Method

Before you start the journey of making your own Sauerkraut (Go on, it’s a doddle!), I have some warnings for you

1. It takes quite a while

2. It smells a bit

3. Your next few weeks will revolve around a 5 litre plastic bucket with a lid

4. You have to do weird things to a cabbage

OK. You've decided to do it

Shred the cabbage very thin. You can use a food processer for this and I recommend you do to get uniform thinness throughout

In your lovely new plastic bucket (with lid), add a layer of cabbage and give it a sprinkling of salt. Repeat this until all the cabbage is in the bucket

Now give the cabbage a massage. Yep. A massage. You want to work the salt and cabbage together for about 20 minutes. This will start to draw the water out of the cabbage and start you on your way to a lovely Sauerkraut

After your 20 minutes of cabbage relaxing is up, add the caraway seeds and peppercorns

Using cling film on the top of the cabbage, squash it down to remove air bubbles in the cabbage and weight it down. Pop your lid on the bucket and leave it in a cool dark place like your garage

If you're impatient; you can eat it after 5 days of fermenting and decant the cabbage into some clean kilner jars and keep it in the fridge

If you're extra patient though you'll get a better sauerkraut and I'd highly recommend you do wait two weeks minimum

Things to look out for in your fermenting cabbage quest: