today i'm going to talk to you about how i make my sauerkraut which is really really easy because i buy it pre-shredded rather than coming up ahead of cabbage which isn't that hard to do if you have a really good sharp knife because you just basically slice down and it kind of comes apart but it does take time and this takes barely any time at all so my standard recipe calls for about four cups of shredded cabbage which is about one head of cabbage so i just buy two of these bags of crater ghost pre-shredded dump it into my favorite large bowl then i take sea salt about one tablespoon for four cups or for one large head sprinkle that in and i've done this so many times i don't even need to get out and measure it anymore and now what you do is you have to get in and you have to break it up so you can break the cell walls in the cabbage and it will start to release its liquid which is what you call the brine so after it's been sitting in the jar or your fermentation vessel the brine will rise to the top and it will cover the cabbage underneath and that is what lets it ferment and it creates that anaerobic environment in order for the uh lactobacilli to ferment the cabbage as any ferment that you're doing you're going to need to have that environment so this is already starting to weep a little bit it starts to kind of break down it gets a little bit more mushy it's not so crunchy anymore then now this is my own personal method my parents use a giant red wing croc to make theirs because they make it in huge batches we just do a weekly batch because i like mine really crispy so i like it to just go for about a week i've done batches for as long as six months which were interesting um very very fermented a little bit softer than i like and my friend told me that in germany if it's less than two years old it's they call it coleslaw so they really love their skull for a long time so now what i do is i just use one of these jars make sure it's nice and clean and i just put the cabbage in there this is a little bit messy when you're doing it but it just takes a few minutes vanilla so i put the cabbage in and now you're going to want to pack it in there really tight so get your fist in there pack it down you'll be surprised how quickly that much cabbage can disappear when you're packing it into a jar like this see and you can flavor it with all kinds of things now if you're going to do it with jalapenos which i like you're either going to want to wear gloves when you're doing this with your hands or you're going to want to avoid touching your eyes for quite a while because you will have those oils in your hands when you're breaking it down like this and you don't want to have any cuts or wounds or anything in your hands either when you're doing it another favorite one in our house that we like to add is dill fresh dill because then it tastes like a dill pickle so that's really really good we've added caraway seeds i've i actually have a recipe that i make quite often i'm using purple cabbage and beets and apples just do the same thing you just shred all this stuff you can use a food processor to the beets and apples and it has a really really nice sweet flavor and i've even added cilantro to it before based on a sauerkraut that i tried in my coop so now that we have it in make sure that all of the cabbage is pushed on from the sides anything that sticks up above the brine is likely to get moldy and now this is the technique that i do that i learned from my dad so what i do is take a food grade obviously food grade plastic bag you don't want to be using something else and i push that in there as well make sure you get it all the way around and then you pour water into that and that is what is going to act as your weight that's sitting on top of that cabbage now i leave this settled on my counter for a little while as i watch the brine rise up and make sure that the brine is all the way covered all the way to the top if it's not i'll put my hand in there i'll push it down some more add some more water watch until the brine is coming all the way up because if you have it where part of it's not covered with brine it's going to mold it's going to be gross and it'll be a botched batch so what i do once the brine has risen up and it's all set to go i just take a towel and wrap the towel around just like this and i take this and i set it on my counter over in the corner keep it protected from light and i let that sit for a week by the end of the week you just take this off take out the bag dump out the water and you're good to go and i put on a non-reactive lid you're going to want to use a plastic lid because it can rust because of the salt so you don't want to have rust in your food so i use a plastic lid stick that on put it in the fridge it lasts for a super long time one of our favorite ways to have it is um with some grass-fed hot dogs it's like having brats and crowd it's a super super easy quick meal so that's how i make my homemade sauerkraut