View Single Post
Old December 5, 2016   #39
Down_South
Tomatovillian™
 
Down_South's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Austin, Texas
Posts: 93
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Worth1 View Post
Try some without the vinegar sometime you dont need it and can be added later just for taste if you like it.

All you need is around 2 to 3 table spoons per quart of pure water not tap water depending on the temperature.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...T6wg2S-SzWIjJQ

Taken from link above.
The biggest variables in pickle-making are brine strength, temperature, and cucumber size. I prefer pickles from small and medium cucumbers; pickles from really big ones can be tough and sometimes hollow in the middle. I don’t worry about uniformity of size; I just eat the smaller ones first, figuring the larger ones will take longer to ferment.
The strength of brine varies widely in different traditions and recipe books. Brine strength is most often expressed as weight of salt as a percentage of weight of solution, though sometimes as weight of salt as a percentage of volume of solution. Since in most home kitchens we are generally dealing with volumes rather than weights, the following guideline can help readers gauge brine strength: Added to 1 quart of water, each tablespoon of sea salt (weighing about .6 ounce) adds 1.8% brine. So 2 tablespoons of salt in 1 quart of water yields a 3.6% brine, 3 tablespoons yields 5.4%, and so on. In the metric system, each 15 milliliters of salt (weighing 17 grams) added to 1 liter of water yields 1.8% brine.
Some old-time recipes call for brines with enough salt to float an egg. This translates to about a 10% salt solution. This is enough salt to preserve pickles for quite some time, but they are too salty to consume without a long desalinating soak in fresh water first. Low-salt pickles, around 3.5% brine, are “half-sours” in delicatessen lingo. This recipe is for sour, fairly salty pickles, using around 5.4% brine. Experiment with brine strength. A general rule of thumb to consider in salting your ferments: more salt to slow microorganism action in summer heat; less salt in winter when microbial action slows.
Similar technique in making homemade sauerkraut.
__________________
~Aaron
Down_South is offline   Reply With Quote