Cabbage

Some minor changes in my setup - I wanted to go with smaller buckets but had a fair bit of difficulty finding something of the right diameter to hold the cabbage below the brine level - then it struck me that I could easily cut the bottom out of one of the buckets and use it. Afterall, I'd gotten them for free.

Sauerkraut is incredibly easy to make - just chop the cabbage, add some non-iodized salt, and let it do its work. There is a bacterium which lives naturally on the cabbage, that begins to thrive in an environment which has the right salt concentration - 1/4 cup of pickling salt per 5 lbs of cabbage will do the trick nicely. As the bacterium grows and reproduces, it consumes carbohydrates in the cabbage and excretes a type of acid that is similar to household vinegar. This lowers the pH of the mixture, which in turn preserves it. In fact, when done properly, the sauerkraut need not even be canned - my grandfather, who was an immigrant from Ukraine, used to have a huge barrel of sauerkraut in the back porch, and used to scoop from it year round for his daily intake.