Update #2: I take back what I said above. I opened another jar of pickles today. This jar is older than the one above that I mentioned were soggy. These pickles are FANTASTIC, the best I have ever had. The flavored pulled from the variety of fresh herbs were great -- and they are very crisp. I don't think any of the herbs I added are loaded with tannin's. I think the problem with the soggy pickles were just the cucumbers themselves, they were too big. The cucumbers in this latest jar I opened are about half the size, and held up perfectly. I'll fill you in if anything changes, but I am not convinced tannin is necessary for a crisp fermented pickle.
***
Harvest season is wrapping up and we've needed to preserve some of our gardens goodness. I'm not a big fan of current canning trends as it destroys most nutrients through excessive heat to prevent it from rotting. As I walk around in grocery stores it's like walking through a graveyard for food. Even the produce section has become somewhat of an abomination. It's almost like we are living in a digital world now, pictures of food but the food is gone. Our soils are being depleted of micro nutrients and loaded with the known macro nutrients to force growth. The taste is horrendous compared to the local organic produce I can find and our garden.
Here are some fun articles somewhat related:
Most and least chemical-laden produce
On the isles the food is overly refined and many micro nutrients are thrown aside. Then they often bleach or treat with other chemicals to clean the food! After that they "enrich" it, because it has nothing left. The enrichment adds known micro nutrients that our body's need like vitamin D. Although, if you go outside for 15 minutes or so your skin will produce the best vitamin D your body can get! Other vitamins can be obtained through fruits and vegetables and other whole foods.
Most supermarkets across the united states have a lot of food that used to help aid digestion (now we are supposed to buy pills for that). Now we have a fake representation of such foods that have been killed with excessive heat. Sauerkraut is hard to find raw -- I can only find it at one place near my house. Most sauerkraut you find at the grocery store has been pasteurized and all it's helpful micro nutrients killed. Pickles used to be made through a fermentation and aging process. Now it's made by pouring vinegar in a jar of cucumbers and boiled to death. Many foods were fermented and would help digest the other foods we eat. Mustard, ketchup, pickles, sauerkraut and sour milk products. All of this had a reason years back. Now with current "safety" measures put up by our centralized powers we have fake representations of these food. No wonder we have such high rates of disease related to the digestive process. 63 million people in the united states are known to have chronic constipation! I'm not a doctor, but I would guess it's from the horrible food we eat. Even when we try to eat healthy by eating our vegetables and fruits they can be fairly weak in the micro nutrients and soaked in chemicals.
More fermented foods vs probiotic pills
More fermented foods vs probiotic pills
Check out this article for some neat digestive problem statistics for the USA CLICK ME
It's fairly depressing to me. But, I'm so glad we have "North Country Marketplace & Salvage" near our house in Colebrook NH. They sell from the great local farmers around here. Gardening is a big thing up around here and people have given us some of their excess. We have a pretty small garden, but it supplies quite a bit of food -- I really want to expand over time to supply most of our food.
Enough ranting, lets get onto the point of all of this. How to ferment cucumbers to make a real nutritious pickle loaded with probiotics! I will later put up my method for sauerkraut.
If this is your first time treating yourself to a true fermented pickle you may need time to acquire the taste, but give it a chance. I have given tastes to many people and everyone has liked the pickles! They sure don't taste like the pickles you buy at the grocery store (they are much better imo).
Step 1: Gather your cucumbers and equipment. You will want to clean the dirt off of your cucumbers (or other vegies). Also do a pretty nice job at cleaning whatever you are going to ferment in, to decrease the risk of contamination. I do a minimalist approach to my fermenting. There are all sorts of fancy equipment you can use to decrease chances of contamination or make it less maintenance. If I started failing a lot with botched batches I would probably make a bubbler similar to this person's. (source)
Equipment:
- Large enough canning jar to fit your cucumbers
- Knife if you want to cut them up
- Cucumbers
- Sea salt or canning salt (make sure its 100% salt - no anti clumping agents)
- Clean water
Step 2: I will slice thin rounds for sandwiches any of the large cucumbers. I will quarter or eighth my medium-sized cucumbers. I will keep the small cucumbers whole. You can do what you like, this is just my preference.
Step 3: Make your brine. Depending on how you do this you can do it the day before or hours before. I do a ratio of 3 cups water to 1.5 tbs of salt with great results. If your water is terrible you can go with distilled water or boil it for 5 to 10 minutes. If your water is great then just warm it up and dissolve your salt and set aside for use later. For these large 1/2 gallon jars I need about 3 cups of water with 1.5 tbs per jar.
Step 4: Load up any extra goods you plan to have in your pickles. The pickles in this tutorial are loaded with sage, basil, dill, oregano, and thyme. I have done them with nothing but brine (salt-water) and cucumbers, I have done them with garlic and brine. I have done them with jalapeno peppers, garlic... You really can't go wrong, put things in you love and you will probably enjoy the end result.
Step 4: Load up any extra goods you plan to have in your pickles. The pickles in this tutorial are loaded with sage, basil, dill, oregano, and thyme. I have done them with nothing but brine (salt-water) and cucumbers, I have done them with garlic and brine. I have done them with jalapeno peppers, garlic... You really can't go wrong, put things in you love and you will probably enjoy the end result.
Step 5: Load the cucumbers till it's as stuffed as you can get with about an inch gap at the top. With pickles I will wedge one large cucumber at the top to keep the contents below submerged in the brine. Once it's full you will pour your brine until you have about a 1/2 inch gap at the top for it to expand. Make sure your brine is down to about room temperature.
Step 6: At this point you put the lid on firm, but don't crank down extremely tight. Ideal temps I have found to be 58-68 degrees. If it gets much warmer it ferments a lot faster and the pickles seem to be a bit mushier. Also if they are fermenting very quickly you will need to "burp" them 2x a day. At a cooler temp you can burp them once every day or two.
To burp them all you need to do is open the lid. If it has been very active open it over the sink as it can overflow just like a shaken up soda bottle. If it fills up to the top pour some out so there is a half inch gap. If the water level runs too low add more water (I just add water, but many people add more brine). The activity will slow down dramatically over 1-2 weeks. Once it seems about done tighten your lid down and stop burping. The CO2 from fermentation will keep the gross molds from growing up top, but if you ignore it completely it could blow your bottle up. That's why I don't crank down on the lid at the beginning, I have had some leak all over my table when the temps were too high and the fermentation activity was going crazy. When it is too hot I ferment in my basement to keep that from happening -- cooler fermenting also helps make a crispier pickle, like I mentioned above.
Step 7: Storage or eat them up! Once the activity has halted and you stop burping them, you can store them for further aging in a cool dark area for months. Some people have even stored them for years! I eat them far too fast for them to store that long. Once I open mine I put them in the fridge. I know people who do not but the taste alters fairly quickly left at room temps and I'm not a big fan. I like to eat fermented pickles or sauerkraut along with most every meal. They go great with sandwiches, rice, eggs, lentils, beans, salads and much more.
Bonus Material
I am fermenting all my green tomatoes and some salsa for a fun try as well. Here are some pictures, I'll let you know how they turn out! We had a heavy frost and I had to gather up all the last bits of the garden that aren't tolerant to frost.. I really hope these fermented green tomatoes are great. If so I'll grow a lot more next year.
