I pickled that! Lacto-fermented cucumber pickles with crock

How was your summer? I know it's not officially autumn yet, but with kids back in school and the weather turning cool, summer vacation is definitely over.

One of my firsts this summer (in addition to buying a kayak and taking a table saw class) was making my own batch of pickles. I followed this Homemade Dill Pickles recipe & video from Food Wishes. It was his first time making pickles and they seemed to turn out fine, so that inspired me to just jump in and give it a try.

I bought half a bushel of pickling cukes from the farmer's market program at work, which turns out to be a LOT of cucumbers. I sorted them out to find the ones of perfect pickle size, and we ate or gave away the rest.

I also ordered a bunch of dill, and added flowering tops from my own dill, since Food Wishes explained this may help the pickles stay crunchy. (Does it? I don't know! But mine were crunchy at the end so it must have worked, right?)

This is 4.7 pounds of cucumbers.

SALT is one of the other main ingredients in lacto-fermented pickles. With the lacto-fermentation method, the pickles are completely submerged in a flavored brine and left to ferment in a cool dark place. No boiling or canning required. And no vinegar.

Here is the brine after the salt dissolved. This pot includes 9 cups of water, too much salt (which I'll only find out at the end), garlic, peppercorns, coriander seed, and bay leaves.

My spouse took a sauerkraut class last summer (as you do), and I got him this cool and HEAVY crock as a gift. The pickles are the first project to get crocked. 

So I layered in the cucumbers and brine, noticing that if you don't purposely add the garlic cloves in the layers, they'll be left all lonesome at the bottom of the brine pot. (I ended up kind of squeezing them down the sides.) I also noted all the seeds and peppercorns float on the top, and wasn't sure what that would mean for potential bad bacteria. But I just carried on! 

The crock comes with two weights that hold the food down. While I was confused that the weights are unglazed (if they have no glaze, do they soak stuff up that can never be unsoaked? I still don't know the answer, and I did search for it online), they were super handy for keeping the cucumbers well under the surface of the brine. Oxygen is not your friend when it comes to lacto-fermenting.

Here's the crock with cover on.

I made these pickles during the hottest time of the summer, so I put the crock inside a cooler at the bottom of our basement stairs. Once it was settled in the cooler, I put the crock lid back on. Then I shut the cooler and I left it for 7 days. (Well, I did peek now and then.)

The big day finally arrived! I lifted the lid. A white foamy stuff had appeared, and evidently the cucumbers got softer since the weights are now completely under liquid. 

Per the recipe, I just removed the white part and discarded. Looks good so far.

Here's the reveal... they look like pickles!

We tasted the pickles right away, to check for crunch and pickled-ness. They were good! They were also QUITE salty. Not unbearably salty, but I would say unnecessarily salty. When I make these next time I'll cut down on the salt.

I stored the pickles in mason jars and placed in the fridge. 

My recipe, adapted from Food Wishes

4.7 pounds cucumbers, washed with stems trimmed down

9 cups of water

8 T kosher salt (I used 9 T and that was too much, so my next batch will be 8 T)

9 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 t peppercorns

2 t coriander seeds 

4 bay leaves

4 cloves

dill leaves & flowers

Heat everything but the cucumbers and dill in a large pot while stirring gently. Turn off heat once salt has dissolved.

In stoneware crock, put a layer of cucumbers, some dill leaves/flowers, and a few cloves of garlic, then ladle in brine to cover. Repeat this layering until you reach the top of the crock. If there is brine left, make sure that at least the spices have been added to the crock. (You can keep extra brine in a jar and add it to the finished pickles, if needed.) 

If any cucumbers are sticking above the surface of the brine, remove cucumbers until the remaining ones are completely covered. I left about half an inch of liquid and then placed the weights on top of the submerged cucumbers.

Cover and leave in a cool dry place for a week. (Fine to lift cover and check top of brine, but I avoided disturbing the pickles until the end of the week.) After a week, lift the top and skim off any white bubbles/scum—discard. Remove weights and test one pickle by cutting it in half. I was looking for whether there was an "al dente" section in the middle where the cucumber still looked raw, but my cukes had completely pickled. I supposed if they had not I would have put everything back in for a few more days.

Divide pickles into clean jars and pour in brine to cover (you can also use the extra brine from the beginning, if you kept it). I also put some garlic cloves and some dill in each jar.

Even though family members agreed these were salty, they still disappeared very quickly. I'll definitely be making these again the next time I come across 4.7 pounds of pickling cucumbers.