Video Discription |
How to make old-fashioned, crunchy, fermented Garlic-Dill Pickles in a stoneware crock. Get the free fermenting formulas cheat sheet here: http://TradCookSchool.com/pickles
***Hey there, I'm Wardee, from Traditional Cooking School and I'm the author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fermenting Foods".
One of my favorite ferments are pickles. These are beautiful, garlic, dill pickles and they are so easy to make at home. These are not your regular vinegar pickles you'll find in the grocery store.
These are fermented with salt and once pickled there's an explosion of vitamins, enzymes, probiotics, beneficial acids, but most importantly... a delicious crunch!
These are so good, and they're really easy to make!
***Instructions***
Cucumbers... you need pickling cucumbers ideally, but otherwise, thin skinned cucumbers like Mediterranean cucumbers. Put them in cold water for ten to thirty minutes to crisp them up. For this video, I needed enough to fill the Ohio Stoneware gallon size fermenting crock.
Make your brine. Combine half gallon of good filtered water with 6 tablespoons of unrefined sea salt. Stir well to dissolve the salt.
Then cut the ends off each cucumber and put them in a bowl. Also, have ready 12 cloves peeled garlic, 4 teaspoons dill seed, and 1 teaspoon black tea leaves.
(The tannins in the black tea help the pickles stay crisp. You can also use oak leaves.)
Start packing the crock with cucumbers. Every so often, sprinkle in some dill seeds, a few cloves of garlic and some black tea. Keep packing the cucumbers, stopping to sprinkle more of the other ingredients along the way.
When the crock is full to within 3 to 4 inches of the top, stop adding ingredients. Pour the brine over all of it so the cucumbers are submerged.
Place the stone weights on top, they will make sure the cucumbers stay below the surface of the brine, which is really important so your pickles turn out.
Add the lid of the crock, and now you'll leave the cucumbers to ferment at room temperature for 3 to 7 days.
Because my cucumbers were larger and the house is cooler right now, I let mine ferment for 4 to 5 days on this batch.
When they are done, remove the lid and plates/weights.
It is completely normal to see bubbles at the top and also for the brine to get cloudy.
Try out your pickles. Taste them, they should be crunchy and salty.
They may not be fully pickled through the entire cucumber but that's okay. They'll continue to "pickle" in cold storage.
Transfer to a gallon sized glass jar and store in the fridge. You can eat them right away or let them age longer in the fridge. Enjoy!
***
So now you can see why this 1-gallon crock from Ohio Stoneware is one of my favorite kitchen tools. Get it here: http://amzn.to/2jNsPyB #affiliate
Pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, all kinds of fermented goodies come out of it. So I highly recommend it, you gotta get one!
***
If you like this then be sure to grab my Free Fermenting Formulas Cheat Sheet. It's a free gift for you. It's where I share formulas for all kinds of ferments, beverages and salsa and kraut and pickles and relish, oh yes. So you can create your own safe to eat, delicious, yummy, healthy, fermented foods.
Go here to grab it: http://tradcookschool.com/pickles
Thanks for joining me, everyone. God bless you and happy fermenting! t7vVr8o69xs |