I have never made sauerkraut. I have made some pickles, but none using the fermented methods.
I use a 2 gal glass cookie jar you can get from Wal Mart for about $13 as my crock.
Put whatever spices you want in the crock, trim your cucs just like hot pack, then layer them into the crock no more than about 1/2-3/4 full. They draw a lot of liquid when fermenting and the crock can overflow if you try to put in much more. Put a few grape leaves in and it will help keep pickles firm.
Make a brine mix of 1/2 cup salt, 1/4 cup vinegar and 8 cups water. No need to boil cold mix is fine.
Place some kind of food safe cover on top of cucs in crock. I use plastic tops off of yogurt containers. A saucer will work, just something to hold the cucs down in the brine.
Place a weight on top of the cover, a 1 gal plastic juice jug filled with water works great. A quart or half gallon jar fill with water also works. It doesn’t have to sit straight, just hold the cucs down.
Pour the brine in until it covers cucs by about 1 inch.
Take some Glad wrap or Saran wrap and cover the top or wrap around the crock and weight jar if it sticks out too high to cover.
Tape the wrap to seal the crock from air.
Pock a small hole in the wrap, about the size of a toothpick, to let the gas from fermenting escape.
Set crock in a cool place, you might need to cover it with a towel to keep the light out, then let her go. Check to make sure the liquid doesn’t overflow the crock. If it starts to overflow just put a hole in the wrap and pull out some liquid with a turkey baster then tape the hole closed. No need to unwrap and rewrap.
Depending on the temp it takes about a month maybe a little longer.
You will notice the liquid getting cloudy and there will be white sediment in it. That is normal.
You might get a little mold on top of the liquid, don’t worry about it. Pick it out when you’re ready to can the pickles.
If cucs have turned mushy throw them out. 1 or 2 no real problem, any more than that you might want to throw the whole batch out and start over.
When you can the pickles you can strain the liquid through some cloth to clear it up a bit if you want.
Pack pickles in jars, add more spice if you want, bring liquid to boil, cover pickles with hot liquid and hot water bath for 15 mins.
Fermented pickles will taste different than hot pack.
Good luck.