Picklestorm II: Revenge of the Cucumbers

Dear Loyal Readers,
We are happy to present you with the second installment of the pickleventures of Mason, our roving blogger from the Great American Northwest. Please enjoy.
-Brax

PICKLESTORM II:

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

or

Smoky Pickle Breakdown

or

The Empire Smokes Pickles

or

Insert Oral Sex Joke Here

Everyone has a dream. I have two dreams. Sadly, both of them involve pickles. This past Saturday, I made one of those dreams come true. I actually lived out a dream. Fuck. YES!

While I won't divulge the second of my two dreams (for fear that some clever bastard will steal my briny thunder) I have documented the events surrounding my quest to impart a smoky flavor into a dill pickle. And I did it. I have made smoky pickles and now my place in the annals of human history is secured.

Let's get cracking…

Here are some of the more basic ingredients. The usual suspects (note the addition of mustard seed):

Since these are going to be smoky pickles, we'll need a special ingredient. How do you get smoke into a pickle? Easy.

I'm kidding. Obviously your basic cigarette will never work.

Here's what you really need:

Filterless cigarettes. A little harsher, but more natural.

OK, I'll knock off the lame jokes and extremely lucrative product placement. Here's where the smoke flavor really comes from: smoked salt.

This stuff looks like street drugs - and costs almost as much - but it smells smokier than a house fire.

Things are starting to come together. The phone calls have been made to the Enemies of the Enemies of Crispness and they are en route.

Time to get the pickling music fired up.

Who's good at keeping secrets? OK, no one tell my dad that I bought dill from a store:

This dill lacks the flowers that I made such a big deal about in Picklestorm I. I hope I haven't made a grave error. We'll know in a few weeks. Let's press on and not allow ourselves to get bogged down in details.

Sweet! The Enemies of the Enemies of Crispness are here!

L –R: Hart and Jason, musician friends of mine. Jason does pull-ups. Me? I'm a push-up man. When the two of us hang out, we sort of complete this weird, muscular circuit. That came out wrong. Again, let's press on.

ERIC! You devil…

You guys remember Stacey. She coined the term "Picklestorm" and took many of the pictures in this series that feature me and my hairy arms.

Meet Chelsea . In this photo she is demonstrating the proper foot position for cucumber scrubbing.

Unbelievable.

She was the Rookie MVP(ickler) on Saturday:

Take a bow, Chels.

To be honest, the dudes didn't do a ton of work. What you can't tell from these pictures is that the living room crew provided excellent vibe that sustained the efforts of the kitchen posse. Like it or not, that vibe will be evident in the flavor of the pickles.

Here's a quick, inappropriate aside. See that lamp? It's from my mom's old house. It had been in my parents' bedroom from my earliest memories. I'm pretty sure this very lamp was present at my conception.

We've got a much larger gang for Picklestorm II, yet we're making exactly half as many pickles as we did for Picklestorm I. If this trend continues, next summer I'll have 50 people crammed into my place and we will produce a single pickle of such extraordinary vibe, flavor and crispness that it will possess the power save or destroy our planet. Imagine!

Enough fiddlefucking around. Let's make some smoky pickles…

Brine time! Forgive the smug look on my face. That is the expression of man who is living out a dream.

Note the painted portrait of meat on my kitchen wall.

Let's talk hot liquids. Really hot liquids, along with obsessively well-scrubbed cucumbers are the foundation of successful canning – especially when you don't double-boil the finished product. Double boiling has got to be the chief enemy of crispness. I'll trade safety for crispness all day long. To keep everything hot, my own father pioneered the foolproof Three Pot Method.

1. A pot of boiling water where the lids remain sterile while they await their final home atop a jar of pickles.

2. Mother brine: the big pot of boiling brine which feeds…

3. Baby Brine. Keep Baby boiling, too. Baby is much easier to handle than Mother. You pour the contents of Baby Brine into the packed jars.

Lids:

Loading the jars… We used small (pint) jars, due to the HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL nature of this batch.

Grape leaves, dill, garlic, peppercorns, mustard seed, cucumbers…

And now, the special ingredient is added. This is an historic moment. We used about 1/16th of a teaspoon of smoked salt for each pint of pickles. I wanted to use more, but Stacey kept me from going apeshit. And she was right, OK? Let's move on!

A little swig of whisky to help beat the heat (the kitchen was a sweaty, vinegary environment):

My parents must be thrilled right now.

Yes, this is my pickling shirt. It was a gift from my big sister who lives near DC (and who was probably not conceived in close proximity to the lamp from an earlier photo).

Back to work. We've got the seasonings and the cucumbers in the jars. Time to hit 'em with hot stuff from Baby Brine. Note the right hand: use a butter knife to fish out a lid from the boiling water. Do not touch the underside of the lid with your filthy fingers.

This is what it's all about, right HERE. This is an Enemy of the Enemies of Crispness in full glory.

Heaven, for me, will look something like the above picture.

Screw the neck down on the lid

And just like that, we're done. Let the jars cool upside-down and wait for the real world to come creeping back into your kitchen, supplanting that magical, pickle-making, dreamy feeling.

But let's not allow ourselves to get maudlin. WE MADE SMOKY PICKLES!! VICTORY OVER THE ENEMIES OF CRISPNESS!

Many thanks to my corporate sponsors and the participants of Picklestorm II.

Again, the basic recipe:

Brine:

3 qts water

1 qt vinegar

1 cup salt [plain]

Boil water, salt and vinegar together 1 minute

Pack cucumbers in jars with garlic, dill & peppercorns, mustard seed, (this is where you can get experimental) with a grape leaf on top.

Pour boiling water, salt and vinegar over and then seal.

Suggestions: use a scant cup of salt [3/4 cup].Use apple cider vinegar.

PS: Since this was an experimental occasion, we made just seven pints. I'll pop open the first jar in about a month and post the results. If you hear nothing from me, it will either mean that the experiment was a total failure (.0003% probability) or that after taking a single bite, I sublimated into a being of pure delight and left the physical world in a briny, smoky flash.

Picklestorm!!!!!

Brax,
We have a guest blogger today! My buddy Mason is so sadly sadly blogless that he has apparently started blogging in MS Word and e mailing it to people. Anyway, when he sent me this I knew it was prime material for our blog. It's got it all--crafting, drinking, drunk crafting, and garlic. Enjoy....Picklestorm!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Bruce

p.s. stay tuned for actual knitting and vacation blogs from my end. Things have been nuts around here.
Edited 800 times for formatting. sorry if you just got this post 800 times on bloglines. 900 times. the ol' blogger, she is being stubborn today. Edited again so the pictures would show. Damn.

PICKLESTORM 2007!

By Mason

This Saturday, I got together with my friends, Eric and Stacey, to make dill pickles with a 100 year old recipe (see bottom) that has been passed down dutifully from generation to generation within an Idaho farm family. I have unceremoniously ripped it off from them and am sharing the recipe with shady musician-types.

Let’s get going...

Cucumbers! Smaller is better. You can find pickling cucumbers at produce stands from late July through early September.

About a pound of cukes will make a quart jar of pickles.

Scrub them with a stiff brush in cold water – no soap. Soap is an enemy of crispness.

Scrub them thoroughly, paying special attention to the flowering (non-stem) end which, I have been told, it chock-full of nasty shit. I suspect that is an old wives tale, but why not play it safe?

Garlic: peeled and with the tough bit at the bottom cut off. A small handful per quart is a fair
starting point. Some people like more. I am of the mind that you CAN have too much garlic in your pickles.

Notice the bloody mary on the cutting board: it’s good to reward the person cutting and peeling the garlic with a nice drink, for he is an enemy of the enemies of crispness, and your friend.

Clean your jars! A run through a dish washer (rinse them twice) works. We washed ours in the sink and boiled them for good measure. Say “Hi!” to Stacey, folks.

Ready for Brine Time! Here's a secret tip: use distilled water. Tap water contains chlorine and other additives which, while safe to drink, are also enemies of crispness.

You need apple cider vinegar and pickling salt, as well. Get this stuff boiling in a big pan. Note the grape leaves, more on them later.

Load your jars! Start by setting a clean grape leaf in the jar. The leaves are said to preserve crispness, but I'm pretty sure they’re just for aesthetics, and that’s OK. Aesthetics are important. By this point, we’ve already got the enemies of crispness on the run. Avoid the temptation to use marijuana leaves.

Dill is your main seasoning after the salt and vinegar. You can probably find it growing wild or you can buy it at a posh market. Use at least one flowering sprig as well as a non-flowering one. Again, avoid the temptation to use marijuana leaves. Have fun with the recipe, but don’t go nuts.

Next load your cucumbers, dill, garlic, and peppercorns. You can stuff all your ingredients in willy nilly, but why not take a moment and make a nice presentation?

My dad loads his jars to look like “an undersea landscape.” He’s an interesting guy.

Here’s Eric, also an interesting guy, loading a jar.

Here’s Eric, moments before the previous photo was taken, drinking with both hands. It’s OK, he’s in a band.

Two loaded jars, reporting for duty, SIR!

You want to have you brine mixed, stirred, and boiling by this point. Have a smaller pan that you then fill with the boiling brine and put that on a burner to keep it boiling. Key word: BOILING.

You want to the brine as hot as it can be when you pour it in the jars.

Also on the stove top, have your lids sitting in a bath of super hot water. Boil them first and then keep them hot.

Heat and cleanliness are the keys when it comes to sealing the jars and keeping them sealed.

I have no pictures of this part of the process because Eric kept handing me drinks. Fill the jars to within a ½” or ¼” of the rim of the jar then quickly place a hot lid on top. You can fish the lid out of the hot water with a butter knife. Then screw the neck on top as tight as you can (you may want to hold the now-hot jar in a dish towel) and place the jar upside down on the counter to cool for a few minutes.

If the jars do not seal (if the ‘button’ pops up), open it up, dump the brine back into the pot, reheat it and try again.

Label your sealed jars and let them sit in a cool dry place for about 4 weeks and you’ve got pickles!

This is a great way to spend an afternoon while doing something productive for a change.

L-R, The Enemies of the Enemies of Crispness: Stacey, Eric, Mason.

RECIPE
Brine:
3 qts water
1 qt vinegar
1 cup salt [plain]

Boil water, salt and vinegar together 1 minute

Pack cucumbers in jars with garlic, dill & peppercorns, mustard seed, (this is where you can get experimental) with a grape leaf on top.

Pour water, salt and vinegar over and then seal.

Suggestions: use a scant cup of salt [3/4 cup] boil 1 min.-thoroughly.
Use apple cider vinegar.

Alright, go make some pickles, you crafty jerks! -Bruce