6 Day Pickles

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6 Day Pickles

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Jam Lady

Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2507
Location: New Jersey, USA

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 12 7:24 pm Post subject: 6 Day Pickles

So I went to the farm market for another half bushel of plum tomatoes to slowly oven roast and freeze for the winter. And she had good looking little cucumbers at $1.29 / pound.

"Well," I say, "what can you do for me if I buy a quantity to pickle?" She offered a bushel for $15. That's too many for me so she offered a half bushel for half price. Now, a bushel is 40 to 44 pounds, which would translate to about 18 kilos I think.

We settled on half of a half bushel, about 10 pounds of cute little cucumbers, for $3.75 What a deal!

Of course then I had to find a recipe. Being as I almost never find a recipe that's just what I want I had to amend / adapt / alter / change.

Here's what I ended up doing.

Day one - brine
Day two - strain, discard liquid, new brine solution
Day three - strain and discard liquid. Stab each cucumber multiple times with small skewer. White vinegar, half as much sugar as recipe called for, pickling spices. Bring to boil. Turn off heat. Add pickles-to-be. Let sit overnight
Day four - strain, reserve liquid. Add some more vinegar and sugar, bring to boil. Turn off heat. Add pickles-to-be. Let sit overnight
Day five - repeat of day four
Day six - strain, reserve liquid. Add sugar only. Bring to boil, add pickles. Return to boil. Strain, pack pickles into jars (added celery leaves and garlic) cover with hot pickling solution. Cap with 2 piece metal lids and boiling water bath process for 10 minutes.

I now have 11 pint jars of pickles. Will let them sit for minimum of 2 weeks, then sample. Should be good - slow increase of sugar is traditional method that prevents hollow pickles. It's just more tedious than a fresh pickle like my lovely bread and butter that's done in a day.

And of course I now have quite a bit of left over pickling solution. What to do . . . . carrot pickles, anyone?

DawnMK

Joined: 01 Dec 2008
Posts: 895
Location: Buckinghamshire

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 12 7:28 pm Post subject:
are they the same as gerkins

Jam Lady

Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2507
Location: New Jersey, USA

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 12 7:38 pm Post subject:

Yes. Spices are 1/2 teaspoon tumeric, 2 teaspoons celery seed, 2 teaspoons mixed pickling spices, and 1/2 teaspoon whole allspice.

It also called for 2 sticks of cinnamon but I don't like that in pickles so left it out.

The original recipe was for sweet gerkins, using a total of 8 cups / 4 pounds of sugar. I cut that down to 4.5 cups sugar.

Apparently it is fine to reduce sugar in a pickling recipe, just don't mess about with reducing the vinegar.

DawnMK

Joined: 01 Dec 2008
Posts: 895
Location: Buckinghamshire

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 12 9:51 pm Post subject:
now the cucumbers are coming to the end have some small one there so might give this a try with them thanks

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