Pickles

So, yeah.  Cucumbers.  I'm at the point where when I go out to mow today, the cucumber vines that have breached the border of their bed will no longer be spared.

I had about a dozen cucumbers on my counter this morning; now there are five.  The rest?  Here:

Or rather, they're in that crock, down in the basement, because our basement is 81 degrees right now pretty steadily, and that's the closest I'm going to get to a constant 86 without making them available to mice and such.

I don't actually like pickles, but my husband does.  He did not, however, like the last recipe I tried for them, and I think it's because he's used to salt-cured pickles.  The USDA put out a bulletin on making fermented pickles 90 years ago (called... "Making Fermented Pickles"), which I eventually tracked down on Google books.

Besides cucumbers, I also had a good quantity of dill out back (had, since it's in the pickling crock now), and I picked up a one gallon pickling crock at Ace Hardware for - after the member discount - less than $20.  Now that I know how much fits in one, maybe I should have gotten the two gallon.  I might yet to try making sauerkraut.

Anyway, with the mandolin we got for making zucchini lasagna, slicing up the cucumbers was fast, the brine was just a quarter of the brine recipe (they use a four gallon jar or crock as the default small batch), and I added dill and a bit of coriander for flavor.  I put a saucer on top since it fit well enough, and after I took it downstairs, I put a quart jar full of water on top of the plate as a weight.

Now I just have to remember to check it periodically to skim off the scum, and we should have pickles in 10-14 days.