Dry Salting.  Fermentation with dry salting consists in packing the material with a small amount of salt.  No water is used, for the salt will extract the water from the vegetables and this forms a brine.  This is the simplest process of all three and is used mostly for cabbage.  To make sauerkraut proceed as follows:  The outside green leaves of the cabbage should be removed, just as in preparing the head for boiling.  Never use any decayed or bruised leaves.  Quarter the heads and shred the cabbage very finely.  There are shredding machines on the market, but if one is not available use a slaw cutter or a large sharp knife.

After the cabbage is shredded pack at once into a clean barrel, keg or tub, or into an earthenware crock holding four or five gallons.  The smaller containers are recommended for household use.  When packing distribute the salt as uniformly as possible, using one pound of salt to forty pounds of cabbage.  Sprinkle a little salt in the container and put in a layer of three or four inches of shredded cabbage, then pack down with a wooden utensil like a potato masher.  Repeat with salt, cabbage and packing until the container is full or the shredded cabbage is all used.

Press the cabbage down as tightly as possible and apply a cloth, and then a glazed plate or a board cover which will go inside the holder.  If using a wooden cover select wood free from pitch, such as basswood.  On top of this cover place stone, bricks or other weights—­use flint or granite; avoid the use of limestone, sandstone or marble.  These weights serve to keep vegetables beneath the surface of the liquid.  The proportion of salt to food when fermenting with dry salt is a quarter pound of salt to ten pounds of food.  Do not use more, for the product will taste too salty.

Allow fermentation to proceed for ten days or two weeks, if the room is warm.  In a cellar or other cool place three to five weeks may be required.  Skim off the film which forms when fermentation starts and repeat this daily if necessary to keep this film from becoming a scum.  When gas bubbles cease to rise when you strike the side of the container, fermentation is complete.  If there is a scum it should be removed.

As a final step pour very hot melted paraffin over the brine until it forms a layer from a quarter to a half-inch thick, to prevent the formation of the scum which occurs if the weather is warm or the storage place is not well cooled.  The cabbage may be used as soon as the bubbles cease to rise.  If scum forms and remains the cabbage will spoil.  You may can the cabbage as soon as bubbles cease to rise and fermentation is complete.  To can, fill jars, adjust rubbers and partly seal.  Sterilize 120 minutes in hot-water bath, or 60 minutes in steam-pressure outfit at five to ten pounds pressure.

The vital factor in preserving the material by this method is the lactic acid which develops in fermentation.

If the vegetables are covered with a very strong brine or are packed with a fairly large amount of salt, lactic acid fermentation and also the growth of other forms of bacteria and molds are prevented.  This method of preservation is especially applicable to those vegetables which contain so little sugar that sufficient lactic acid cannot be formed by bacterial action to insure their preservation.