Anyone make fermentation pickles?

[Francis Eric]

Oops, I read your quote again, I think I got it backwards. Maybe it will help anyway.

Here is a forum with a lot of stuff in the files, very useful. A lot of these people are homesteaders, so they know a lot, about a lot.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/organi...guid=239347903

I looked just now, and didn't see any in the files or links. I will ask if they have any in the files though. You could always ask on the Yahoo forum. Like I said a lot of these people were raised or live on homesteads so they know a thing or two.

[piratebaker]

Hello there!

Looking through this forum this morning, my husband wanted me to add his question...we have tried for the past 2 summers to pickle cucumbers using the fermentation method, he ended up pickling carrots, pearl onions, green tomatoes, and cukes. The end result was that the carrots and onions did the best, staying nice and crisp, while the tomatoes did ok, and the cukes, well not so hot....going soggy and slimy in the center. Now they all were brined crock style together, so any ideas?

[Raymondo]

I've only pickled cukes alone, in a glass jar. I followed a recipe that said to add grape, black currant or horseradish leaves to keep the cukes crisp. I have no idea how this works. My cukes remained good and crisp though. I use black currant leaves because that's what's available.

Tried my hand at sauerkraut in a glass jar. Worked well. I got a local potter to make a version of a Harsch crock and made a big batch. It worked really well. Although the top few centimetres were mushy and had to be thrown out, the rest was delicious.

[piratebaker]

Thanks for the leaves tip, maybe I will try this next summer, I am fairly stubborn so I know that I do not give up easily!

[msewell]

Sandor Katz's Book Wild Fermentation is my fermenting bible - he has recipes for kim chi, pickles, beer, cheese, sourdough, everything. I've made some very successful kim chi from leftover outer cabbage leaves and radish greens, you can throw almost anything in there and get a good result. Even a fruit-based kim chi which i've heard is amazing. A lot of his recipes are posted at his website, wildfermentation.com.

[North]

Fantastic, I just skimmed this thread but will be going back over the whole thing this week.

I tried making a batch of "brined pickles" this year, haven't tried em yet but I've been eyeing them looking for any fermentation or change in appearance,none yet. gonna try em this week I think, its been 5 months now.

theres a polish deli in town here ,and I've talked to the owner a few times, He loves gabbing about gardening and cooking. One day he talked me into a "pickle soup" i wasn't expecting a very good experience but the stuff was some of the best I've ever tried, made with 1/2 fermented cukes in a cream broth, i know sounds gross. it wasn't.

Anyway he sat down with me that day and talked my ear off about traditional foods and gardening. he had an OLD polish cookbook? i think it was a cookbook, but it had some recipes for brined pickles, that included oak leaves or currant leaves.
he said the leaves help keep things firm. I'll get over there this spring and see if I can talk him into translating the recipe for me, to share here.

[smwlindy]

Pickle Soup? It reminds me of a "Pot Roast with Dill Pickles" recipe from Jeff Smith of Frugal Gourmet fame; it is also a Polish traditional dish. Pot roast cooked with onion, bay leaf and dill pickles with a sour cream gravy (OK I use fat free sour cream). My stomach did flips just thinking about it and it took me the longest time to try it. It is fabulous--my husband asks for it as his favorite pot roast dish & I've been asked for the recipe SO many times. But I never tell people what it is until they ask for the recipe!

I would love to see the pickle (or pickle soup) recipe if he is willing to share it--I would try it right away!

[DeanRIowa]

Here is a fermentation pickle recipe I found for Cajun Style Pickles that I want to try this summer.

Dean

[earlc2]

Here's a recipe from Kitchen Stewardship by Katie Kimball. There are pictures at the website.

http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/20...ed-and-canned/

The lacto-fermented version is inspired by Sandor Ellis Katz’s Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods and this Fermented Foods post at Nourishing Days. The canned pickles come from my dear friend Maria, who is patient enough to give it to me over the phone!

Recipe: Lacto-Fermented Garlic Pickles
For a 1/2 gallon jar

Whole cucumbers or cut into spears to fill jar (about 4 medium)
Pot or sink full of ice water
8 cloves garlic (Sandor Katz says 3 whole bulbs, but he’s kind of a garlic freak. This was good enough for our family; fiddle with it for yours.)
1 Tbs mustard seeds (optional)
4-5 oak leaves, fresh from tree
4 black peppercorns
1 head and 3 sprigs fresh dill
7 Tbs whey
2 Tbs sea salt
2 c. filtered water plus more to fill jar
(optional) Clean plastic lid that fits inside the jar

For at least 3 hours but no more than 8, soak the cucumbers in ice cold water. Really. Add lots of ice. Keep adding it. I even put mine in ice water in a pot in the fridge. Those cucumbers were going to be COLD, doggone it! This helps them to get and stay crisp, especially if your cukes aren’t directly from the garden that day.

If you’re going to slice or cut your cukes into spears, just put them back into the ice water until you’re ready to get them all into the jar.
Put garlic, mustard seeds, peppercorns, dill and oak leaves at the bottom of your half-gallon glass jar. (Note: I would put the sprigs of dill and half the garlic at the top after the cukes next time.)

Yup. Leaves in my food.
Pack the cucumbers in the jar. If you get them adjusted so they hold each other in and prevent floating, you’ll have fewer problems with mold on top.
Mix 2 cups filtered water with the whey and sea salt until dissolves. Pour over cucumbers. Add more filtered water to fill the jar without about an inch from the top.
If you have a plastic lid that fits inside your jar, place it on top of the cucumbers and weigh it down (with water or something clean and heavy – Katz recommends a boiled rock). Its job it to keep the cucumbers submersed in the water.

This is a lid from a mayo container, small-mouthed quart size. It fits perfectly!
Put the lid on tightly and leave in a warm place (anywhere in your kitchen in the summer should do) for 2-3 days. You can taste the pickles whenever you want. Moving them won’t hurt the fermentation, but you’ll want to arrange them so they’re submersed again.
When you’re happy with the flavor, store the finished pickles in the refrigerator. You can take the plastic lid out at this point. I like them, although they’re still not as tasty as the store pickles I’m used to. I tell myself they’re so healthy, and that helps. My husband doesn’t like cucumbers (but does like conventional pickles), and he says they still taste too much like cucumbers, if that helps anyone.

The jar of lacto-fermented pickles, ready to ferment.
How to Make Crunchy Pickles: Two KEY Steps

Oak Leaves (or grape or horseradish leaves): I was a little weirded out by putting oak leaves in my food, but I kept telling myself that all our food comes from outside, and I’m not actually eating the oak leaves. I used leaves from the ground that were still green in my first batch. Mush. Pick them right off the tree the day you make the pickles, even if your neighbors might think you odd for standing on a chair picking oak leaves at 9:00 at night. Trust me.

An Ice Water Bath: The ICE cold water also makes a difference. I had a little space left in my jar and no cucumbers left, so I grabbed a few from the fridge that I had saved for eating and added them to the lacto-fermented batch. I cut them differently, because I love a good experiment. Results? They are definitelyI less crunchy than their ice-bathed counterparts. Do the ice bath. (You’ll know it’s cold enough when you reach in for the cucumbers, and your hands are so cold that you almost pee your pants.)

[earlc2]

Here's a couple of links with a lot of info if you're interested in doing some research


http://www.webcrawler.com/webcrawler...7?_IceUrl=true

http://www.webcrawler.com/webcrawler...7?_IceUrl=true

[icebear]

i have wanted to try "real" pickling for a few years now, but i never had the chance to actually do it. I did try making sauerkraut by the 5 gallon bucket, but it never got anywhere... i was pregnant at the time and didn't have the ambition to figure out why.

But i love fermentation foods like kefir, kombucha and i brew beer and have been trying my hand at wines.
i'm also a potter- or i was when my kiln was in working order...

now if i could simply plan things out all orderly like and make myself a few crocks, fire them and try some recipes.

I was watching Bizarre Foods a few months ago, Andrew Zimmern was in Russia and he tasted this most beautiful looking whole ripe tomato that had been pickled by the natural method. There were all sorts of other pickled things, garlic, cukes, green tomatoes....

i found a couple recipes and a bunch of books i'd like to buy and there are other interesting lacto fermentation methods that i found.

Japanese pickling is interesting too. Tsukemono i guess they are called.
There are salt methods, rice bran and miso pickling.
The rice bran was totally new to me. I did find a website on Tsukemono, i'd link it here but its a page for selling a book. but if you search Japanese Pickles in google you will see "Black Moon pickle recipes" that page also shows an interesting type of crock with a lit that has a screw-on inner lid to press the vegetables below the liquid. I think it is simply called a Pickle Press. It could be used in any recipe i have come across not just Japanese methods. Unfortunately the presses i have seen sold on amazon aren't getting good ratings due to flimsy design- But i'm sure creative people with a purpose can make their own with assorted sized food grade pails and PVC caps and bits of various sizes.

Another thing that may be of interest here, where we are all gardeners, is the composting method called Bokashi. It actually seems similar to the rice bran method of Japanese pickling. In Bokashi, you can compost verboten things like meat scraps, whole eggs and bones.... without odor -and inside the house (if you wish).... Its quite fascinating and its part of the fermentation cycle.
I encourage anyone who is interested in composting and the ways of fermentation to do lots of research on these things... its fascinating stuff.

[basketlady]

I would like to learn this technique for making pickles.Please keep me posted. I am always interested in how things were done in the "old days"

Sue

[Rustik]

Hiya,

I'm from Canada(Quebec) and I know a guy locally who actually runs a company called "Caldwell BioFermentation". You might find some useful info at the site. I'm under the impression that this kind of "processing" is difficult to "scale-up" and to make predictable. It really is a folk-art, or so I thought. Anyways, check it out:

http://www.caldwellbiofermentation.com/

[Esspwebbb]

Originally posted by Atash:

There is a lot of interest among the patrons of my website for lactic-acid fermented pickles.

I might try it this year to make old-fashioned cucumber pickles (I mean fermented, not vinegar infusion). On rare occasions we make kimchee.

Anyone else use this method of preservation? What kinds of vegetables have you tried?

Yeah I tried this recipe and it has a great taste and the vegetable that I used was carrot.
Research Paper