I’m interested if anyone has tried making sauerkraut. This weekend I went with my D to a juice shop and cafe she wanted to check out. In addition to selling juice and meals they sell sauerkraut to take home. My D bought one that was cabbage, beet, radish and ginger I think. It was good. I want to see if I can duplicate it. I’ve never fermented anything.
My father used to make huge crocks of it when I was young. My daughter is really into fermenting - sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha. It’s supposed to be pretty easy. Here’s a book she used to get started:
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Fermentation-Flavor-Nutrition-Live-Culture/dp/1931498237/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464025905&sr=1-1&keywords=wild+fermentation+sandor+katz
My son ferments but its usually of the alcoholic variety. 
I eat a lot of sauerkrauts that sound very similar to what you’ve described, mom60 - there’s a farm that prepares all kinds of krauts and while delicious, they are expensive! I am going to check that book out, doschicos - I really enjoy reading about food and the various methods of preparation.
Make sure you use salt specifically for canning/pickling purposes! Iodized salt and salts with additives to prevent caking will not work.
http://www.thekitchn.com/what-is-pickling-salt-do-you-really-need-it-193108
This is really close to how my grandfather used to make kraut:
http://natashaskitchen.com/2014/08/20/easy-overnight-sauerkraut-recipe/
One of the very best meals of my life was a charcoute (choucroute?) garni that a friend made based on Patricia Wells’ recipe in her Paris cookbook. I looked quickly online and couldn’t find it but most libraries have that cookbook. Highly, highly recommended. OMG.
That’s a sauerkraut recipe to be made and eaten without canning the sauerkraut.
Here is a classic recipe:
http://natashaskitchen.com/2013/09/29/homemade-sauerkraut-recipe-kvashenaya-kapusta/
I have never seen a kraut recipe that calls for canning…Only canning salt - yes, because it does not have inhibitors of fermentation.
Overnight sauerkraut is what I call cole slaw. 
The real stuff needs to ferment and age.
See the link above. Overnight stuff keeps you from dipping into the barrel while the real stuff is fermented to perfection. Like overnight pickles. 
I remember my friend saying it took three weeks for the Patricia Wells sauerkraut to ferment. Now I’m hoping that it actually was the Paris cookbook. I know it was a Patricia Wells recipe.
(When I said “that’s a recipe that doesn’t call for canning,” I was referring to the Patricia Wells recipe. I think a lot of the young folks who are into fermenting these days are canning their creations).
I belong to a cookbook club and two months ago one of the guys brought in sauerkraut. I’ve never been a fan of the stuff, but his was so much better than any store bought on I’ve had. He made it in a plastic gadget they sell for making kimchi. Looked just like this: http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Korean-Cooking-Sauerkraut-Fermentation/dp/B00M40ANMO
Doschicos- I’m going to see if my library has that book. @nottelling I will ask my sister about Patricia Wells recipe. I’m sure she has all her books. She took a weeklong class from her last spring.
Sabaray- it was $5 for a small jar plus a $2 deposit for the jar. Thus my thought to try to make my own.
The sauerkraut I had is raw. Bunsenburnera recipes are cooked but do sound delicious.
I’ve returned from the grocery store with kosher salt, green cabbage and some red beets. I already have ginger. I’m going to do a bit of googling and give it a try.
That’s a deal! I get little tiny containers for $10! It is raw as well - let me know how your experiment turns out.
I discovered a great sauerkraut at the San Francisco Farmer’s Market called Farmhouse Culture. You can buy the brand nationally; Whole Foods and some local health food stores carry it. Plus, it keeps for a long time when you refrigerate it.
I took a fermentation class offered through community ed in our town–I fermented carrots and ginger. I thought it was a fairly time consuming process and I like doing stuff like this. I make all my salad dressings and mayonnaise from scratch, pickle peppers and can the tomatoes that I grow in my garden. That being said, the Farmhouse culture Sauerkraut is so good that I don’t feel the need to ferment sauerkraut myself.
Here’s a link to the sauerkraut: http://farmhouseculture.com/process/
Our instructor in the fermentation class printed recipes for us–they were from a Paleo website.
Kraut is in my cupboard and I’ll see how the fermenting goes. It was easy to make up the cabbage mix. If it works I’ll be happy. If not I didn’t invest much time or money.
Bromfield- I haven’t tried that brand. I have seen it at several local stores. I bought a container of Sonoma Brinnery cabbage kraut today at the grocery store. I have also tried a few styles from Whole Foods. None of them came close to the flavor of the local homemade one.
This is what I buy - at our co-op and local Whole Foods - also very delicious:
I have never made sauerkraut , but I have made " swedish pizza salad " . It isn’t fermented though. Any time I get a hankering for making something I have no idea about, I have good luck finding recipes on Pinterest.
I love sauerkraut , but I am the only one in my family that eats it
I prefer weinkraut. Less sour.
Bring on the bratwurst!
@sabaray
Reporting back on my experiment. For a first time I think my sauerkraut turned out well. I used a variation of a couple of different recipes- more for the process since I already knew what ingredients I wanted to use. I was a bit afraid of mold since I was using my own makeshift jar. Many recipes called for a special lid for the Mason jar or using a smaller jar inside the mouth to keep the cabbage down in the brine or a container like Mathmom linked.My Mason jar mouth wasn’t wide enough for any of my other jars to fit. I used the outer cabbage leaves and the core to keep my cabbage compacted and under the brine. I placed the jar inside a bowl and covered with a Muslim dish cloth and placed in my pantry. I’m glad I did since I did have some overflowing liquid after a few days. Several recipes said it should be ready after 3 days but I found it really needed longer.
My biggest issue was that it was salty. My D who loves raw fermented foods said she couldn’t eat it, but she is very sensitive to sodium and is also super picky. When I massaged my cabbage it didn’t naturally produce a lot of liquid. All the recipes said if the cabbage isn’t immersed it won’t ferment properly. They suggest making a brine of salt and water to cover the cabbage. That’s what I did. In hindsight and after doing a bit more research I should have let the cabbage sit longer to see if it would have produced more of its own liquid. After 5 days I put it in the refrigerator and it continued to ferment slowly and I think it got less salty.
I will try it again taking more care to try to reduce the salt.
I also realized that $5 a jar isn’t unreasonable. It takes a lot of cabbage to make a small amount of sauerkraut plus the time.
Also H and I finished the last of the kraut Friday night. We used it on top of shredded chicken breast soft tacos. It was delicious. The ginger flavor had given the cabbage a kick but it wasn’t overly gingery. It also gave the tacos a crunchy element.