How to make crock pickles

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Here is a simple method for making crock pickles. In my continuing endeavor to eat only things we produce, nothing processed, I figured it was time to make some snacks, most of my pickles in the pantry I had canned are gone, so I figured I would make some crock pickles. So I had ordered a case of pickling cucumbers from my food supplier, will be interesting to see how these work since I have no idea when they had been picked

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I went through and picked through them and disposed of any soft ones and packed them in a food grade bucket

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I boiled 2 and a half gallons of water and let that cool

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and dumped in in 1 and 3/4 cup of pickling salt

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some will use a spice bag for the following ingredients, I don’t, so I dumped in a small jar of dill seeds and stirred well

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I measured out a tablespoon of peppercorn and mustard seeds and added that

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I took a head of garlic

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and broke apart the cloves, these things are a pain to peel

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so take a knife, lay the blade flat across the clove

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and press down, it will cause the skin to rupture and will slide right off

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so I peeled about 10 cloves and threw those in the pot

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I measured out 2.5 cups of red wine vinegar and dumped that in as well, here is where I strayed from most recipes as well, most recipes call for distilled white vinegar, well trying to be sustainable as possible, it will be a lot easier for me to make wine and using the barrel system create wine vinegar instead of going and buying distilled white

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I stirred it well

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and poured it over my cukes

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I set a plate with a pan of water on top to hold the cukes under the brine

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and covered with a cloth and sat it in the corner, time to wait

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After a week, I figured I would check out how the pickles are doing

looks good, smells good

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so I fished a pickle out,

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I sliced it up, middle was good, brine was forming a inner rind

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I chalk this up as a success!

14 COMMENTS

  1. I have created my first crock of pickles and the appear to be great, BUT, the garlic is turning blue. Does any one have a clue as to why this is? I used Kosher salt, distilled white vinegar, boiled the vinegar and the water…