Pickling Veggie:. Old Fashioned Way.

[hollohas]

Here's my first try right before the brine. Fingers crossed.

[rbeau30]

I canned my fermented pickles tonight. I'll try em in a week. see if they got mushy or whatever.

I'm going to a farmer's market this weekend I am not sure which. This next batch will be in the crock for 2 weeks instead of nearly 4 like this one. They are not as crunchy as I would like... but they are very tasty.



As another idea, I am going to see if I can get a potter to make some glazed weight stones for my crock. The ones I have are not glazed an porous... making storage kinda... iffy. I don't wish to throw them in the cleaning cycle of the oven every year. I wonder though, if the porous weight stones serve a purpose by trapping the lacto-bacillus bacteria from batch to batch to make things start fermenting faster?

[rbeau30]

Went to the Boulder Farmer's Market. Quite impressed.

Got some cukes, carrots, grean beans, pickling onions, and cauliflower.

We will see what I come up with in 2 weeks!

Using my own home grown garlic and grape leaves.

[rbeau30]

Veggies turned out good! I still think I should have maybe canned these last weekend (@ 1 week). The house stays in the mid-70s so that is probably why these ferment quickly. But they weren't too mushy this time. The Green Beans were tasty, and I really liked the way the carrots turned out. They still had "snap" to them, but you could tell the brine had made its way through to the middle.

I did find out that if you pickle purple carrots you will get the "Susan G Komen Foundation" edition brine.

[TheGrey]

Okay, I'm going to put a pickling crock down on my wishlist. This sounds too interesting not to try.

Dammit, rbeau30, I'm running out of room! Tell me about the cauliflower. How'd that turn out? Did you pickle it with other veggies?

[rbeau30]

Okay, I'm going to put a pickling crock down on my wishlist. This sounds too interesting not to try.

Dammit, rbeau30, I'm running out of room! Tell me about the cauliflower. How'd that turn out? Did you pickle it with other veggies?

I love pickled Couliflower. This turned out very nice. It still retained its texture very well. It does absorb more salt than the other veggies. I was able to compare better since this time I threw all the veggies in there. If I were to do couliflower again I would do it separately and reduce the salt. The salt slows down the fermentation process though,, so having less of it would make everything ferment faster.

Glad to see you might try it out!

If you want to experiment, you an try with any glass container and a weight to hold the veggies down. Maybe a humongous pickle jar and a small tea saucer?

If the vessel is clear I would keep it out of sunlight.

The recipes really only consist of seasonings (garlic, dill, peppercorns, grape leaves, etc) and saltwater. Then I follow the canning procedures in the canning Guide put out by the USDA for fermented foods.



I believe Pickling is going to be a necessity in a SHTF scenario. If one can get to the point of actually growing enough veggies, this is going to be a great way of preserving food. Remember. Pressure canning take a LOT of fuel. Also most modern Pressure Canners cannot be put in a fire.

[Tim K]

I harvested my jalapeños yesterday and got enough to to do one quart jar. Can't wait.

[rbeau30]

I harvested my jalapeños yesterday and got enough to to do one quart jar. Can't wait.

Tim! That sounds delicious!

Reading Material:
For those of you that want to read up on this stuff. These couple references I have found helpful:

A little expensive (it is a small book for 7 bucks), but it has some good info.
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Fermentat...sap_bc?ie=UTF8

The rest of the Chapters are good but this one deals with Fermented foods. Complete Guide toHome CanningGuide 6Preparing and CanningFermented Foods andPickled Vegetables



The link to the PDF also is a document that explains a Low Temperature Pasteurization Method for processing foods so they stay as crunchy as they can.

[Irving]

Chef Jon recently made a video about this. Please enjoy. I like the Chef John videos because the recipes are usually somewhat easy and are a good way for people to baby step their way into cooking in general, in my opinion.



Here is the blog with the ingredients. Someone in the blog comments mentions the book that is brought up in this thread.

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2015/...naturally.html

[Irving]

Found some more. Bread and butter pickles (MUCH faster recipe)



Accompanying blog: http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2014/...-of-great.html

Here is the super short version of pickling jalapenos.



Accompanying blog post: http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2012/...gs-i-hear.html