• 5 Lbs cabbage
• 3 Tbs. pickling salt

Shred the cabbage very thin (about the thickness of a quarter.  Add salt to the cabbage and thoroughly mix the ingredients with your hands.  Pack the cabbage into a one gallon jar and pack down tightly.  To keep the cabbage covered in its own brine and thus protected from the air while fermenting, we simply seal the jar with 2 1-gal ziplocks filled with brine.  To make the brine simply mix 3Tbs. pickling salt with half a gallon of water.  This should give you plenty of brine for filling the bags  and to have some left over for use as needed.  After you have the shredded cabbage and salt in the jar, put both empty ziplocks on top of the cabbage.  Use a funnel to fill both bags up to the neck of the jar and firmly seat the bags to seal out all air.

If the cabbage is fresh, it should release enough liquid to cover itself.  If within 24 hours it does not, add some of the left over brine.   You need to store the jar out of direct sunlight on a cool counter (60- 75 degrees).  After a day or two, you’ll notice small bubbles rising from the cabbage.  (This is the part that kids like best).  If yeast starts growing on the outside of the ziplocks, not to worry.  Simply rinse it off as needed.  You can start tasting the sauerkraut after 2 weeks, but it will not be fully ready until the bubbles stop.  At this point, you can store it in your fridge for several weeks.