How To Make Small Batch Sauerkraut
Small Batch Sauerkraut Recipe
My cooking style is and always will be “Measure with your heart”, but there are a few things that I’ve learned over the past years where it’s actually dangerous to try and wing it. Fermentation is one of those times.
I held off on trying to make Sauerkraut because I always thought that I needed to have room for one of those large crocks on my counter for months at a time, and that it was going to smell, and I didn’t want to wait all that time for it to just not turn out. I’m so glad I decided to find a way that worked for me and went for it!
My phone must have been listening to me one day… you know, how phones do these days, because I started seeing ads for tabletop fermentation lids. I didn’t even know they were a thing! And they were way more affordable for an experiment with fermenting than a huge crock was going to be. That way if I didn’t end up liking it, I wasn’t out a lot of money. That’s a win in my book.
I did a little digging and ended up purchasing these fermentation lids, weights, and a bamboo tamper from the brand A Year of Plenty. They fit directly onto my wide mouth mason jars, and took up minimal space. And my thought was that small batch fermentation would take less time than a large batch. As I went through this process, I realized that these lids also made it hands off. I didn’t have to burp the jars to release the gasses, because the lids have a water lock on them that allows gasses to get out and doesn’t let air in.
OK, now because I hate scrolling through a whole life story before I get to the recipe, I’m just going to dive into it.
Small Batch Sauerkraut
Note: You will need approximately 1 gram of fine sea salt for every 44 grams of shredded cabbage. This is the magic ratio. Doing more of less salt will do two things: either give you too salty of a brine and your kraut will suck, OR not give you a salty enough brine and bad bacteria will be able to survive and thrive in your jars. You don’t want either. Stick with the ratio.
- 1 medium head of cabbage (approx 800 grams when shredded and weighed)
- 18 grams fine sea salt (himalayan is ok too!)
- 3 wide mouth quart mason jars (I prefer Ball or Kerr Jars for my canning, so that’s what I have on hand and use, but I LOVE my vintage Magic jars that I got from my Grandmother)
- Fermentation lids, glass weights, and bamboo tamper (pick up this kit and have everything you need without needing to piece it together)
If it’s not already, shred your cabbage into fine strips, either using a mandolin, a sharp knife, or a food processor. Weight it out. Whatever the weight is, your golden ratio is 44:1. So divide the weight in grams by 44, and that will give you the amount of salt you’ll need.
Once shredded, add the salt to the kraut. Here’s where it gets fun and where I like to save some time. You need to massage that cabbage until it releases its juices. Mmhmm, massage it. You can either do this by hand if you have super fingers and forearm strength, OR you can use your handy dandy stand mixer to do the work. I use my 13 year old Kitchenaid Artisan Mixer that’s still going strong. (It’s majestic yellow in case you’re wondering but that color is out of stock or discontinued now)
Let’s pretend you’re just going to use the stand mixer and save some time. It should take about 5 minutes to beat up the cabbage and start releasing its juices. Once it does that, you’re ready to pack your jars.
Fill your mason jars to within 1.5 inches of the top, packing the cabbage in there with the bamboo tamper you’re going to get with your fermentation kit. Push it down pretty hard, because you don’t want any air bubbles in there to harbor bad bacteria. If you’ve gotten your salt ratio right, the brine will go to work on any bad bacteria left in there, eating it for breakfast, and in 7-21 days, you’ll have perfectly fermented sauerkraut full of good probiotics for your family to feast on!
OK, back it up a step. After you fill the jars, make sure all of the cabbage is covered by liquid. If it is not, you need to make up a little more brine to pour on top. A good salty brine is 2% salinity, so 100 grams of water to 2 grams of salt. Mix it up, and then pour enough of that brine on top to cover your veggies.
Pop on the lids that come in your fermentation kit, Fill the water reservoir on top like the directions tell you, and plug them into the top of the lid. This lets gas out of the jars (self-burping) without letting any air in. Remember, air is bad for fermentation.
Store the jars either on your counter if it’s not too warm, or in a cool cupboard. After 7 days, you can open the top, and taste the sauerkraut. If it’s not sour enough for you, put the lid back on and let it sit for longer.
Signs that it’s working:
You will start to see air bubbles rising to the top of the jar and releasing their gasses. The top of the brine will start to get foamy. If you’ve overfilled your jars, it could pull liquid up into your water reservoir. If this happens, you need to open the tops, spoon out some liquid, then refill the water reservoir. Your sauerkraut will be done when the bubbles stop, and it tastes delicious.
You might get some white powdery stuff that settles on top of your glass weights. That’s normal and nothing to be concerned about.
Signs that something has gone wrong:
If you get mold on the top of your liquid…. you need to toss the batch. Some old timers say you can scrape it off and keep going, but I don’t mess around. Just toss it. $1 worth of cabbage isn’t worth introducing mold into your body. If it’s just the white powdery stuff that’s settling onto the weights like above, keep going. Mold will float on the top of the liquid.
If it smells rank, and not like normal sauerkraut, your brine ratio might not have been 5-star and you could have bacteria growing in there. Best to toss it and start again.
Written by Jessica
Crushing That Good Life one weekend at a time.
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