In a Pickle, Yet Again
The cruel irony of gardening is this: the same weather that makes everything grow and produce is also weather that makes one loath to run a hot water canner. Seriously, it is 95F today in central MA. I am not going make my kitchen even more humid and uncomfortable by boiling a large volume of water.
So, what to do with the glut of cucumbers in the Food It Yourself garden? I specifically chose a pickling variety because I like making pickles, and Mr. Food It Yourself likes eating them. Then I remembered, I can make fermented pickles! Vegetable preservation is totally possible without the hot kitchen, all thanks to our friends, the Lactobacilli.
I searched the internet for Alton Brown’s recipe for half sours, a classic lacto-fermented pickle if ever there was one. It did not take long to find the YouTube video from Good Eats that shows the entire process. Here are the ingredients, so you don’t have to write while you watch.
- 3 pounds of 3-5 inch long cucumbers
- 1 gallon filtered or bottled water
- 5.5 ounces of pickling salt
- 1 teaspoon dill seeds
- 1 large bunch of dill fronds
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon black pepper corns
- 1 tablespoon red pepper flake.
I do not have a pickle crock, so my method was just a little different than Mr. Brown’s. I scrubbed down two of those fermentation lids I bought when I made kimchee, as well as two half-gallon, wide mouth, jars. Here is how it all came together.








We will not know the outcome for at least a week. I am pretty excited to try these pickles. I do enjoy a day of canning, but today was not the right day. I think I came up with a good work-around for making sure my cucumbers would not go to waste.
What is a good work-around or life hack you have come up with in your DIYet? Share in the comments!
Love making pickles.