Winter Kraut at 2.2 Percent
Winter is the right time for sauerkraut. The cabbages are dense and cheap, and the kitchen sits at a steady 17 to 19 °C with the radiator on low, which is exactly the slow, cool ferment that gives the best texture. This batch was one large white cabbage, 1.8 kg after trimming the outer leaves and the core, shredded by hand with a knife to about 3 mm, which took twenty minutes and is the only part I dislike.
Salt at 2.2 percent by weight: 40 g for 1.8 kg. I have gone as low as 1.8 percent and found the result a little soft, and as high as 2.5 and found it harsh. The salt went in by hand, and I squeezed and pounded the cabbage in a large bowl for about ten minutes until it wept enough brine to pool at the bottom. Then into the 3-liter crock, pressed down hard in layers, with two whole outer leaves on top to hold back the shreds, a ceramic weight and the water-sealed lid.
By day three it was bubbling audibly when I passed. The smell in the first week is the one that worries guests: sulfurous and sharp. It fades. At day fourteen I opened the lid to check and found a thin white film across the surface of the brine, wrinkled like skin on milk. Kahm yeast. It is harmless, but it tastes unpleasant and it means air got in, most likely because the brine level had dropped a little below the top of the weight. I skimmed it off with a spoon, topped up with 2 percent brine to cover everything by a centimeter, and wiped the rim.
No more trouble. At four weeks I tasted it: clean, sharply sour, with that slight effervescence on the tongue that fresh kraut has and shop kraut never does. The texture was perfect, crunchy without being raw. Yield just under 1.5 kg into three jars, now in the fridge, where it will carry on improving slowly for months.
I started a second crock the same day with red cabbage, a grated apple and six juniper berries, because the first one will be gone by March. The kitchen smells like a cellar and I am content.