Alton Brown Makes Homemade Dill Pickles | Good Eats | Food Network

cleaning is next to the brine, so scrub three pounds of three to five inch cubes with warm water while you're at it, trim off any uh on the stem. They contain an enzyme that can soften cucumbers until they are in brine and these amounts are five important. and half an ounce by weight of pickling salt goes in a one-gallon container, because we are going to dissolve said salt in exactly one gallon of water. Now keep in mind that chlorine will kill our little bacterial friends here, so use filtering. water do I have a filter on this system or will you have to use bottled water do me a favor stir that from time to time now the most popular pickle flavor of all time has to be

dill

and it comes in two culinary options forms here we have a teaspoon of

dill

seed we'll use, but we also have a big bunch of dill leaves now if we want to turn them into kosher dill we'll need to add garlic.

I have two crushed teeth here and I like it too. to add a little heat, so a tablespoon each of black peppercorns and a red pepper flake. Now we are ready to build the vessel. I don't want to just throw the cucumbers away, so I'm going to lay them on their side and place them vertically. that will ensure that everyone gets their share of the flavor. Now simply pour this over the cucumbers until they float about two inches from the top of the crock. You'll see some of the spices floating around, okay and we'll stop. We have a lot of brine left over there and part of it will go into a zip-lock bag.

This will be our weight, our cover, so to speak. You could do this with regular fresh water, but what if you did? If a leak occurs then you would be in trouble because the brine would end up too dilute so make sure it is nice and sealed. You can throw any remaining brine in there and you should hold everything with a little space to save temperature is an important factor in fermentation. We don't want to let it get any higher than, say, 75 degrees; fermentation would still take place, but it would be very, very slow, which is not something we want to do, so we're. aiming for 68 to 70 degrees max now if you don't have your own fancy climate controlled wine cooler like this one don't despair just find any clean spot in your house that maintains that temperature if it's a clean corner of your basement that is well, in the winter I used my own garage and in the summer, when my air conditioning was broken, I put my crock in a cooler to which I simply added a little ice every day or two to the cooler, not to the harvest that will be something bad, so 68 70 degrees max for three days three count them not two not four three I'll be back now from now on think of this crocodile as your virtual pet, you don't need to walk it, talk to it or scratch it behind the ears, but the foam will need to be removed every day or at least every other day.

This is how I do it, most of the foam will be in the bag so lift it up carefully and just dip it in a bowl of clean water and it will wash away, then take a spoon and look around the edges and just scrape off anything If it looks white and moldy, it's not actually mold, at least it shouldn't be from time to time, it usually is. just leftover byproducts from the fermentation process, if any gets on the

pickles

try to remove it as best you can. The last step will be wiping it with a clean paper towel along the edge, try not to let anything fall inside you.

We're going to get some of the herbs and okay, we're going to take a look at your bag, make sure it's relatively clean, we go and put it back in its place and make sure we don't use tap water for that tap. water contains chlorine and chlorine would be bad. Pickles should mostly ferment somewhere between six and ten days. You will know when major fermentation has been reached because the bubbling will stop at that point. You have some choices to make. You could move your

pickles

to the refrigerator (replace the bag with a loose lid like a plate and continue skimming off and on for about three days, the cold will slow down the fermentation and you will end up with a Polish or Hungarian pickle that is very

good

. pickle actually, uh, if you then move the pickles into a jar, strain the juice and add that, cover it, keep it refrigerated, you'll keep them for up to two months if they last that long, if you know what I mean.