Our family recipe, but I don’t remember the exact values especially for the caraway seed, so take it with a pinch of salt ;)

10 kg cabbage, sliced

200 g salt

1 kg carrots, cut into small slices (max 3 mm thick)

1 kg leek, cut into small slices (around 5 mm thick)

20 g caraway seeds

Correct sized stone for your jar, cleaned and cooked in boiling water for sterilization

• Cut everything but keep 2 of the outer cabbage leafs per jar, select good looking leafs and just clean them

• Mix everything in a big tube/vessel really well, so the salt starts extracting the liquid from the cabbage

• Put the mixture into the jars and use your fist to make it compact

• Important part 1: there needs to be at least 1 cm of salty liquid above the kraut at the end, if there isn’t just add 10 g salt to 100 ml water and add enough of that solution as necessary

• put the two leafs on top of the kraut to push it down and keep all the small bits from flowing around in the salt solution

• place the stones (in middle Europe you can buy special ceramics like this for this purpose, but a simple stone of the right size or 2 is enough) on top of the leafs to push them down

• close the jar and fill the groove with water

• important point 2: the grooves has to be filled with water all the time to stop mold from forming

• now place the jar for 2 weeks in a normal heated room. Check the water level in the groove. You will hear air bubbles flowing through the water trap, which tells you that the fermentation is proceeding nicely.

• when no air bubbles are forming for a day, fermentation is over and you can eat it and place it in a cold room for better storage.

• again: keep checking the water level in the groove

• when you take out sauerkraut, always check that the walls above the water level are mostly clean and not to many loose parts are swimming through the salt water. Those are the regions where mold will start forming.

• also refill the water level inside with the salt solution if too much evaporate.

• always clear the solution with the leafs and put the stones on top and you will enjoy it for a long time (5 months are possible)

• you can also freeze fermented sauerkraut to thaw it when needed and stop it from molding