Dill Pickles
Aug 17, 2017
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July 17, 2017 (this is when the story actually begins)
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. If you're interested in the rest of the cucumber story, click here...
Anyhow, I did manage to find a bulk box of Tennessee-grown pickling cukes, and after I got them back 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. The new fermenter looks exactly like my original one, only bigger. It only holds about 5 times as much as the original, but after everyone grabbed what they wanted from the box it 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:
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The Pickles
Suggested Equipment:
- Vegetable brush
- Vegetable peeler
- Dish drainer
- Large pan or food-safe plastic bucket
- Fermenter
- Containers for mixing and storing brine.
Ingredients:
- This recipe actually requires between 2 and 3 gallons. The exact amount varies with each batch.
| Item | | Amount |
|---|
| Cucumber |
Pickling variety, 4-6" long |
20 |
lb |
| Dill weed |
Dry, crushed |
⅝ |
cup |
| Peppercorns |
Dry, whole |
4 |
Tbs |
| Red pepper |
Dry, flakes |
2 |
Tbs |
| Garlic |
Dry, granulated |
2½ |
tsp |
| Brine |
Pickling |
3 |
gal1 |
Directions:
Cleanliness is not only next to Godliness, it's absolutely necessary if you are to achieve success when fermenting.
Before doing anything else, you have to decide if you need to pretreat the cukes with lime or alum. Doing so is supposed to help insure that the final product is crisp, but it adds certain complications and hazards to the process. I resolve this problem by not using these chemicals. Describing these pretreatment methods is beyond the scope of this recipe, but if you want more information, a web search will return several credible sources.
I would also encourage you to go ahead and mix up your brine solution at this point. It always takes longer to find the components if you wait until there is an immediate need to use brine. Be proactive.
Wash each cuke in running water, using the vegetable brush, and allow the produce to drip dry in the dish drainer,.
When the cukes are dry enough (no longer dripping), remove about ⅛" of the blossom end of each cuke, using the vegetable peeler, and put the cleaned and cut cuke in the clean, large bowl or food safe plastic bucket to await further handling. The remains of the blossom harbor enzymes that stimulate the fruit to ripen, and thus spoil. Some folks (myself included) like to remove an equivalent amount of the stem end - mostly because it's sometimes hard to tell which end is the blossom!
An older, alternative method for helping preserve the crispness in pickles is to include fresh grape leaves in the ferment, and in the canning jars. If you don't intend to use this method, you can skip this step. If you are going to try this, you should harvest healthy-looking leaves, and thoroughly hand-washed each leaf, inspecting it for damage and uninvited guests. Make sure you have enough leaves to line your fermenter twice, and enough additional leaves to place two in each jar of finished product. Go ahead and line the bottom of your fermenter with a single layer of clean leaves.
Whether you use the grape leaves or not, add about half the herbs and spices to the fermenter immediately, spreading them as evenly as possible.
Load the fermenter with trimmed cukes of more-or-less uniform length standing on end, to get the maximum amount of produce on the bottom of the fermenter in a stable situation. This is easier if you can prop the fermenter so that one side is a little higher than the other. Once you have the bottom covered, load the remaining cukes in any way that results in a more-or-less level top side.
Add the remaining herbs and spices, spreading them evenly over the top of the cukes.
If you are using grape leaves, cover the top of the produce with a single layer of leaves. Bag and refrigerate any remaining leaves for later use in canning, handling them like you would fresh lettuce.
Install the inner lid (if you're using a plastic kimchi fermenter) or plate and weights (if you're using a crock), making sure that all of the produce will remain submerged, then add brine to cover your produce.
Provide the appropriate environment for proper fermentation. The temperature should be kept fairly stable, between 70℉ and 75℉, and at these temperatures, the pickles will finish fermenting in 3 to 4 weeks. I like to let them go for 4 to 5 weeks to insure complete pickling. At lower temperatures, say 55ºF to 65ºF, fermentation proceeds much slower, and the process can take up to 6 weeks. One source holds forth that fermentation ceases at temperatures below 60ºF, and my own experience supports that notion. The NCHFP website advises against temperatures exceeding 80ºF, saying that, at these temperatures, the pickles will become too soft during fermentation.
Check your fermenter frequently throughout the fermentation cycle. At the beginning, this may mean several times a day, and I would recommend at least once per day. When you check, look for surface scum and molds, skimming to remove any that you find. If you use a kimchi fermenter this isn't as much of a problem as with a traditional crock, as the surface of the brine normally has little contact with air. Again if you use a kimchi fermenter like mine, you may have to periodically reset the inner lid. The amount of gas produced in an active ferment is astounding! It can literally blow the lid off the fermenting vegetables, if the pressure isn't regularly relieved!
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.
The Brine
As I said before, you'll really want to have made up your brine, before starting work on the actual pickles. I make it up a gallon at a time using the following recipe:
Suggested Equipment:
- One-gallon bottle, sturdy, plastic or glass
- Stock pot, 5 or 6 quarts minimum
- Common kitchen tools and measures
Ingredients:
| Item | | Amount |
|---|
| Water |
Non-chlorinated |
1 |
gal |
| Salt |
Canning |
1 |
cup |
| Vinegar |
White, distilled, 5% acid |
½ |
cup |
Directions:
Measure the water into the stock pot and apply heat to bring it to a moderate boil
Measure the salt and vinegar into the boiling water, and return to a boil
Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and let the simmer continue for 10 minutes.
Remove heat and allow to cool.
While the brine is cooling, clean the storage bottle with soap or detergent, and water. Rinse thoroughly with hot tap water to insure that all soap/detergent residue is removed.
When the brine is cool, transfer it to the storage bottle, cap and store in a safe location.
This brine recipe can be multiplied as many times as necessary, to provide adequate brine for fermenting projects.
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!
Vegetables, Fermenting, Pickling, Pickles