Homemade Saurkraut

I have always wanted one of these traditional German kraut crocks, but never found one that was reasonably priced.  Well, I finally found one.  I've made saurkraut before with mixed results. We'll see how this one goes with the right equipment.  Cabbage and sault; doesn't get much more basic.

 I shredded it by hand.  It didn't take but a few minutes.  It may be a little thicker than it's would be otherwise, but who cares.  The extra thickness may even keep it crunchier.

I bought three big heads.  They weighed in at about 10.5 lbs.  I used 6.25 tbs pickling salt, layered.

The crock comes in four pieces.  The main unit, two weights (so the brine always covers whatever you are pickling), and the lid.  The main unit has a deep well (after the lid is put on you fill the well with water) and the lid is slotted so that as fermentation occurs the gases will escape, but nothing can get in.

You can see the slots in the lid in this picture.  This is where the gases escape past the water in the well.

This is the whole crock full of cabbage before I beat it down (after the salt wilted it slightly).

Here it is beat down with the weights in place.  I will give it a few hours to produce as much brine on its own.  As the salt reacts with the cabbage, it will release water and make the brine.  If it doesn't make enought to cover all the cabbage and weights by at least an inch (which it probably won't), I will make enough brine to cover properly (1.5 tbl pickling salt per quart of water).

Of course I did another small batch of pickles today too.  We get way more cucumbers than we can eat each week, so whatever is left on Saturday get made into pickles.  I will be glad I did it in the winter.