to use or store it all, but if the kraut starts to lose its crunch and becomes a little too sour for your taste, removing the remainder and storing it in a bit of brine in the fridge will keep it for another month or two. Cold will also slow down fermentation, so your kraut will stay fresher, longer.

Serve with most any pork dish or sausages. A personal favorite of mine is to warm up some kraut with two slices of pineapple, medium dice, and half a fine dice Granny Smith apple. Serve with BBQ pork and watch happy people make happy faces.