Our Kitchen is a Lab – Pickles 18/01/2023

Pickles
Pickling is the ancient culinary craft of preserving foods in salt brine or vinegar. Over
millennia, cultures across the globe have tinkered with pickling recipes to make dishes
spanning the gamut of tastes.

Science of Pickles
Fermentation and Food

What do pickles, bread, yogurt, wine, beer, and cheese have in common?

All of these foods are made by fermentation. When you ferment a food, you encourage
growth of "good" microorganisms in it, while preventing growth of spoilage-causing
microorganisms. Doing this successfully may require special ingredients and carefully
controlled conditions, such as temperature and pH. By eating spoilage-sensitive parts of
the food, and releasing chemicals as a by-product, the microorganisms help preserve the
food, and change its flavour and texture in interesting ways.

Here’s a brief look at how fermentation is used to make different foods:

Pickled Vegetables. The vegetable is soaked in a salt brine, allowing the growth of
bacteria that eat the vegetable’s sugars and produce tart-tasting lactic acid.

Wines. Yeasts, added to crushed grapes, eat the grapes’ sugars and produce alcohol.

Breads. Yeasts, added to dough, digest sugars (derived from starches in dough) and
produce carbon dioxide, causing the dough to rise.

Cheeses. Milk bacteria digest the milk sugar lactose and produce lactic acid, which acts
with the added enzyme rennet to curdle the milk. The cheesemaker drains off the whey
and compacts the curds, which various microbes then ripen into a mature cheese.

The Race of Microorganisms

All foods are continually assaulted by many kinds of microorganisms, racing to eat as
much as possible. When you pickle vegetables by fermentation, you help one type of
microbe win this "race."

More specifically, you create special conditions in your pickle crock that keep away "bad"
spoilage-causing microorganisms, and that allow a unique class of "good" bacteria, called
lactic acid bacteria, to colonize your cucumbers.

Why are lactic acid bacteria good?

As lactic acid bacteria grow in your pickle crock, they digest sugars in the cucumbers and
produce lactic acid. Not only does this acid give the pickles their characteristic sour tang,
it controls the spread of spoilage microbes. Also, by gobbling up the sugars, lactic acid
bacteria remove a potential food source for bad bacteria.

Salt gives the good guys an edge.

Adding salt to your pickling brine is one important way to help lactic acid bacteria win
the microbial race. At a certain salt concentration, lactic acid bacteria grow more quickly
than other microbes, and have a competitive advantage. Below this "right"
concentration, bad bacteria may survive and spread more easily, possibly out-competing
lactic acid bacteria and spoiling your pickles.

Too much salt is also a problem: Lactic acid bacteria cannot thrive, leaving your
vegetables unpickled. What’s more, salt-tolerant yeasts can spread more quickly. By
consuming lactic acid, yeasts make the pickles less acidic—and more hospitable to
spoilage microbes.

Oxygen gives the bad guys one leg up.

During fermentation, it’s important to keep your crock covered to seal out the air. That’s
because oxygen encourages the spread of spoilage microbes. Any exposed pickle or
brine becomes a breeding ground for the bad microbes, which can spread to spoil the
entire batch.

Too hot . . . too cold . . . just right.

A pickle-maker can also control the microbial garden in a pickle crock by adjusting the
temperature. The ideal temperature range for lactic acid bacteria—and successful
fermentation—is 70° F–75° F. If it’s too chilly or too toasty in the room, other microbes
may gain a competitive advantage over lactic acid bacteria.

Additionally, temperature influences the speed of fermentation: The lower the

temperature, the slower the pickles will ferment. By slowing fermentation, you can gain
more control over the process.

What is Pickling?
 Pickling is a global culinary art. If you were to go on
an international food-tasting tour, you’d find pickled
foods just about everywhere. You might sample
kosher cucumber pickles in New York City, chutneys
in India, kimchi in Korea, miso pickles in Japan,
salted duck eggs in China, pickled herring in
Scandinavia, corned beef in Ireland, salsas in Mexico,
pickled pigs feet in the southern United States, and
much, much more.

What makes a pickle a pickle? On a most general level, pickles are foods soaked in
solutions that help prevent spoilage.

There are two basic categories of pickles. The first type includes pickles preserved in
vinegar, a strong acid in which few bacteria can survive. Most of the bottled kosher
cucumber pickles available in the supermarket are preserved in vinegar.

The other category includes pickles soaked in a salt brine to encourages fermentation—
the growth of "good" bacteria that make a food less vulnerable to "bad" spoilage-causing
bacteria. Common examples of fermented pickles include kimchi and many cucumber
dill pickles.

Pickling is not only an international food-preservation technique, it’s also an ancient one.
For thousands of years, our ancestors have explored ways to pickle foods, following an
instinct to secure surplus food supplies for long winters, famine, and other times of need.
Historians know, for instance, that over two thousand years ago, workers building the
Great Wall of China ate sauerkraut, a kind of fermented cabbage.

But pickling foods does much more than simply preserve them. It can also change their
taste and texture in a profusion of interesting—and yummy—ways. It’s no surprise that
cultures across the globe enjoy such an assortment of pickled foods, as you would
discover on your international food expedition. In fact, food experts say, the evolution of
diverse pickled foods in different cultures has contributed to unique cultural food
preferences, such as spicy sour tastes in Southeast Asia and acidic flavours in eastern
Europe.
How to Prepare Jars and Lids

Before use, wash jars in hot, soapy water and rinse thoroughly. Then put the clean jars on the
wire rack inside the boiling-water canner. Fill with water and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat
to keep the water below simmering. Keep the jars in the hot water until you fill them with
pickles. If the recipe calls for presterilized jars, boil the jars completely submerged in water for
10 minutes before turning down the heat.

In a separate small container, heat the lids (flat discs) in hot, but not boiling water. (NOTE:
Some lids have different preparation steps, so closely follow the lid manufacturer’s directions.)
Heating softens the sealing compound, helping it form an airtight seal with the jar. It is not
necessary to heat the screw bands because they never come in contact with the food.

Filling the Jars

When you fill the hot jars with your prepared recipe, use a clean, damp towel to wipe the rims
right before applying the lid. Any residue can prevent the lids from sealing properly.

What Do I Need?

• glass canning jars (often called mason jars) and 2-piece metal canning lids (see individual
recipes to find out how many you need)

• a canner: a large, deep, stainless-steel, nonreactive pot with a tight-fitting lid (should be large
enough to allow at least 4 inches of headroom above the jars)

• a wire basket or rack to fit inside the canner and hold jars

• a jar lifter (special tongs)

• hot pads or several towels

• a timer

General Heat-Processing Instructions

1. Place the closed jars (filled with the prepared recipe) on the wire rack in the canner, and
transfer the jars to the canner (the water in the canner should still be hot from preparing the
jars). Make sure the water covers the jars by at least 1 inch.
2. Cover the canner tightly and bring the water to a rolling boil. When there’s a full rolling boil,
start the timer. Reduce the heat to a simmer and start the timer. Boil the jars for the amount of
time recommended in the recipe.

3. When processing time is complete, remove the lid and turn off the heat. Use a jar lifter to
remove the jars from the canner and set the jars upright on a rack or a layer of towels to cool.
Make sure to leave room around the jars for air circulation. Also make sure the room is draft-
free.

4. Allow jars to cool undisturbed for 24 hours. During cooling, you might hear a soft "ping" when
the lids seal tightly. Once the jars are cool, test for vacuum seals by tapping the top of the jar
with a spoon. You should hear a bell-like tone, not a "clunk." Also, the lids should be concave; a
convex lid is a sign of a bad seal. Finally, the lids should not move when you press on them with
your finger.

5. Refrigerate the jars that did not seal properly. (Resealing jars after they have cooled isn’t
safe.)

6. Store the jars of canned pickles in a cool, dark place, such as a cupboard or a
basement. Eat them within 1 year. Once the jar has been opened, keep it in the
refrigerator.
1. Using a soft vegetable brush, thoroughly scrub the cucumbers in cool
running water. Cut 1/16 inch off the blossom end. Discard any cucumbers
that are bruised or damaged.

2. Put half the pickling spices and 1 bunch of dill in the bottom of the plastic
bucket or crock. Add the cucumbers.

3. Mix the vinegar, pickling salt, and water, dissolving the salt completely.
Pour over the top of the pickles. Add in the garlic, the remaining spices, and
the dill.

4. You must use a weight to fully submerge your pickles in the brine—or risk
spoilage during fermentation. To do this, first cover the pickles with a glass
or ceramic plate (no metal, please) that’s a bit smaller than the opening of
the crock. Then fill a zipper freezer bag with more brine (make the brine with
original recipe proportions of salt, vinegar, and water), make sure it’s tightly
shut, and place it on the plate.
5. Cover the crock with a clean towel and store at cool room temperature (70° F–75° F
is ideal).

6. Check the crock every day, and skim off the film that forms on the top (this usually
starts after a day or two). Make sure the pickles are covered completely with brine. If
necessary, make a little more brine following the original recipe proportions.

7. Let the cucumbers ferment until evenly colored (olive green) or evenly translucent
throughout. This should take about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks. At this point, you can safely eat
the pickles. If your pickles are not yet well-flavored with dill, you can leave them in the
crock longer—but the total time in the crock should not exceed 3 weeks.

8. Strain off the brine from the crock through the cheesecloth to remove impurities.
Place the strained brine in a large nonreactive pot.

9. Prepare your jars and lids. Pack the pickles in the clean, hot jars, filling to within 3/4
inch of the top of the jar rims. Add a few sprigs of dill for garnish.

10. Bring the brine to a boil and pour it over the pickles, covering them completely and
filling to within 1/2 inch of the top of the jars. To remove air bubbles, gently run the
plastic spatula (don't use a metal one) around the jar, keeping the utensil between the
pickles and the jar's inner surface. If necessary, add more liquid to readjust headspace.
Wipe any residue off the jar rims with a clean, damp towel. Apply lids and screw bands
evenly and firmly until resistance is met—fingertip tight.

11. Process jars for 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner.

12. Let the pickles sit for at least 1 week before eating, so the flavours can mellow.