Let's talk pickles...(and Canning)

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I started preserving this past fall.....it was some of the most fun i've had in the kitchen in a while.

I'm huge into cooking, and always wanted to learn about making jellies, jams, preserves, and pickling.

Grab yourself a copy of the "ball blue book" its like the bible of preserving / canning.
 
Dextersmom said:
I started preserving this past fall.....it was some of the most fun i've had in the kitchen in a while.

I'm huge into cooking, and always wanted to learn about making jellies, jams, preserves, and pickling.

Grab yourself a copy of the "ball blue book" its like the bible of preserving / canning.

Ok - Maybe it's just my mind today however i read the last sentence with two of the words reversed. :eek: Specificly the name of the "book"
 
Check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation. This is a joint effort between the University of Georgia's extension office and the USDA. The information is more up-to-date than the USDA's own publications. They cover the basics fairly well and there is even an online class you can take (registration required) called "Preserving Food at Home" that offers more in-depth information. Good stuff. I've made refrigerator pickles and fresh sausage in the past but I'm moving into real fermented pickles, cured sausages and home canning. Some of your beer making equipment is transferable. Boil kettles make great boiling water canners and fermentation buckets work just as well for pickling. I have a 2gallon bucket full of brine, cucumbers, carrots, hot peppers and garlic fermenting away as we speak. The airtight seal and airlock has kept unfriendly yeasts at bay so I don't have to skim the scum every day as you would in a traditional pickle crock. Very cool.

Chad
 
We can a lot of stuff. A must do is "green dilly beans", which are essentially green beans, vinegar, salt, garlic, dill and chiles. I don't have the recipe now, but I think we just used the one from "The Joy of Cooking", actually for a lot of normal canning stuff that is a good resource.

I have some fermented green tomato pickles of my own design that came out swell ( I can offer up the recipe if anyone has interest, don't have it atm). The one thing though, if you get into canning non-acid foods, fermenting sausage or dry cure preservation, it is important to get a solid background in the methods and why things are done as there are health issues there.

One tip for the mushrooms is if you want them in oil, make sure you vinegar pickle them first. Botulism can occur in foods submerged in oil and if you acidify them first this won't be an issue. Any way, I have some pickled Oyster mushrooms (I have tons of them growing around the house) in the fridge. I find the simple recipes are best. Usually Salt, Vinegar (cut with water) and an herb (or two) and possibly some garlic is more than enough flavor while helping to preserve some of the natural flavors of the veggie.

If you do fermented pickles (vs vinegar solution) they tend to be better eaten when 'just done'.
 
Chad said:
Check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation. This is a joint effort between the University of Georgia's extension office and the USDA. The information is more up-to-date than the USDA's own publications. They cover the basics fairly well and there is even an online class you can take (registration required) called "Preserving Food at Home" that offers more in-depth information. Good stuff. I've made refrigerator pickles and fresh sausage in the past but I'm moving into real fermented pickles, cured sausages and home canning. Some of your beer making equipment is transferable. Boil kettles make great boiling water canners and fermentation buckets work just as well for pickling. I have a 2gallon bucket full of brine, cucumbers, carrots, hot peppers and garlic fermenting away as we speak. The airtight seal and airlock has kept unfriendly yeasts at bay so I don't have to skim the scum every day as you would in a traditional pickle crock. Very cool.

Chad


I'm kinda upset that just a few years ago i had nearly unlimited access to five gallon FDA food buckets with air tight lids when i worked in food service. If only i knew what i know now.....:mad:

side note:

anyone done pickled cherry peppers? i did a few jars of them from my garden this past season and they came out a little soft. They still tasted great and i use them in a lot of my cooking. Its just they don't have any bite to them. I'm wondering if my brine was too strong maybe?
 
Dextersmom said:
anyone done pickled cherry peppers? i did a few jars of them from my garden this past season and they came out a little soft. They still tasted great and i use them in a lot of my cooking. Its just they don't have any bite to them. I'm wondering if my brine was too strong maybe?


You'd need to use Alum or Pickling lime to retain crispness.
 
Dextersmom said:
I
anyone done pickled cherry peppers? i did a few jars of them from my garden this past season and they came out a little soft. They still tasted great and i use them in a lot of my cooking. Its just they don't have any bite to them. I'm wondering if my brine was too strong maybe?

Oh, also try looking into just a refriderator pickle or a minimally processed pickle. Pressure canning can really destroy/alter the texture.
 
zoebisch01 said:
Oh, also try looking into just a refriderator pickle or a minimally processed pickle. Pressure canning can really destroy/alter the texture.

yeah i haven't tried that and i'm thinking about doin it....clearly the preservation process had something to do with it.
 
zoebisch01 said:
You'd need to use Alum or Pickling lime to retain crispness.

+1 I forgot to use the alum in a batch of dills last year.....ended up dumping most of them
 
Sun pickles: Make pickle juice add garlic, dill in jar + one slice white bread on bottem + one on top set in sun 3 days Great pickles. Can add carrots and or cauliflower
 
Chad said:
I have a 2gallon bucket full of brine, cucumbers, carrots, hot peppers and garlic fermenting away as we speak. The airtight seal and airlock has kept unfriendly yeasts at bay so I don't have to skim the scum every day as you would in a traditional pickle crock. Very cool.

Chad

How did the fermentation start? Did you leave it open at the beginning to let fermentation begin, or did you add a culture of something to get it started? I'm very curious to know. I may be fermenting some pickles and peppers this weekend when I have nothing else to do.
 
There is (or should be) enough bacteria naturally present on the vegetables to get things underway without having to inoculate with a culture. I had the same question, too, but it seems that even with good washing enough stuff remains for fermentation. I may have made my brine a little too strong, though. My pickles are just now souring at 4 weeks and they are very salty. It could also be that the waxed vegetables from the grocery store are less hospitable than cukes and peppers from the farmer's market or from your own garden. I'm still unclear on how big a difference that might make.

Take a look at the National Center for Home Food Preservation website above. There are a lot of pickle (both cucumber & mixed vegetable) recipes out there, all with varying brine strengths and vinegar concentrations. It is sometimes hard to know whether the recipe writer intended to make fermented pickles or simple fresh pack vinegar pickles. Even books on pickling aren't always clear about which is which. The recipe on the NCHFP website is the best middle-ground base recipe for fermented vegetables I've found so far, and it's easy to adapt or scale up or down.

I didn't leave the fermenter open. I used a brine bag to keep the vegetables weighted down and submerged and then snapped on the lid and airlock. In an open-top pickle crock you still need a weighted plate or brine bag to keep everything under the brine to prevent spoilage bacteria from taking hold, and you may need to skim some yeast foam every couple of days.

It's very much like making beer or making sourdough bread. You want your germs to win. Building a good brine creates conditions where leuconostoc and lactobaccilus can set up shop and produce enough acid to keep other nasties at bay. They are already present, they just need us to create a hospitable environment so they can out compete the other stuff.

Chad
 
Fwiw, I had a word with Sandor Katz the other day (author of Wild Fermentation) asking him about my recent batch of fermented Green Tomato Pickle. The thing was at a point I saw some very interesting molds (looked like good-n-plenty :D, same colors pink and white lol). Kind of freaked me out, but I have been testing this theory lately...and that is that we have bought into the idea that so many things are 'kill-ya-bad' when in fact they are not.

Anyhow...I told him how I had proceeded...I took the pickles out, rinsed them, strained the brine and repacked. Then I refridgerated. He ensured me this was indeed the proper thing to do and also reconfirmed (what he mentions in his book and what I am finding to be true) that what happens to fermenting food in the 'between' stages is a wild ride of odd things (that could possibly make you sick) but it is the final product you are really looking for. At that stage, the magic has occured and the food has transformed.

If you go with an open container in your ferment you'll see some really odd stuff where the air is present. This is pretty much not a big concern. I have had Sauerkraut grow the 'cat's hair' (black mold that is long and furry, Ricki Caroll mentions it in her book and says to wipe it off) and scooped out the bad area. The rest was fine. 100% fine. Raw eating fine.

Where one really needs to be careful is this. If you get a food cross contaminated with Salmonella, that's a bad one (etc). Or if it never truly gets a good ferment. Salt is key to a Lacto happy environment as they are highly tolerant.
 
You all got me. I spent yesterday doing this:

IMG_1134.JPG


L to R: 2 jars sweet and spicy pickles, 1 jar garlic pickles, large jar is pickled red onion, banana peppers, 2 jars dill spears, obscured is a large jar of jalapenos, and finally a jar of bread and butter.

I was surprised at how many slices fit in a single jar. I need more jars, though!
 
Here's a simple recipe that is fantastic on it's own , or on a salad, or on top of steamed asparagus, etc.

2 large red onions
1 cup sugar
1 cup red wine vinegar
sprinkle of salt and pepper

Slice the onions thin ( I use my mandoline on the finest cut). Jam them into as many mason jars as you want to use. Boil the other ingredients and top up the mason jars with the syrup. That's it. Very simple, extremely tasty.

You can experiment with adding a spice in the syrup. Bay leaf, fennel, ground juniper berry work nice.
 
mr x said:
Here's a simple recipe that is fantastic on it's own , or on a salad, or on top of steamed asparagus, etc.

2 large red onions
1 cup sugar
1 cup red wine vinegar
sprinkle of salt and pepper

Slice the onions thin ( I use my mandoline on the finest cut). Jam them into as many mason jars as you want to use. Boil the other ingredients and top up the mason jars with the syrup. That's it. Very simple, extremely tasty.

You can experiment with adding a spice in the syrup. Bay leaf, fennel, ground juniper berry work nice.

This sounded good so I went out to the kitchen to make some. First I couldnt find the mandoline (SWMBO is out of town). Then after I get the onions (yellow, no reds in the fridge) cut up with a cheap Ginsu type knife (mine are out being sharpened) I look in the pantry and find no red wine vinegar, so I used apple cider vinegar and a little balsamic.
I had the onions all packed in the quart jar and dumped the syrup on them. I wiped the top of the jar off and put the lid and ring on and was in the process of wiping the few drops of syrup off the side of the jar with a paper towel when the jar fell apart, spewing all my onions, broken glass and syrup into the dirty kettle that I had just put some soapy water in. It was a brand new mason jar too.
I guess I will regroup and try it another day :confused:

2910775830101759406S600x600Q85.jpg
 
SuperiorBrew said:
This sounded good so I went out to the kitchen to make some. First I couldnt find the mandoline (SWMBO is out of town). Then after I get the onions (yellow, no reds in the fridge) cut up with a cheap Ginsu type knife (mine are out being sharpened) I look in the pantry and find no red wine vinegar, so I used apple cider vinegar and a little balsamic.
I had the onions all packed in the quart jar and dumped the syrup on them. I wiped the top of the jar off and put the lid and ring on and was in the process of wiping the few drops of syrup off the side of the jar with a paper towel when the jar fell apart, spewing all my onions, broken glass and syrup into the dirty kettle that I had just put some soapy water in. It was a brand new mason jar too.
I guess I will regroup and try it another day :confused:
Wow, what a bummer. I promise you it will be worth another try. That's just plain bad luck.
 
mr x said:
Here's a simple recipe that is fantastic on it's own , or on a salad, or on top of steamed asparagus, etc.

2 large red onions
1 cup sugar
1 cup red wine vinegar
sprinkle of salt and pepper

Slice the onions thin ( I use my mandoline on the finest cut). Jam them into as many mason jars as you want to use. Boil the other ingredients and top up the mason jars with the syrup. That's it. Very simple, extremely tasty.

You can experiment with adding a spice in the syrup. Bay leaf, fennel, ground juniper berry work nice.


A similar item to this is an Indian Onion preparation (there are gazillons of types, but this one is nice and simple):

Thin sliced white Onion
Salt
Hot Chili (finely ground) Cayenne works nicely
Lemon Juice

So you just basically spinkle some Sea Salt onto the thinly sliced onion and let it rest for about 15 minutes to draw out the water, then you sprinkle it with the Chili and squeeze some lemon juice on it. It keeps for a while and is great on a Tuna Salad sandwich, or as a side for Indian dishes, etc.
 
MOD EDIT: Threads merged.

I was reading https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f56/anyone-make-sauerkraut-137388/ and watched the Good Eats episode on making pickles. I didn't want to hijack that thread so I decided to create a new one.

I have always thought about trying it but after watching this episode I realized how easy it is. The process is pretty cool. I think I'm going to give it a try and start looking for a good recipe. I might try the Good Eats one to start.

I found it interesting that the lacto fermentation slows as temperatures get higher. Is that right? I would have thought the opposite, similar to yeast fermentations. I've never intentionally soured a beer since I don't really care for them. All I really know about lacto is what it looks like and the off flavors it contributes to beer.

Anyone that makes pickled anything, chime in. What are some of your favorite recipes? Know a good source for crocks (they are expensive!!)? How long do you ferment before you cool? If you wanted to can pickles, how do you kill the lacto to prevent "bottle bombs"?

Looking forward to trying this!

EDIT - Thanks for merging Yuri. I don't know how I didn't see this thread!

This looks like a good fermentation vessel: http://www.simply-natural.biz/Picklemeister.php
 
I'm an all-grain brewer. But processed my first batch of pickles this weekend. Ironically logged on today and saw this thread. Bought 15lbs of pickling cucumbers from a farmers market. Came out with 11qts including 3 jars of thin-sliced. "The Joy of Pickling" provided a good jumping point for me. Covers equipment, process, fermenting, recipes from pickles to sauerkraut to kimchi.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1558321330/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

My brining "crock" was a non-reactive stainless 3 gallon stock pot with a dinner plate on top. I held down the dinner plate using a small wood plank across the top and clamped it down by the pot handles. Worked great. Going forward think I might upgrade to a 3gal food-grade bucket/lid which seems better for anything over a 12hr soak.

Biggest challenge so far has been processing the jars. Think I may have overcooked based on my elevation. Processed them for 15min @ 210ºF but I'm pretty close to sea level here and that may have been too long. Noticed some pickles starting to shrivel on the edges and looking a little pale. I'll let you know in 2 weeks when I crack my first jar. Good luck!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top