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To Make Sauerkraut
The following interesting particulars as to the German practice in regard to the preparation of sauerkraut are drawn from "German National Cookery." The finest and hardest white cabbages must be chosen, and the color will be improved if they are allowed to lie heaped together in a cool corner for several days before being used. The cutting is usually done with an instrument called a kohlhobel (cabbage-plane). Instead of this a large knife will do. Throw away the outer leaves of the cabbages, and halve and quarter them. Cut out the stalks and larger ribs of the leaves. Begin at the top of the head to cut them across in very narrow strips. Have ready a well-seasoned oak barrel or pickling-tub, or an earthen bread-pan would do. Cover the bottom of the vessel with clean cabbage leaves, throw in the cabbage as it is cut, sprinkle it with salt, equally dispersed as it is thrown in. Many scatter in a few juniper-berries or caraway-seeds. As the shred cabbage is put into the tub, it should be stamped down hard with a club. When all is packed close strew a little salt over the top, cover it with a few cabbage leaves, and then with a clean linen cloth. Put on it a wooden lid that will fit inside the vessel, and lay on this a heavy stone. Do not put the "kraut-stand" in too cool a place till fermentation has begun; this may be known by small white globules forming on the brine, which ought to appear above the kraut after a day or two. If this is not the case, boil salt and water, let it get cold, and then pour it over. This latter must not be a strong brine. A good handful of salt is enough to allow for a large bucket or firkin of cut cabbage; too much prevents fermentation. In a fortnight the cloth on the top must be well washed in cold water, and spread over again. At the same time the leaves on the top must either be well rinsed also or renewed. This washing must be done once every week, whether kraut is taken out or not. In two or three weeks it is pickled enough for use, and will keep good for a year.
A straightforward dry-salt lacto-fermentation, described at a time when every detail was assumed to be common knowledge. Two things the original leaves vague — the salt ratio and the fermentation temperature — are the two things that decide whether the crock succeeds.
- Salt by weight, not by handful"A good handful for a large bucket" is the weakest instruction here. Modern practice is 2 to 2.5 percent salt by the weight of trimmed cabbage, which for 5 lb of shredded cabbage is roughly 1.5 to 2 oz, best weighed rather than spooned. Below about 1.5 percent the ferment turns soft and off-smelling; above 3 percent it stalls, exactly as the text warns.
- Salt typeUse pickling, kosher or plain sea salt. Table salt with iodine and anti-caking agents will cloud the brine and can slow fermentation.
- A firkinA firkin is about 9 imperial gallons — roughly 40 litres. The recipe is written for a household batch of many pounds of cabbage; scale the salt to weight rather than trying to match the vessel.
- The kohlhobelA cabbage-plane is a wooden board with angled blades, essentially a large mandoline. A mandoline, a food processor slicing disc, or a sharp knife against a halved quarter all give the same 1/16 to 1/8 inch shreds. Even thickness matters more than thinness.
- VesselA glazed stoneware crock, a food-grade plastic bucket or a wide-mouth glass jar all work. Avoid bare metal and reactive glazes; the brine is acidic enough to leach. The "well-seasoned oak barrel" is period equipment, not a requirement.
- Temperature"Not too cool a place" means about 65–72F for the first few days to start fermentation, then somewhere cooler, 55–65F, for the long haul. Above about 75F the kraut softens and sours fast; below 50F it may never start.
- Brine must cover the cabbageThis is the hinge. Pounding with a club draws the cabbage's own liquid out; the recipe expects the brine to stand above the shreds after a day or two, and to stay there. If it does not, top up with cooled weak salt water as the text directs. Cabbage exposed to air will grow mould rather than ferment.
- The weekly cloth washingThe cloth-and-stone arrangement needs the rinsing described because it is open to the air. A modern water-seal crock or an airlock lid does the same job without weekly attention. If you use the old method, skim any surface film promptly; a fuzzy or coloured mould means discard the batch.
- Timing and yieldTwo to three weeks at cool room temperature gives a mild kraut; four to six weeks gives the fuller sour flavour most people expect. Five pounds of cabbage yields roughly 2 quarts. "Keeps good for a year" assumed a cold cellar — refrigerate finished kraut, where it holds for months.
Sauerkraut is preserved cabbage in its plainest form: shredded, salted, and left to its own lactic bacteria. The technique is old and widespread across central and eastern Europe, and it is often said to have reached Europe from further east, though that route is traditional rather than documented. The kohlhobel named here was, on this account, a standard piece of domestic equipment, and the winter "kraut-stand" in the cellar was ordinary rather than remarkable. This entry does not adapt the method but quotes a German source, complete with the juniper berries and caraway. By the late nineteenth century German immigration had made sauerkraut familiar in much of the United States.