Dill pickle processing

I haven't made dill pickles since last summer, and 'tis the season.

Fresh cukes at the farmer's market yesterday. Fresh (new crop) garlic at a store today. Some big oak leaves from the tree in the front yard. And the usual suspects: fresh dill fronds, and dill seeds, along with pickling spices.

I decided to do it big while I am doing it, and am using both crocks, making double the amount of delicious dill pickles.

It wasn't the easiest of processes -- my brain is not at its most organized today -- but it all got done.

There were eight full heads of garlic that had to be peeled before I could do anything. In the bowl at the back.

At some point I realized I didn't have enough of one of the basics: unchlorinated water, was also short on pickling spices, which were from last year anyway, and probably didn't have enough sea salt to make the brine.

So, I put the stuff in both crocks, had enough water to mix a brine for one, put the brine in the crock, put it away. Then, I took a look at the pan the oak leaves had soaked in, and saw how much traffic soot had settled to the bottom of the pan. That kind of panicked me, because I don't want petroleum crap in my pickles. So -- I poured off the brine quickly, removed the oak leaves, put them in fresh water to soak and made sure I washed, rinsed and dried both sides of every leaf and no more black stuff came off on my white dishtowel. I didn't see any further soot, so it probably all came off in the initial washing, but I needed to be sure.

Then, off to the market for water and the other things. Whew!

Eight pounds of lovely, organic, freshly-picked pickling cukes, in their crocks.

When I redid the brine I made it a bit less salty. I was following Sandor Katz' recipe and instructions from Wild Fermentation, the bible of such things. For past batches I'd used a good bit more salt, but decided Sandor knows best.

Back to the uncooperative brain, which is tired and hasn't been fed a lot today. That's my only excuse.

So will the brine be salty enough for the warm weather, to keep the bad bugs at bay? I hope so. Keep wondering if I should make up a very dense batch of brine, mostly salt, and add to the crocks. We'll see.

Now, I think it's time to feed the brain and hope it decides to be a bit more responsive.

Getting old sucks!