Salting cabbage is a simple procedure, but it requires some knowledge. For example, early and mid-season cabbage varieties are not suitable for pickling, and salt with various additives can ruin the workpiece.
In order for sauerkraut to be tasty and stored for a long time, it is necessary to strictly follow the recipe during salting (take the exact ratio of all products, optimally 5% carrots and 2% salt by weight of cabbage), use only fresh vegetables of a suitable variety. An important detail is the choice of salt. Currently, the stores sell salt with various vitamins and spices, so exceptionally coarse rock salt without any additives is suitable for salting.
If you buy salt specifically for pickling cabbage, do not be too lazy to read the composition of the product, the label on the package should not contain anything other than the words "table salt". Why should you read the composition? Because some manufacturers do not consider it important to indicate on the front of the packaging that the salt is iodized.
Iodized salt is undoubtedly a useful product, but it is absolutely not suitable for salting cabbage. It should be remembered that when pickling vegetables, lactic acid fermentation occurs, only thanks to it the product acquires a slight sourness, remains crispy and does not deteriorate for a long time. Iodine slows down the fermentation processes, so if you ferment cabbage with iodized salt, then the preparation will most likely turn out to be tasteless, non-crunchy, or even go bad, without having time to ferment.
