Cultivating Conscience :: Blog

Found ourselves in a Pickle

A few weeks ago, Justine worked her butt off making tons of pickles.

At first, I was dead-set against having all the crockpots in our garage, smelling of brine for three weeks.
Once the pickles were ready for canning, I dutifully helped her finish the process by creating new brine (the standing brine looked a bit dodgy), cleaning the jars, and completing the canning process.

The other night, we decided to crack open a jar and test her handiwork (notice I use "her handiwork" and not "our handiwork").

I have to tell you, I've never tasted anything more salty in my life!
As soon as my mouth began processing the salty pickle, I could feel my face grow sallow; my hair began to whiten as all the moisture in my body was removed.

In short - the Worst. Pickle. Ever!

No foul on Justine for all her hard work - we just overdid the salt. We forgot that, since the pickles had sat in a salted brine for three weeks, we wouldn't need to add NEW salt to a fresh brine mix before canning.

Our mistake, and while Justine is hesitant to try again, I'm confident if we just re-use the standing brine, or eliminate the new salt altogether we'll have a nice batch of edible pickles for the winter.

Consider this a lesson learned. A salty, painful lesson learned.

Posted in: Farming on 2009-09-01 05:21:04