I have cucumbers... should I try fermenting?!?!?

[abifae]

When I make saurkraut, I don't measure lol. I pour salt over the shredded cabbage til it feels right. It feels very different depending on the season. Then I weigh it down for 24 hours and then add the brine (much lower salt, since I salt the cabbage directly).

I've done carrots very similarly. Shredded and sliced.

So cukes are next. I'm very excited. Auntie has a grape vine I needs Audrey!

 

[KnittyGritty]

We LOVE the fermented dill pickles by Alton Brown on the food network. Just do a search on Alton Brown's Dill Pickles - very easy, too!

 

[garden pixy]

Topic appropriate reading material acquired...

I added a couple things to my shopping list for when shopping day is here. Some yogurt to strain is up pretty high on the list.

Still waiting for DH to get home so I can make sure my old fridge will make good cold storage, my current fridge likes to freeze things on the top shelf, so I am figuring it will not be appropriate for continuing the fermenting process. I am drooling over the cucumber salsa recipe, but I really NEED some sour dill pickles.

DH keeps picking on me, he tells me I have to be the only pregnant woman who is insisting on making all of her own pickles and ice cream.

 

[freemotion]

Those two books live on my nightstand (among stacks and stacks of books, on the floor and under the bed, too!) and are very ragged! And have a gazillion sticky note bookmarks!

 

[garden pixy]

They are both borrowed from the library, I will be sure to pick up a copy of Nourishing traditions if i can find a used one, i love this book.

I determined my spare fridge is not working so I am going to try to convince my mom she doesn't really need a mini-fridge on her porch filled with bottled water and diet sodas

My hubby said we can always reorganize the kitchen fridge so I can have an experiment shelf all for myself if Mom can't part with her convenience fridge, he seems supportive of this endeavor. I'll be going to my Mom's for 3 days so I'm going to do some experimenting there and hopefully bring home a fridge and some tasty ferments. Mom lives near an Amish community so I'll also be raiding the farm stands while I am there and I finally found whole milk yogurt with 2 ingredients, whole milk & cultures, straining it as I type, yay!

I am going to try the Wild fermentation pickles when I get back from my mom's with my next batch of cucumbers, the current batch is going to be divided, some canned a'la blue book some lacto-fermented.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions, who knew a bowl of cucumbers would lead me into a radical diet overhaul... lol

 

[Wifezilla]

 

[~gd]

Pixy, your post is very timely for me. I have just dumped my SECOND batch of fermented pickles into the compost pile this morning. I have a recipe that calls for 3/4C. pickling salt in 1 gal. boiling water. The first batch I used the 3/4 C. salt measurement and the pickles were so salty that nobody could even eat one. My second batch I only put in 1/2 C. salt and they were still so salty that I had to throw them out. I'm going to try one more time and use 1/4 C. of salt and see what happens. I'm a little concerned about safety as this may not be enough salt to create the proper fermentation environment in the jug.

This is the recepie that I used. Learning Herbs Website

Now this recipe seems to indicate that I'm using way too much salt. Maybe I should try this one. Wild Fermentation Website

I'm wasting my precious pickle cukes and the plants are starting to dry up out in the garden. Luckily we did put up 8 pints of dill pickles using the hot bath method a few weeks ago.

The recipie that you referenced called for 3/4 cup KOSHER salt not pickling salt which is a heck of a lot finer and HEAVIER so your brine was SALTY. BTW I try to stay away from recipies that call for a volume of Kosher salt because different kosher salts can vary a huge amount in their density. If they give you the weight to use you can use any salt you want, otherwise stick to the type and even brand specified.