gourmet babble

The results are in! Look above for the picture (there seems to be a config issue in my Movable Type that disallows me from putting an image in a comment, even when the <img/> tag is in the permissible list of tags in the blog settings).

(The pickle juice is low because, in fact, I had already sampled two before I remembered to take this photo.) They turned out very vinegary and quite spicy; the two combined makes them almost a bit of a challenge to eat! I've sampled two onion pieces; they're almost tasteless, but maybe the pickle was still overpowering my palate. I cut off a bit of the swollen serrano half and it definitely had a bit of zing to it. The dill was very hard indeed to detect in any of the items.

The article had said that as long as I maintained a 5% vinegar solution, this would be safe; perhaps I'll try cutting with water for the next one. It also mentioned that even 0.5% salt made a significant taste difference, which equated (by their figures) to 1/2 tsp of salt per pint jar of pickles. Since these are quart jars, they'd recommend 1 tsp. That would be unacceptable — but if I tried 1/3 tsp, that would only be 800mg of sodium. Assuming I fit 12 pickles in the jar (1 1/2 cucumbers), and assuming a worst-case, completely unrealistic scenario where all the salt left the brine and entered only the pickles, that would still only be 67mg of sodium per pickle. Given that there is no active transport in pickling, it is more likely to assume that each pickle would absorb at worst 40-50mg of sodium, and quite probably less.

I'll have to ponder my options and start a new batch tomorrow or Saturday. Until then, I think I'll call this a qualified, moderate success — a no-sodium pickle with kick!

Attempt 2: the broth has just under 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar and the rest distilled white to make 2 cups. I also goofed and put nearly 3 tbsp of pickling spice blend in, although not all the solid matter made it in the jar. Also, I upped the Sucanat to 1 tsp (again, another goof). The big stretch, however, was that I added 1/4 tsp of RealSalt (a kosher salt-style natural mineral salt with a generally pinkish cast) to the brine. If RealSalt follows the same sodium levels as kosher salt, then the whole brine only took 450mg of salt, and only about 80%-90% of the brine made it in the jar, so worst case we're talking 400mg sodium in the whole jar.

As for the jar contents, I cut 3 pickling cucumbers into spears (much better fit), upped the onion to 1/2 of a large yellow (most fit), upped it to 5 large cloves, and used 4 small Thai red peppers (still seeded) rather than the serrano.

As for sodium, in the worse case analysis, if all 400mg magically absorbed into the pickles evenly and none went into any other item or stayed in the brine, each spear will still only have 20mg of sodium.

Canned on 11/9. That means 11/16 is reveal day. We'll see how it goes!