Made my first batch of pickles tonight

[Tim K]

No big deal to you guys who have been doing it for years, but I'd been trying to get to it for months now. Too friggin' easy.

A buddy of mine has been on me to try it. I was lukewarm to the whole idea until I tried some of his stuff last Sunday. Wow, really different from the store bought crap. It got me all enthused.

Garlic dill for the first batch. I suppose I'll taste one on Saturday and then every day thereafter.

[buffalobo]

Home made pickles rock and good for you.

[rbeau30]

You should try making them through fermentation. They are AWESOME.

[Tim K]

You should try making them through fermentation. They are AWESOME.

That's what I'm doing.

[rbeau30]

That's what I'm doing.

Sweet! Once you get past skimming the mold it is easy. Did you add Grape leaves or Cherry leave for crispness? I have 3 Grape Vines and two cherry trees if anyone wants to try next year and add leaves to their batch.

My first bath turned out good. Got kinda mushy after about 2 months.

You can can them once they get to the point you like them.

Just strain the liquid off, bring it to a boil and process the pickles in a hot water bath canner. It stops the conversion of sugars to lactic acid by killing the Lacto-bacillus pro-biotics and basically freezing the fermentation process.

[TheGrey]

Very cool!

[Tim K]

The book I have said to add grape leaves or black tea. I used tea since I had it and can find no other useful purpose for it.

[Irving]

Add coffee creamer and sugar to black tea and drink it as a coffee substitute. I just cut down a grape vine because I wasn't using it. Who'd have known you can use the leaves for pickles?

[rbeau30]

The book I have said to add grape leaves or black tea. I used tea since I had it and can find no other useful purpose for it.

Ah! I bet there is a compound in the leaves (probably tannins or something) that is present in black tea.

Post the taste tests! It only took a couple days for my fermentations to start up!

[Tim K]

I just tried brussel sprouts. Should be interesting.