Some weeks ago I started a project involving fermentation - sauerkraut - and it was successful enough that I thought I might try some other fermented foods. The choice of what to try is a no-brainer: dill pickles, of course!
Now in order to make classic dill pickles, you have to have cucumbers, and the monster grocery-store variety of slicing cucumbers just won't do. You need pickling cucumbers. Aside from size and skin texture, I don't know what the real differences are, but I can tell you that finding locally-grown pickling cukes turned out to be a problem! In fact, I still haven't found any - that I was willing to pay for. One grower told me that he wasn't selling any at wholesale prices, because weather had destroyed much of his crop. I can surmise that - since weather is a rather widespread phenomenon - many Georgia growers might have had the same experience this year.
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| 40 lb pickling cucumbers |
So I looked at the box, and said "Yeah, let's do it," optimistically thinking that I might get some of my offspring interested in a joint processing effort. Hope springs eternal, even in the face of overwhelming adversity, but regardless...
Anyhow, back at home, I loaded up my little fermenter with as many cukes as I could pack in it... and the box looked like it hadn't been touched! The fermenter only held about 4 or 5 lb, max. I like my little fermenter, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it removes a lot of the headaches involved in fermenting many foods; so it was back to the Asian market where I got it, so that I could get a larger one.
To assist me in disposing of the excess cucumbers, my Honey decided that she would make some (non-fermented) kosher style dills using a recipé she had had a great deal of success with a number of years ago, so she took about 10 lb of the produce off my hands; and some my offspring (never inclined to turn down free food) offered to take a few pounds as well, so I was left with only about 20 lb to turn into fermented pickles.
There must have been a tad more than 40 lb of cukes in that box though, because we probably used two or three pounds as salad cukes; and you know what? They tasted better than the ones sold for that purpose in the grocery!
By the way, the new fermenter looks exactly like my original one, only bigger. It only holds about 5 times as much as the original - about 25 lb - but using it, I was able to handle the remaining cukes.
In setting up my ferment, I used a modified and scaled-up version of the fermented dill pickle recipé from the National Center for Home Food Preservation:
Ingredients
| cucumbers, pickling variety, 4-6 inch long | 20 | lb |
| dill weed, crushed, dried | 10 | Tbs |
| peppercorns, whole, dried | 4 | Tbs |
| red pepper flakes, dried | 2 | Tbs |
| garlic granulated | 2½ | tsp |
| brine | to cover | |
I make up brine by the gallon, as needed, according to the following proportions:
| water (non-chlorinated) | 1 | gal |
| vinegar, white, distilled | ½ | cup |
| salt, common | 1 | cup |
Directions
You have probably noticed that all of the spices I use in this recipé are dried, like the ones your Mom has in her kitchen spice cabinet. I've noticed that many foodie bloggers and TV cooks are food snobs who turn their noses up at such, insisting that one use only fresh herbs and spices. Why this is true has always been a mystery to me. The dried herbs and spices keep better; are available year-round at more or less reasonable cost; occupy less space in the kitchen; and usually have a much more intense flavor and aroma than the fresh: not to mention that using them generates less kitchen waste.
My ancestors, all the way down to my parents, did a lot of cooking and preserving, and they didn't have much access to fresh seasonings. Practically every herb or spice they used came dried, and was usually crushed, granulated, or powdered, and the food that they prepared tasted good! My experience in eating that food was not at all disappointing. Those folks could cook! Anyway, this explains why you see mostly dried, flaked, granulated, and crushed herbs and spices in this, as well as most of my other recipés.
Some people use a pre-soak of alum or pickling lime to help insure that their pickles remain crisp, after the pickling process. When we first began making pickles, we learned that an alternative method exists: i.e., including a fresh grape leaf when you pack the cucumbers and brine. When I began loading my fermenter, I decided to continue this traditional method, so I began by lining the bottom of my fermenter with fresh grape leaves harvested from the vines in my back yard. Before using these leaves, I thoroughly hand-washed each one, and inspected it for damage and uninvited guests.
Per the original directions I added about half of the dill, garlic, peppercorns, and pepper flakes to the fermenter before loading it with cucumbers. The cucumbers themselves, I prepared by washing carefully with a vegetable brush, and then removing the blossom end of each one with a vegetable peeler. I began packing the fermenter with cukes, standing them on end: this allowed me to get a lot of cukes into the first layer, without overly crowding them. The remaining cukes were simply arranged horizontally, using the available space as best I could. The remaining dill, garlic and pepper flakes are scattered over the surface of the soon-to-be pickles, and if a "starter culture" is used, it can be added at this point.
I then installed the inner lid of the fermenter, momentarily leaving off the access port cover. After pushing the inner lid as far down as possible, without crushing the cukes, I added enough brine to cover the product, as well as the inner lid itself, to a depth of 1 inch (it took a little over two gallons): then I installed the access port cover, leaving the bleeder port open. The reason for leaving the bleeder port open, is to allow fermentation gases to escape, continuosly. With the inner lid and the access port cover in place there is no danger of having our pickles escape confinement, and leaving the bleeder port open means that there won't be a build-up of gases that might "pop off" either the access port cover or the inner lid. Keeping it submerged means that the cucumbers also stay submerged, and anaerobic.
At this point then, it is a waiting game. Most recipés call for checking the state of the ferment 2 to 3 times a week (about every 3 days), skimming the brine surface and topping it off, if needed. Fermentation is expected to require between 3 and 4 weeks.
August 29, 2017
Today is the day! My batch of fermented pickles is ready!
Seriously, I skimmed and dried off the overburden of brine that lay over the top of the inner lid, and removed the access port. The brine under the port was full of spices and herbs, so of course it looked like a mess, but the liquid was otherwise clear. I also checked the brine for acidity, and, voila! The much-desired acid was present in spades! I declared myself a winner in the anaerobic-acid environment sweepstakes. The next item was to check the pickles themselves.
No slime, no godawful smell, no ugly color. They just looked, felt, and smelled like old-fashioned dill pickles. I picked one of the medium-sized ones, and tried to bend it double. It snapped like a piece of brittle plastic! Crispy, I'd say...
Finally, the taste test. What can I say? I like dill pickles, and these taste like a good dill pickle to me. A little spicy for my Honey's taste, but then so are a lot of things I like.
Having successfully fermented 20 lb of pickles, you might think that most of the work was over. You'd be wrong. Very wrong. The easiest way to deal with the pickles would be to move the entire batch, in its fermenter, into the refrigerator. According to the National Center for Home Food Preservation site:
"Fully fermented pickles may be stored in the original container for about 4 to 6 months, provided they are refrigerated and surface scum and molds are removed regularly."The problem is, I don't have that much space available in my refrigerator; so I have to do the next easiest thing, which isn't easy at all: boiling water bath canning. The same website, referenced above, gives instructions on using this process. I packed about half my quart jars with whole pickles, and the rest in spears. You should bear in mind that you can get about twice as much pickle in a jar of spears, as you can whole pickles. Between the two styles, I got an even dozen jars of canned pickles, plus a 38 oz fido jar of whole, probiotic (live culture) pickles to keep in the 'fridge!
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