Pickles

I like pickles. Making my own fermented pickles is something I have been looking forward to, but online advice suggested that I do not start with that. So, I've made carrots, sauerkraut, and kefir. I'm ready for the pickles. I chose the recipe that came with my fermentation kit.

There were numerous issues. Let's start with the cucumbers. The recipe asks for 1 pound of kirby cucumbers--the smallest ones I can get and all the same size. Well, I found them at the grocery store, and they were all the same size, but that size was HUGE. There were four big fat cukes in a one-pound package. I was not looking to make a meal out of one pickle, so I opted for these One Sweet Cucumber snacking seedless cucumbers. They are all about the same size and I am confident that I can fit more than one in a one-pint mason jar.

The recipe called for a grape leaf. I don't even know where to look for one of those. It says I can substitute a second bay leaf. Okay. Maybe I should have just used one bay leaf in the first place. I am adapting a 1 quart recipe for a 1 pint jar. Oh well, too late for that, now.

The recipe calls for 1 dill flower or 2 tablespoons of dill seeds. I have dried dill weed. It will have to do.

The recipe also calls for 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns, but never tells you to do anything with it. I just put a couple dashes of pepper into the jar.

Garlic cloves. Hey, I've got those. The instructions say to put all of these items in the jar while the cucumbers soak in ice water. As with the dilly sticks, the garlic cloves get in the way of the packing. I think I'll put them in after the cucumbers, next time.

Now, I understand the difficulty with making pickles. The cucumbers need to be packed whole while still leaving some head room in the jar. Mine were a little too long. Once I packed the pickles, the Pickle Pebble (fermentation weight) protruded above the rim of the jar. Try saying that fast, "Once I packed the pickles, the Pickle Pebble peeked past the perimeter."

I squished them down as well as I could without bruising them.

Now, the instructions tell me to pour the brine over the cucumbers after I have placed the fermentation weight. That seemed an unnecessary difficulty. I did it in the other order. It's a pretty tight fit, vertically. The instructions wanted the weight and the cucumbers to be covered with brine, but there is no room for gas at the top of the jar that way. I poured out some of the liquid after I put the Pickle Pebble in place.

Unlike the sauerkraut, the pickles are expected to shrink and sink lower as the fermentation proceeds. I hope that is true. I don't want to have liquid spilling out of the top of the Pickle Pipe.

Fermentation is expected to take 2-4 weeks. I'm supposed to wait an additional week after the fermentation stops before sampling.

Taste Test

I tasted these pickles after 3 weeks. The brine had gotten cloudy as expected. They seemed ready. The pickles taste good enough, but the process has made the pickles a little limp and it is as if their insides have been sucked out. That might be because of the type of cucumbers I used. They still have a crisp outside, but I prefer store-bought Claussen pickles to these.

Getting the right kind of cucumbers is a big challenge for a pint-sized jar. They need to be small and all the same size. I might try this again, when fresher pickling cucumbers are available. I might need to get some quart jars for this to work well.