IPA Pickles?!?

homebrewhaha said:

This is my second time trying the Sea Hag recipe, and it's just...awful. Waaayyyyy too sour—the vinegar is overwhelmingly strong, I almost choked on this crap. I did a batch with apple cider vinegar and a batch with malt vinegar. I preferred the apple cider, but both batches were inedible. What a waste. Are most people using the Sea Hag recipe or the second version (which seems better b/c it has a lot of water added, which you need IMO)??

disclaimer: I've made lots of batches of pickles and they always come out great. I may have to abandon "IPA pickles" altogether.

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You can safely add sugar to taste. It will balance the acidic flavor.

I've been using the Sea Hag recipe (I think I'm partial to it because they're a local brewery for me and all-around good guys). My major hit on the recipe is the high level of salt. I may back up to two teaspoons of regular salt next time.

That said, I love how they come out and did my third batch last night. Made 4 pint jars=worth, and had space in the 4th, so I threw in some sliced radishes. As of this morning, the red skin has turned white and the brine is now red.

I made a batch today following the Sea Hag recipe for the brine, but using Alaskan IPA because it was what I had. The rest I just kind of winged it, a couple cloves of garlic in each jar and a couple tablespoons each of dill seed and pickling spice. I had some brine left over after doing two jars of cucumbers (I packed one with the skins out and one with skins in) so I got some baby carrots from the fridge and tried them. I'm hoping those turn out ok because I didn't use any spices in that jar, I'm sure they'll be fine just not as flavorful. I really liked that brine too, I think I can see myself brining a piece of meat in it some day.

So 24 hours later I snuck a taste of cucs and they weren't bad, but I wasn't 100% pleased either. They were good but I like more of a sour and zingier pickle. Next batch I might use white vinegar instead of cider vinegar just to get more neutral of a flavor, then step up the garlic and add some red pepper flakes. The carrots I sampled I actually liked better but they were still missing something. I'll see how they are in a week or two.

These things age well. Snacking on some I made back in April and they're great.

Unprocessed, just kept in the fridge the whole time.

It was kind of funny today. I tried another carrot pickle and my 2 year old son asked for one so I gave it to him. He kind of made a funny face but he finished the whole thing. I asked if he wanted another one and he shook his head no and walked away. I'm guessing he wasn't impressed.....

I made bread and butter pickles tonight while drinking IPA. Will that count?

I've got a lot of cukes and will try this over the weekend.

Holy smoke these things are great. Everyone really enjoys them and they are with out a doubt the best pickles I have ever had. I followed the first recipe, but left out the cloves, as I do not care for cloves..... When I polish off the pickles in one of the jars I am gonna throw a couple hard boiled eggs in there and wait a few days and see how they taste... Should be glorious .......

I make a lot of various refrigerator pickles with a ratio formula derived somewhere from Michael Ruhlman & Michael Simon:
1.5 cups vinegar
1.5 cups water
2 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbl sugar (or to taste. I add a lot more.)
1 Tbl more or less (more is better) of your favorite pickling spices
Bring all ingredients to boil. Pour over vegetables packed in jars. Cool. Refrigerate.

Adjusting the amounts depending on how much liquid you need to cover your vegetables is simply a matter of scaling ratios up or down.
Now, if one were to sub beer for the water, and add hop cones off boil, as well as some cones to the jars, would this work to make hoppy pickles?
Will try tomorrow and post results.

damn. I've already made three different batches of pickles this year, this will be my fourth.

I had seen this thread a little while back and finally got the ingredients to get it done. I used the first recipe offered that used the Sea Hagg, but I subbed my homebrewed IPA instead. I used cukes for our garden in all of the jars. Two of the jars I followed the recipe to the T. The other two I added some peppers from our garden. One has banana and jalapenos added and the other has serrano and poblano peppers added. I can't wait to try these! I'm going to try and wait a month but we'll see how that goes. I will definitely make sure the jars are filled with cukes better. There's a little too much extra room in some of them.

Has anybody ever done this with cucumber slices?

My mother is visiting and is bringing a whole pile of cucumbers, but I imagine they're bigger than the ones used for whole pickling.

I guess I'm not out anything if it doesn't work. Don't have any IPA at the moment, but I don't mind an excuse to go to the beer store

I've done some jars of slices, they're really no different.

We finally have a few cucumbers in our garden, so I decided to make a very small batch of Hoppy Pickles myself!

Since I'm only doing two pints to start, these are refrigerator pickles so there will be no processing.

Here's the recipe I ended up with, purely by taste:

Boiled together:
1.5 cup Bragg's Cider Vinegar
1.5 cup Centennial/cascade pale ale
2 tsp kosher salt
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs pickling spice

Into each jar:
2 small cloves garlic (smooshed a bit)
1 habanero
3 cascade hop flowers
sliced cucumbers

I poured the brine over, let cool a tad, then added:
2 drops HopShot into each jar

I closed it up and set to cool before sticking them in the fridge.

Here's the photo:
(holy big photo, Batman! )

I was gonna make a bunch of these with homegrown hops & cucs and homebrewed IPA.

Damn hail storm this past weekend took out much of the garden and hops.

AZ_IPA said:

I was gonna make a bunch of these with homegrown hops & cucs and homebrewed IPA.

Damn hail storm this past weekend took out much of the garden and hops.

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Oh, no, that's terrible! I don't know what I'd do without my garden and hops. Darn the bad weather.

I made these (the recipe in the OP) on Sunday. I did some sliced, some quartered. Ran out of brine, though. Don't think I had enough cuc's.

Excited to try them though. I may sneak a taste tomorrow.

My wife had 3 girl friends over the other day for dinner and one mentioned she saw my wife post I made the house smell like vinegar making pickles and she makes them too. So I put a jar out, the 3 ladies had them gone in 5 minutes, the whole jar. I thought they were just humoring me.

I tried some of mine yesterday. They were good, but pretty vinegary. Almost too much, covering the beer.

Still an interesting thing to make, though

Yooper said:

We finally have a few cucumbers in our garden, so I decided to make a very small batch of Hoppy Pickles myself!

Since I'm only doing two pints to start, these are refrigerator pickles so there will be no processing.

Here's the recipe I ended up with, purely by taste:

Boiled together:
1.5 cup Bragg's Cider Vinegar
1.5 cup Centennial/cascade pale ale
2 tsp kosher salt
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs pickling spice

Into each jar:
2 small cloves garlic (smooshed a bit)
1 habanero
3 cascade hop flowers
sliced cucumbers

I poured the brine over, let cool a tad, then added:
2 drops HopShot into each jar

I closed it up and set to cool before sticking them in the fridge.

Here's the photo:
(holy big photo, Batman! )

Click to expand...

Just curious as to how long you let them set up before eating?

I will be trying these soon! I have been addicted to pickled beets lately.....I think I'll be trying it with beets too


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I tell ya what, I made these several months ago and wasn't real impressed with them. I found them in my fridge over the weekend, and they were GOOD. I little dark in color, probably from the cider vinegar. Good texture, good spice level.

This is on my list to do soon. I will have to find some cukes because, you know, it's still early spring.

Also planning on fiddleheads from the woods, hops shoots from my garden, and some leeks from the woods. Leeks can be used in all of the other recipes!

I just did the sea hag recipe but used flower power instead. It smells good so far!

Subbed

Just made my second batch using the Sea Hag recipe, but I substitute Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA. These pickles mix really well with the cherry tomatoes I'm getting right now.

Picker said:

Just made my second batch using the Sea Hag recipe, but I substitute Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA. These pickles mix really well with the cherry tomatoes I'm getting right now.

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Not sure Sam qualifies for a IPA lol

Fuzzymittenbrewing said:

Not sure Sam qualifies for a IPA lol

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I knew that was coming...lol

This looks tasty


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I love pickles and, needless to say, beer, so I will be trying this soon.

The last thing I thought when I joined HBT a few days ago, was that I would be making pickles.

I've just started a batch of lacto-fermented pickles with several large wet hops cones in the crock... This is just cukes, garlic, dill, black pepper, salt, water, and some Chinook. Will post tasting notes in a week or so!

Been almost 2 weeks. Came out pretty decent but need to cut the apple cider vinegar down a bunch from the OG recipe and maybe up the beer.
Good enough to eat for sure. Thanks op.

sub.....thanks revy

Just did this again with a few changes, the biggest using pickling vinegar instead of Apple. Also cut them smaller.

We'll see in a few weeks how it goes. One day I'll get back to Tired Hands not only for the beer but for the bet pickles I've ever had.

Looking to try making pickles. I'm only so-so on them, but the kids love them. I wanted to put a batch together last night, but due to my schedule I waited too long and the pickle cukes went bad.

Can't decide between cold process pickles, or hot bath pickles. Hot bath would probably keep longer, but I hear they get soft. Nobody enjoys a soft pickle.

Homercidal said:

Nobody enjoys a soft pickle.

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Zing!

Calcium chloride really helps keep pickles crisp. I just stir it into the brine.

Some friends are gathering at my new place this afternoon to have a pickling party making these with Torpedo, and centennial hops. Though I'm intrigued about using Odd Side's Citra Pale and some Citra Hops.... Anyone done these with citra?

Homercidal said:

Looking to try making pickles. I'm only so-so on them, but the kids love them. I wanted to put a batch together last night, but due to my schedule I waited too long and the pickle cukes went bad.

Can't decide between cold process pickles, or hot bath pickles. Hot bath would probably keep longer, but I hear they get soft. Nobody enjoys a soft pickle.

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Mom made'em both ways. I gotta look through her old cookbooks I inherited for the recipes she wrote in the margins. Her icebox pickles were great with a cold beer after work while waiting on the bbq. Her hot bath garlic dills were good, but the ice box style were crunchy, fresh & garlicy.