Halvorson Hidden Harvest - Lacto Ferment Cucumbers

Yesterday, we picked up half a bushel of freshly harvested pickling cucumbers.  After the scramble to rinse the hardware using Star-San, the sanitation process included the inventory of quart jars, the silicon pickle pipes, and the glass weights. The cucumbers were rinsed and rested in a cold water bath for about one hour.

For this batch, both ends of each cucumber were trimmed-off.  Two quarts were small cukes cut in half or larger cukes cut into quarters.  The slicing process resulted in a vegetable that was roughly the same size.  Two other quarts were cut into coins that were about half to three-quarters (1/2 to 3/4) of an inch in size.  The jars with cuke coins packed more dense and filled  more easily than the jars with sliced cukes, which had a considerable amount of unused volume in the jar. 

The spices included kosher salt, mustard seed, fennel, red pepper flakes, fresh and dried dill weed, and bay leaves.  One jar also had a tea bag in the bottom.  The bay leaves and the tea bag provide the necessary tannin for the crisp pickle that I prefer.  

Starting with the empty quart (wide-mouth) jar weighing 730 grams, the water was filled to the base of the neck on the jar and the combined weight of 2,515 grams meant the water weighed 1,785 grams. That was my background gauge for estimating the amount of kosher salt to add for the brine.

At the end of packing cucumbers into the jar and after adding the brine, my jar weighed 2,544 grams which included the jar (730 grams) and the cucumbers and spices (1,814 grams).  In a small glass cup, the kosher salt (4 tablespoons or 72 grams) was dissolved and added to the packed cucumbers.  The jar with topped off with bottled water and the contents submerged using a glass canning weight. Finally, the jar was covered with a pickle pipe.  

The brine is about 4 percent kosher salt (18 ➗1,814 = 0.0397 or 4%).  Now, that is my calculation and readers may choose to figure things differently. Fair warning- my disclaimer. 

The jars are sitting in ice chests which will, hopefully, contain any of the anticipated burps with the fermentation takes off.  At the end of 12 hours, the silicon covers are taunt and ready to burp.  The ambient temperature in the house is about 74-degrees Fahrenheit.  Presently, the rapid fermentation may last five to seven days and the jars will be moved to the refrigerator for aging for an additional three weeks. This is my first batch in Central Texas, so it is just a guess right now. 

The produce that I purchased at Halvorson Hidden Harvest was exceptionally good quality and did not have any blemishes or waste product.  I have no affiliation or relationship with the farmer; I am just an ordinary walk-in customer. 

Post Script-- Half a bushel of cucumbers yielded 14 quarters of lacto-fermented pickles and 3 quarts of refrigerator pickles and a couple of good salad mixes.