Hello steemers,
I was pleased with the response to the post on my pickle room, so I thought I should update y'all on its progress. We ended up getting a couple other batches jarred up the day after I posted, as seen in the photo below:
Each of those jars is a half-gallon, bringing our bounty of fermentables up to a total of 4 1/2 gallons. I'll outline their contents below, but first I'd like to point out some of the updates you can see in the photo. (apologies for the mess, we need to get some proper shelves for our equipment. Also, those jars should be at least 6 inches of the ground to comply with health code regulations)
Here's a closeup of the window with the A/C unit. The white is 1-inch insulation foam board with an R-value of 6.56 I believe. Insulation is not my specialty but it should help keep costs down. It was easy enough to cut and it seems to stay in place just by being jammed into the window frame, although I'll have to fill some small gaps with duct tape where I can feel a draft. One foam board cost under $20 and was enough for both windows.
This is the same window from the outside. I cut two small pieces of foam board to seal off the baffles that came with the A/C, as they are pretty flimsy. Note that this is the North side of our house, so it should be the cheapest room to keep cool. This week temps have stayed consistently within 62° F (16.7° C) by the A/C to 68° F (20° C) by the door with outside temps in the low 90s (32-35° C), which is about as hot as it gets here, so I'm very pleased with the performance of our setup so far. The A/C isn't even running at full blast either (although close to it).
This is the room's other window. Not much to note here except for its much simpler geometry. This window is on the West side under an overhang, so it never sees full sun. I think this is about as perfect a setup as one could ask for when jerry-rigging a setup like this and it definitely played into our decision to purchase this house.
This photo shows some cheap foam I put under the door, where we seem to be losing the most cool air. I'll need to find something to put around the edges of the door because the pickle room heats up a bit when we cook. We also have terrible ventilation in the kitchen which doesn't help.
Alright, on to the pickles!
First off, here are some WIP shots of last week's other batches. The turnips we make have just a few beets for coloring, maybe 10% by weight. If you've ever had the little pink strips in a falafel or shawarma sandwich, those are what we are making. In Arabic, they are called 'torshi shalgam' which just means pickled or sour turnips.
They get quartered just so they will fit in the French fry cutter.
For some reason, 
Here they are in jars. The beets at the bottom are cut into rounds so you can tell them apart. The beets and turnips both end up about the same shade of pink but they have very different textures and I don't want to startle anyone.
...and here they are a week later. The stuff at the top is spices that have floated up. I'll have to clean that up. Next time I'll put the small seeds in cheesecloth because they're a little gritty. Also we could have filled the jars a little more but extra headspace is always better than not enough. The taste so far is definitely pickle-y, without a hint of yeastiness. So far I am pleased!
I didn't bother getting any shots of the garlic, because it's relatively dull, so please pardon the clutter in this photo. If you're interested in getting into pickling, nothing could be simpler or more bulletproof than garlic. We bought a big plastic jar of peeled garlic at Restaurant Depot and it filled the two half gallon jars you see. The best part is that garlic is more dense than water, so you don't even have to weigh it! Also, garlic seems much less temperature-sensitive than our other ferments. You can do it on the kitchen counter or even in a sunny window! The secret to pickled garlic, according to our Iraqi friends, is to change out the brine after a week. This allows you to maintain close relationships after eating a clove. This stuff also lasts forever at room temperature and definitely gets better with age. We have some that's over three years old sitting in our cupboard. It's lost some of its crispness, but I suspect that's from staying in the heat of the U-Haul trailer for several days. I'll be interested to find out how it fares in a 'proper' pickling environment.
I feel like the kombucha is getting jealous so here is a picture of it after one week. This is made with decaffeinated black tea and cane sugar. You can see the old 'SCOBY' at the top and a new one, with a charming white blotch, forming at the top. Us professional fermenteurs like to call that a 'pellicle'.
Last but certainly not least is the sauerkraut. Is that a jar of olives? Yes. Sorry, we ran out of small jars. I took the label off with some degreaser and rinsed very carefully. I am very pleased with how the flavor of this is developing as well: just slightly tart and very clean. As you can see the actual surface area (note the bubbles) is very small, this really reduces any opportunities for unwanted microorganisms to colonize the surface.
Alright, I think that's it for this week. Please let me know if you have any questions and thank you for your support!
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