So, Marc aka Mental Masala and I and our friend Rachel (the Mistress of Club Grub here in the East Bay) are getting ready for canning 50 pounds of Lucero’s San Marzano and Early Girl tomatoes tomorrow, along with dill pickles, dilly beans, and bread-and-butter pickles. Seems like the perfect Labor Day activity, and I’m pretty excited as I have never canned before. I also haven’t eaten B&B pickles in ages, because I can’t find any storebought ones that don’t have high-fructose corn syrup. Despite being only 25, Rachel is an experienced canner (and cook) so with luck we’ll avoid poisoning ourselves or our loved ones.
I’ve been getting into making fermented kim chi lately, which is basically shredded cabbage, carrots, and radishes. I sprinkle every half-inch layer liberally with salt and cayenne pepper and then tamp it down with a potato masher in a large nonreactive bowl, then cover it with a tight-fitting plate (pyrex quiche plate works well with my glass bowl) and a big weight (like a container of water) pressed on top of that, with a cloth covering to keep out flies. (This is a version of fermentation god Sandor Katz’s sauerkaut recipe; check out his wonderful site for why fermented foods are nature’s inoculators.) The salt draws the water out of the cabbage and forms a brine, and the whole thing shrinks. That’s been a problem with my setup, as then the glass lid stops halfway down the concave bowl and thus isn’t weighting it down properly anymore. So I’ve switched to a smaller plate at that point, but there’s got to be a better system out there.
There is, of course. What I need is a sauerkraut crock. Which would apparently also be handy for making dill pickles, as my Ball’s canning book say ideally you want to ferment them for a few weeks before canning.
Novella over at City Farmer just opened up a jar of her fermented dill pickles and says they tasted gross. Tomorrow we’re making Ball’s recipe for fresh dill pickles, so I hope ours come out better than gross. If anyone has a foolproof recipe they’d like to share that doesn’t involve weeks-long fermenting first, please do so in the comments. Should we brine overnight or not? Tell me, o experienced picklemakers.
One of Novella’s commenters recommended she get this special Harsch earthenware fermentation crock, but it is quite spendy and I refuse to buy from a store that says at the bottom of every page, "Jesus is the master of this site." Bart aka the Potato Non Grata and I instead set off on foot to check Urban Ore (a wonderful recycler of crap) and the Goodwill store in our neighborhood, to see if there were any earthenware fermenters to be had, or Le Creuset stockpots, as I broke the lid on one of mine.
Alas, there weren’t any crocks, although there were plenty of crock pots, and breadmakers too. And I let out a yelp of glee when I stumbled upon this Rival Seal a Meal vacuum sealer for $9.99, along with a box of apparently unused bags for it for $1.99. I’ve wanted one of these for ages, for sealing those of my Bay Area Meat CSA goodies that come in butcher paper, and also for freezing fruit. (I’ve been meaning for ages to write about BAMCSA, which I started almost a year ago; if you lie around here and want to know more you can check out our interim website, a wiki, wher you can join the Google group.)
I snatched up the sealer and checked it for obviously broken parts. There were none.
"What makes you think it works?" said the Potato skeptically, his nose twitching anxiously the way it does whenever I drag him into Goodwill. He hates thrift stores.
"Why wouldn’t it? And for $12, I can risk it!" I said. "I can always donate it back."
I’m pleased to say that it does in fact work, although why I decided to test it on cherry tomatoes, I have no idea. Time to begin putting up all the peaches, strawberries, and fruit I can buy.
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September 2nd, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I’ve been canning all weekend. Definitely a great 3-day weekend activity. So far I’ve made apple butter, dilly beans, bread and butter pickles and my favorite, tomato flip. I’ve never made dill pickles but was thinking about doing that tomorrow along with applesauce and apple chutney (have you figured out that I have a prolific apple tree?). I’ve found at least with the bread and butter pickles that it is best not to soak them in brine overnight as they become soggy. I brine mine for 3 hours, so they stay nice and crisp. Good luck and have fun!
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:29 am
Go to http://www.lehmans.com/ and search for “crocks” - they have stoneware crocks in many sizes, plus the boards to weight down your kraut. Also, check thrift stores; I often see these sold as decorative items for $10-$20.
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:11 am
It is hard to find the old crocks in thrift stores, though the right yard sale might be the ticket. I’ve gotten some small ones for very good prices at antique stores (2-4 cup for small projects for about $10). You can pick up a 5 gallon pickle crock for about $75 in antique stores in Central California.
Amanda
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:23 am
After a bad start with dill pickles (I still have quarts of pickles that are too salty to eat — maybe today I’ll clean them out) I found a recipe that’s pretty foolproof — in Canning and Preserving for Dummies of all places (it’s a good reference). Speedy Dill pickles use a brine that’s so easy to remember and has easy ratios: 3 cups H2O, 3 cups vinegar, 6 tbsp. kosher or pickling salt (boil until the salt dissolves). You can also add dill seed, mustard seed or whatever to the brine when you’re boiling it. I usually stuff a head of fresh dill in the bottom of the jar before filling it, and I like onions in my pickles — so I usually sprinkle in a few slices of onion from the garden, some chopped garlic, and a little hot red chile (although I grew mine and they’re not very hot, which I like). Fill the jars with cucumbers, pour in hot brine, and then process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. They need a few weeks on the shelf to ripen but I put up enough this year to eat pickles with my lunchtime sandwich all year.
If you want some interesting info on fermenting, one of my blog readers has been doing both sauerkraut and green beans . Here’s the URL for Down on the Farm: http://lavendercreek.wordpress.com/
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:08 am
Thanks for all the pointers, everyone! Question: Do you know anything about variances in weight of kosher salt? We just realized that 1 cup of Diamond kosher weighs less than half of Morton kosher, so we should be going by weight, not volume.
Tnrsmama: Do you brine the B&Bs before or after you slice them?
Thanks!
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:03 am
I have done a small amount of canning - mostly bread and butter pickles and pickled beets. When I needed advice on canning I did a search and came across the site of an older couple from Oregon. They have been canning since 1966 and have both advice and recipes on their site.
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:12 pm
I brine them after I slice them. I make mine with sliced onions and sliced bell peppers. I slice all of the veggies then layer them with salt and ice in a crock and put back in the fridge for 3 hours. Then I make a syrup of 5C sugar, 5C vinegar and a few spices. I put the veggies into the syrup, bring it to the boiling point, then remove from heat and put them in jars immediately. Makes for a nice, crisp pickle.
September 4th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Your kim chi looks gorgeous and tasty, Bonnie… this might actually be the incentive I need to head over to the pottery to buy the small crock I’ve been eyeing. (My mother used to have a larger one for an ongoing dill pot in the summer.)
I’ll send you my family dill pickle recipe… no vinegar included, but it’s got a bit of fire!
September 6th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
I am insanely jealous of your seal-a-meal. I have been pining away for one for ages. Or that someone will seal some good mexican meals and send them to me. *sigh*
I brined my pickled vegetables (carrots, cucs, green beans and hot peppers) first overnight and then added two grape leaves to each jar (supposed to make them stay crunchy)
September 6th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
very jealous of your thrifty seal-a-meal/
PS. does your captcha know it’s me?
“with England,” ???
September 7th, 2007 at 3:49 am
I have not made pickles BUT I have read the brining section of “Putting Food By”. (Get the book!) It did cover the weight differences between brands of salt and also the iodine-vs-no-iodine and other-salt-surprises that you don’t want in your pickles.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Where can I find something to seal my 8 gallon crock. It leaks a small amount everyday. Thanks.