We bought half a bushel of pickling cucumbers Saturday. I was determined to make fermented a.k.a. barrel pickles. Since we don't have a canner any more. I read up on the theory behind the process, studied recipes and synthesised my own. I've got seven small tubs with about 3l of pickles in each.

At this point, all seven pickle tubs seem to be full of happy bacteria turning cucumber carbohydrates into gas and hopefully lactic acid, which is the whole idea behind fermented (barrel) pickles.

The tubs I got have snap lids and they are too air tight and the foam was rising up and seeping out the edges and pouring liquid on the floor. That sucked. I drilled holes in the tops, that should stop the pressure build up.

One should skim the foam off the liquid each day, and yes there's a bit of white foamy stuff as the air bubbles up through the water which is very alive with bacteria.

If I wasn't afraid of a batch going bad, i'd just dump all the tubs out into a kitchen garbage can because it would be SO MUCH EASIER to deal with one big, non-spilling container rather than seven small ones. But, first time, etc and all that. We must see this through for science.

Recipe I concocted:

For each 3.3l capacity tub:

  • 5-7 cloves of garlic, halved crosswise
  • 3-4 fat dill flower heads
  • 3-5 star aniseed pods
  • 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
  • 6-10 black peppercorns
  • 2-3 bay leaves for crispness
  • enough #2 cukes to come close to the top, both ends cropped
  • brine to cover (2tbsp salt per quart of water)

Put a weight on the pickles so they don't break the surface of the water. Cover the tubs to keep out dust and critters, but not an airtight seal as the fermentation produces gas.  

Supposedly they'll be half-sour in a week and full sour in several weeks, and fermentation will slow down/stop at some point so they don't need to be refrigerated if one is willing to have very sour pickles. I hope so. Our fridge isn't very big.

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This isn't much of an update about moving and stuff. But it's what I wanted to write about.

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9/10 '18 6 Comments
Hmmm. Although the ones I have are labeled dill pickles, there's barely any dill in the jar. Ingredients read: sea salt, garlic, black pepper, allspice, coriander, yellow mustard, celery seed, fennel seed... with dill listed last.
The fennel is interesting, that would have been a nice compliment. I kind of forgot to add a couple cloves to each tub, but given that I don't think we have any, I'm not too worried about it. Next time!
I think pickle seasoning should always be a dice roll. There are too many interesting flavor combinations to stick to just one recipe.

I did like the fennel note. The celery seed I could take or leave.
Pickles! I love fermented pickles! I just went and got one out of my fridge after reading this. I did not ferment it myself, because I am not so very BOSS as you, and fermented veggies are easy to come by in farm country, but still. Thanks for reminding me to eat one!

Some people have those fancy dedicated mini wine fridges in their kitchens. Clearly you need a dedicated mini pickle fridge.
I have my eye on this beautiful two door fridge-on-top from IKEA with a pull out freezer compartment; I swear it would hold twice as much as the unit that came with the flat, or at least it would be twice as easy to reach things. But we gotta save our pennies first.
Yeah, fridge configurations can be tricky. You can't just compare cubic feet to cubic feet, because everyone uses the space differently. So the Ikea one you're eyeballing might very well double the kind of storage space you need most, regardless of the measurements.

My solution for the past ... 13 years maybe? has been to have two separate units. One wholly a fridge and one a dedicated freezer. Where we've lived, those matched units end up costing about the same as one of the fancier all-in-ones with the french doors on top/freezer drawer on bottom and gave me a little more fridge space and a lot more freezer space. Since I freeze a lot of stuff, that's my ideal config. But you do have to have to space in your domicile for it. In our first house, the fridge unit went in the kitchen, and the freezer went a few steps away in the garage (which worked great; I don't go into the freezer nearly as often as the fridge). In this house, the freezer sat in the dining room until we renovated the kitchen to give it a home there. (Can't put a freezer in the garage in this climate; too cold; worked fine in CA, though.)