Equipment needed:
Wide-mouth Quart jars, lids, and rings
baggies
a tamping device, such as a dowel stick, or a wooden meat pounder, or wooden spoon
cabbage
non-iodized salt
a scale
Cut cabbage into halves or quarters and cut out the core. Remove any creepy leaves. Cut into dime-size thickness until you have 5 pounds. Put that in a huge bowl and add 3 1/2 tbs. salt. Mix with your hands very well. Now stuff into jars, tamping every inch or so. You will see juice forming immediately. Keep going until you reach the shoulder of the jar.
Mix 1 tbs. salt into one quart water. Put a baggie into the jar and fill with this brine. Only enough keep the cabbage immersed in the brine. Seal the baggie, stuff into the jar, put the lids and rings on loosely.
Set on a towel lined tray and put in a room that maintains 70 degrees. Ours is our bedroom! Let sit and ferment for 12 days. If your room isn't quite 70 leave for a couple days more. It ain't rocket science.
Now, take out the baggies and set the jars, with lids off, into a pot of water up to their shoulders. If the cabbage isn't covered in brine all the way to about 1/2 inch from the top, add some of the brine from the baggies. Bring the water to a boil and boil until your sauerkraut is heated. This is called exausting the jars. Now put on the lids and rings, cover the jars with boiling water by at least 2 inches. Bring to a rolling boil and process for 10 minutes. Cool overnight on a towel. Remove rings and test seals.
You have sauerkraut! It ain't that vinegar-y storebought stuff! It's really good!
