Hey,
Yesterday I've dried some tomatoes for long term storage and today it's the cucumbers' turn.
I had quite a few lemon cucs to use up and the cucamelons needed picking as well. I got two nice bowls in total, ended up pickling about half of them today.
As always, we start with giving them a quick wash, really it's mostly about removing any flowers that are still attached.
I got my jars ready, made little beds for the cucs from herbs and spices. I've used rosemary, thyme, dill seeds, dill, mustard seeds, peppercorn, lovage, bay leaves and some chillies. It is unprecedented but I was out of garlic, not sure how that happened as ours is a strict vampire free house, but here we go. I will add some later today.
While I was doing this I had my brine getting to boil. I've used a pickling salt, about a large spoonful per litre.
I then started stacking the cucs, you want them pretty close to each other. I quartered the lemon cucumbers and used the cucamelons to fill up any spaces left. After the first layer I've added some more thyme and rosemary to provide some stability and stacked another layer.
By the time I finished filling the jars the brine reached boiling temp so I poured it over all the way to the top.
I've put some more rosemary twigs on top to keep everything submerged and covered the jars with plates. I will let them sit for a couple of days now.
Over the next 24-48 hours they will start fermenting, some foam will form at the top of the jars to let me know about it. Once this happens the first colour change should appear as well, the greens should get deeper. Once that's done I will add a spoonful of vinegar to each jar, the caps can go on and they'll be ready to be pantry stored for several months.
Thanks for having a look guys, hope you enjoyed it!
Cheers!