More pickling projects tonight:
Pickled golden beets, Maangchi's diced radish kimchi, Ron's fennel dills, and the Fresno peppers from a few days ago. And dill for freezing. I sorta guessed on the dills based on the picture of the spices: For 6 cucumbers plus 6 cups brine, 1 tsp each black peppercorns, brown mustard seeds, yellow mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, 1/4 tsp gochugaru.

Thanks again,Ron. HMart did have a very large pile of very large radishes. From Maangchi's book, I had no idea what to expect. Turns out Korean radishes make daikon look like small potatoes.

tjr wrote:More pickling projects tonight:

Pickled golden beets, Maangchi's diced radish kimchi, Ron's fennel dills, and the Fresno peppers from a few days ago. And dill for freezing. I sorta guessed on the dills based on the picture of the spices: For 6 cucumbers plus 6 cups brine, 1 tsp each black peppercorns, brown mustard seeds, yellow mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, 1/4 tsp gochugaru.

Thanks again,Ron. HMart did have a very large pile of very large radishes. From Maangchi's book, I had no idea what to expect. Turns out Korean radishes make daikon look like small potatoes.

Looking good and I'm glad H-Mart worked out. Some of those radishes are close to football-size!

Not sure about the fennel dills, but those are definitely not mine. I'm not a huge fan of fennel. I only include a scant 1/2 tsp of fennel seed in my brine for a 3-pound batch of pickles. It's not very recognizable as fennel but it does add a little something that is noticeable when it's not there.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Not sure about the fennel dills, but those are definitely not mine.

I copied from your spice plate a few posts above:
Looking at it again, I may have underestimated the proportion of black peppercorns.

tjr wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Not sure about the fennel dills, but those are definitely not mine.

I copied from your spice plate a few posts above:
Looking at it again, I may have underestimated the proportion of black peppercorns.

Ah, got it. Yeah, the fronds are all dill and just a pinch of fennel seed. But again, no right or wrong here. You gotta' go with what you like. I just didn't want to unknowingly share inaccurate info.

When do you estimate your stuff will be done? I'll be curious to know what you think of all your results.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:When do you estimate your stuff will be done?

Cauliflower was ready a few days ago, already snacked relentlessly. Napa kimchi is now in the fridge after 3 days of room temperature fermentation. It's just a little sour, seems pretty good to me but I know almost nothing about kimchi. The heat mellowed considerably compared to tasting immediately after mixing. Beets will be ready in a few more days. Radish kimchi has exuded juice covering the radishes now with some bubbling. Hot sauce is actively bubbling and fairly sour but I'm going to let it ferment a while longer to see what flavors develop. Pickles, I guess about 10 more days. They're in the cellar where it's 60ishF.

tjr wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:When do you estimate your stuff will be done?

Cauliflower was ready a few days ago, already snacked relentlessly. Napa kimchi is now in the fridge after 3 days of room temperature fermentation. It's just a little sour, seems pretty good to me but I know almost nothing about kimchi. The heat mellowed considerably compared to tasting immediately after mixing. Beets will be ready in a few more days. Radish kimchi has exuded juice covering the radishes now with some bubbling. Hot sauce is actively bubbling and fairly sour but I'm going to let it ferment a while longer to see what flavors develop. Pickles, I guess about 10 more days. They're in the cellar where it's 60ishF.

Very nice. I presume the cauliflower was a vinegar pickle? I've only ever pickled in in escabeche form (which is partially cooked), so I' curious how that went.

If it's analogous to bread baking, I'm guessing that the cool cellar will slow fermentation and produce more intense flavor. I've never tried kimchi but maybe I'll give it a go when the early seasonal cabbage starts coming in. Super inspirational post. I really appreciate it.

=R=

Thanks! Yes, the cauliflower is a quick pickle. Very easy: Clean and cut 1 medium head into florets. Put in a bowl, add 1/3 c fine salt and cool water to cover. Stir to dissolve salt. Refrigerate overnight. Drain and rinse 3 times. Add 1/3 c white wine vinegar and cool water to cover. Season with Italian herbs and red pepper flakes (I use about 1 tsp of premixed Italian seasoning plus about 1 tsp of mixed hot and sweet Calabrian pepper.) Optional if not eating with fingers: 1 Tbsp olive oil.

The radish kimchi seems almost done, too. Tangy with a tiny bit of "fizz".

Well, it's that glorious time of year . . . ramp season!


Washed/Sorted Ramps & Kuwabara White #2 Tall Petty, 115mm
Approximately 4 pounds before washing and trimming.


Mise En Place
50/50 water & white vinegar, trimmed ramp bulbs, spice plate (salt, black peppercorns, yellow mustard seed, coriander seed, fennel seed, gochugaru, celery seed) and granulated sugar.

Dissolved the sugar in the liquid over low heat and once it had gone into solution, I killed the heat, added the spices and the salt and let them steep until the salt completely dissolved. I then poured the brine, directly into the jar, over the ramp bulbs. I'll use the leaves in some other stuff over the next couple of days.


Jarred
These will be stored in the fridge and should be ready in a few days but they'll continue to get better well after that. I have a few my 2022's left and they're still quite delicious and surprisingly, not mushy.

=R=

Seeing flowering dill at the store seems to trigger an involuntary response in me to get a batch of pickles going . . .


Mise En Place & Wakui Shirogami #2 Gyuto 210mm
Smashed garlic cloves, pickling cucumbers, spice plate (black peppercorns, black mustard seeds, yellow mustard seeds, gochugaru, fennel seeds), flowering dill and fresno chiles.

SOP here. Steeped the contents of the spice plate in warm water to make a 'tea,' then let it cool to room temperature. From there, layered the cukes, dill, garlic and fresnos into a pickling crock and placed weights on top of it all. After that, poured the 'tea' -- along with a 4% saltwater solution -- into the crock to cover everything. Put the lid on the crock and filled the moat. I'll check them after 7 days and expect they'll be done sometime between then and Day 10.

=R=

'Tis the season, so rolling up another batch of fermented dill pickles . . .


Flowering dill, bay leaves, pickling cucumbers & jalapenos, smashed garlic cloves and spice plate (black peppercorns, fennel seed, black mustard seeds, yellow mustard seeds, gochugaru).

SOP here. They're in Crock #2 now. I'll check them in about a week. Crock #1, started last week and pictured above, is now at Day 8 but not quite ready for jarring.

=R=

One more batch of garlic-dill pickles . . .


Dill Pickle Mise En Place & Yu Kurosaki R2 Hammered Gyuto, 210mm
Spice Plate (black peppercorns, black & yellow mustard seeds, fennel seed and gochugaru), homegrown garlic, pickling cucumbers, slitted jalapenos and flowering dill.

This is a new batch of pickling cucumbers from Nichols' most recent pick. The flowering dill they sent didn't look so great but it did smell great, so I decided to move ahead with it. This all found its way into the crock with a 4% salt solution. Will check them next week. I don't expect they'll take more than 8 or 9 days

=R=

Day 8 and done . . .


Garlic Jalapeno Dill Pickles

No surprise that in this heat, even with the a/c on, the ferment went quickly. I'll keep one jar and give the other two to friends later this week.

=R=

I really thought I was done with pickles for the season but we were in Madison, WI visiting some friends and made a point of stopping by the Dane Country Farmers Market this morning. This is pretty much my favorite market anywhere. In any case, not only did I find several stalls offering pristine pickling cucumbers, but I also found one vendor with some absolutely beautiful, tender and aromatic flowering dill. At that point I decided that one more batch of fermented dills was in the cards . . .


Pickling Mise En Place & Nigara SG2 Tsuchime Gyuto, 210mm
Spice plate (black peppercorns, brown & yellow mustard seeds, gochugaru and fennel seed), homegrown garlic, washed/trimmed pickling cucumbers, slitted red jalapenos (also from DCFM), bay leaves and flowering dill.

These are already in the crock, under weights, in a 4% salt solution (+0.5% calcium chloride to enhance crispness). It's going to be on the warm side this week, so I'll check them after 4 or 5 days. I don't expect they'll take longer than a week.

=R=

It took some finagling but thanks to NFriday's help, I finally managed to get my annual 10-pound shipment of cherry bombs from Nichols . . .


10 Pounds of Cherry Bombs
Rinsed and rubbed these a few times to get them clean.

Rather than making another lactofermented sambal-like hot sauce, which I've done the past couple of years, this time I decided to give them a sweet-hot, vinegar treatment. Heated up a simple brine of white vinegar, water, granulated sugar, pickling salt and calcium chloride (0.4% by weight) then pre-loaded each jar with two smashed, homegrown garlic cloves, a wee pinch of black peppercorns and a bay leaf . . .


Jarred Up
After culling, trimming and sort-outs, I ended up with 9 1-quart jars, which each contain about a pound of cherry bombs. I'm guessing these will take a week or two in the fridge before they're really ready to enjoy and gift out.

=R=

Jarred up the batch of garlic-dill pickles for which I used ingredients I bought last Saturday at the Dane County Farmers Market . . .


Garlic, Red Jalapeno & Dill Pickles
Probably the best batch of fermented pickles I've made to date. I attribute this not only to the quality of the inputs, which were tip-top but also to the inclusion of calcium chloride in my brine (0.5% by weight), which really helped the cucumbers retain their crispiness. I'd been hesitant to use it in the past and have tried several more holistic workarounds, like grape leaves, horseradish leaves and bay leaves but none of those alternatives came close to the result achieved via the inclusion of calcium chloride (and they all impart a flavor of their own, which the cc does not).

Very happy to have gotten over the hump on this and found what I consider to be decent direction on how to safely/effectively use the cc in non-hot water bath ferments (thank you, once again, Linda Ziedrich!).

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:Jarred up the batch of garlic-dill pickles for which I used ingredients I bought last Saturday at the Dane County Farmers Market . . .


Garlic, Red Jalapeno & Dill Pickles
Probably the best batch of fermented pickles I've made to date. I attribute this not only to the quality of the inputs, which were tip-top but also to the inclusion of calcium chloride in my brine (0.5% by weight), which really helped the cucumbers retain their crispiness. I'd been hesitant to use it in the past and have tried several more holistic workarounds, like grape leaves, horseradish leaves and bay leaves but none of those alternatives came close to the result achieved via the inclusion of calcium chloride (and they all impart a flavor of their own, which the cc does not).

Very happy to have gotten over the hump on this and found what I consider to be decent direction on how to safely/effectively use the cc in non-hot water bath ferments (thank you, once again, Linda Ziedrich!).

=R=

Not minimizing the calcium chloride effect but super fresh pickling cukes are probably the main reason they’re optimally crisp.

boudreaulicious wrote:Not minimizing the calcium chloride effect but super fresh pickling cukes are probably the main reason they’re optimally crisp.

I don't know about that. I get those all the time. In fact, if I don't have fresh cukes, I don't even think about pickling. More often than not, I'm pickling with cucumbers that were picked within 48 hours of when I start the pickling. In this case, I changed a single variable and the outcome differed significantly and noticeably from my just about all my previous runs. The real question is how will these fridge pickles be in 6 weeks? If they stick around that long, I'll find out then. In any case, to paraphrase a friend, 'calcium chloride, count me a fan!'

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

boudreaulicious wrote:Not minimizing the calcium chloride effect but super fresh pickling cukes are probably the main reason they’re optimally crisp.

I don't know about that. I get those all the time. In fact, if I don't have fresh cukes, I don't even think about pickling. More often than not, I'm pickling with cucumbers that were picked within 48 hours of when I start the pickling. In this case, I changed a single variable and the outcome differed significantly and noticeably from my just about all my previous runs. The real question is how will these fridge pickles be in 6 weeks? If they stick around that long, I'll find out then. In any case, to paraphrase a friend, 'calcium chloride, count me a fan!'

These pickles, made in September of 2023, were fermented in a solution that included 0.4% calcium chloride . . .


Garlic-Dill Pickles
Not heat-processed in any way, they've been stored in the fridge since then. Happy to report that they were perfectly crispy today, 6+ months after they were put up.

=R=

First pickling project of 2024. Decided to just throw caution to the wind and pickle some undersized ramps . . .


Mise En Place
Pickling salt, trimmed/cleaned ramp stalks, 50/50 water & white vinegar, granulated sugar and spice plate (black peppercorns, coriander seeds, red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, yellow mustard seeds and celery seeds).


Jarred Up
These should be optimal in a couple of weeks but if I get my hands on more of them, I may also pickle those, too.

=R=

Spicy Bread & Butter pickles . . .


Salted Mix & Masakage Yuki White #2 Gyuto, 210mm
6 pounds of pickling cucumbers in an 8-quart bowl, along with yellow onion, bell peppers and ~2% pickling salt. Started these on Friday and let them sit overnight, draining them frequently. Only the onions and peppers were cut by hand. I did NOT do all those cucumbers by hand. For that, I used my mandoline. By this morning after being drained one last time, the mixture had lost about 25% of its weight.

Now, time to get them brining. This is a fairly faithful take on a Linda Zeidrich recipe from her book The Joy Of Pickling . . .


Brine Mise En Place
Pickling salt, 0.04% calcium chloride (for long-term crunchiness), white vinegar, gochugaru, yellow mustard seeds, unfiltered apple cider vinegar, filtered apple cider vinegar, celery seed, turmeric, water and granulated sugar. All this goes into a pot and simmered briefly. While that's going, the veg is drained one last time and placed in glass jars. When the brine comes into solution, it's ladled over the veg while it's still hot and the jars are sealed, finger-tight . . .


Jarred Up
From here, they can be hot water-processed but I don't bother with that because I prefer them as crunchy as possible (heat-processing mitigates this) and they won't stick around long anyway. I'll keep a jar (or 2) and give the rest away. My guess is that these should be optimal in a few days.

=R=

Looks good! I assume these are kept refrigerated while they pickle as you didn't process them, although in the old days "open kettle" would have been considered fine. Why 3 kinds of vinegar: white, regular cider, fancy cider?

tjr wrote:Looks good! I assume these are kept refrigerated while they pickle as you didn't process them, although in the old days "open kettle" would have been considered fine. Why 3 kinds of vinegar: white, regular cider, fancy cider?

Thanks. Yes, fridge for best texture and maximum color retention. 3 vinegars was essentially indecision. Recipe called for all cider vinegar but I used 1 cup each of the white and unfiltered cider vinegars, and the remaining ~3 cups filtered cider vinegar. I remembered doing something similar in the past but I couldn't remember it exactly. That batch turned out great, so I was trying to re-create it here.

=R=

Went to visit some friends in Madison for a few days and concluded the trip with our annual stop at the Dane County Farmers Market on Saturday morning. Came back with just about everything I needed for the season's first ferment . . .


Mise En Place & Kanjo Kori R2 Petty, 120mm
Flowering dill, 6 pounds pickling cucumbers, garlic (all from DCFM) and spice plate (black peppercorn, yellow & black mustard seeds, gochugaru, fennel seeds).

This is now all in the crock, covered by weights and a 4% salt brine that includes 0.04% calcium chloride to help preserve crispiness. I have some pickles I made with a similar brine last fall, now 10 months old, that are still crispy, so I'm sold on the benefits of adding a touch of calcium chloride. I'll check this batch in about a week and see how they are. I expect they take between 7 and 14 days, depending on a few variables.

=R=

After just a 10-day ferment, I jarred up the pickles I started back on July 21 . . .


Garlic Dill Pickles
These really hit the mark . . . fizzy/funky, just the right amount of saltiness and extremely crunchy. I won't hot water process these. They're fridge pickles. I'll keep a jar for us and find good homes for the rest over the next few days.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:After just a 10-day ferment, I jarred up the pickles I started back on July 21 . . .


Garlic Dill Pickles
These really hit the mark . . . fizzy/funky, just the right amount of saltiness and extremely crunchy. I won't hot water process these. They're fridge pickles. I'll keep a jar for us and find good homes for the rest over the next few days.

=R=

Those look delicious. Where to we file an adoption application for a jar?

The GP wrote:Those look delicious. Where to we file an adoption application for a jar?

Hehe - thanks, Mary! I'll try to make it happen!

Today, more pickling activity . . .


Cherry Bombs & Sukenari HAP40 Gyuto, 210mm
That's my sink, filled with 15 pounds of cherry bombs that were delivered this morning by Nichols Farm. Hot-Sweet cherry bombs were a hit last year, so I'm making them again this year. Washed/stemmed them and then put them directly into some jars, along with some smashed garlic, bay leaves and black peppercorns. Over all that I poured the hot brine (white vinegar, water, granulated sugar, pickling salt, black peppercorns) . . .


Jarred Up
These should be ready in a few days, after which all but a jar or 2 will be distributed.

=R=

Are these refrigerator type or the whole canning method? Thanks.

Puckjam wrote:Are these refrigerator type or the whole canning method? Thanks.

That'd be up to the person making them. I prefer fridge (which is what these are) but I could have just as easily hot water processed them. In either case, to preserve long-term crispiness, I'd use a small amount of calcium chloride. I'll be giving almost all of these away, so no need for that here.

=R=

Yum, mouth watering....

2 mini batches of sauerkraut I made today:

I bought a couple of mid-size cabbages at Jerry's. By the time I was done making cole slaw for dinner, I had about 1kg left. I made a little standard kraut plus some Polish-style kraut with carrots. The recipes I found suggested a 1:3 ratio of carrots to cabbage. In the end that seems like more carrots than what's at the Polish grocery delis. The cabbage wasn't the sweetest ever, but decent for early season heads.