DIY Crock weights... on second thought?

Well I thought I'd give an update... I trimmed the wooden disk down to a smaller radius, thinking that would be good enough... it wasn't.  I just ordered another set of weights ($25) as I don't have the time (or is it energy?) to deal with that right now.  Hopefully later on I can come up with the ideal design on some wooden weights...

One thing I did lean, however, is that the wood can harbor mold and yeast cultures... so on second thought, maybe it's not my best idea as of yet...

Videos?

This one is quick... I have a refurbished Cannon T3i camera that can take video in NTSC and PAL format.  I'd love to take some videos of what I've been doing to put up on here, but so far have yet to find a good translator from NTSC to MP4 or whatever Microsoft Movie Maker will accept.  If any of you have any suggestions or experience with this, please let me know!

In the mean while I'll keep recording in hopes that one day I'll be able to figure it out...
-Clinton

DIY Crock weights

$20 Plus shipping... and a few days...

Recently I found myself in a pickle... well, it was still a cucumber actually.  I had 25lbs of cucumbers packed into my crock with salt, dill and garlic... all in need of a way to submerge them, so they don't get nasty!  I'd hard of boiling a rock and putting that on top... eh, no thanks!  I'd heard of putting a plate on top and submerging it... there's got to be something better!

Well I decided to take matters into my own hands and see what I could do.  In the garage I had a section of 2x12 that I'd bought to make some apple crates... I can work with this!  The inside of my 5 gallon crock measured a hair over 11" in diameter, so I figured going a quarter inch under size would give me plenty of wiggle room... so I measured and found the center of the 2x12, on the flat side and made my mark by drilling a small hole through it.

A blank slate...

Next I used a scrap piece of wood to create a compass to draw a perfect circle.  10.75 / 2 = 5.375 or 5-3/8in long for my compass.  I measured it, marked it and drilled two more holes.  The nail seen above goes through the compass into the wood and a pencil goes through the other hole to draw a circle.  Next, cutting it out on the band saw and drilling holes so I could pull it out of the crock...

Houston, we have a problem...

Well it worked well enough at first, but after a week of being submerged while we were away on a trip, that wood soaked up some water and expanded.  When we got home it was wedged in the crock pretty good and going nowhere!  I'm actually quite fortunate that it didn't expand more and bust my crock!  As you can see above, I had to put some screws into the wood and use my crowbar to pry it out...  a quick trim on the band saw (Let's try 10-1/2in diameter this time) and it's good to go!  It did seems to require some weight on top of it, as the wood is less dense than the stone... but I cam sure make a bunch of these for the $20-$50 I'd spend on more weights elsewhere!

(See my follow up to this article here)

Lacto-fermenting Dill Pickles, Part 1

A dill pickle (Thanks Wikipedia!)

Lacto-fermenting Dill Pickles... it's on everybodies to do list, right?  Eh, maybe not so much... but after diving into Sauerkraut for a few months now, we have begun to broaden our horizons!  But let me first start off by stating what may be obvious... pickles are pickled cucumbers.   The pickling process can either be done using vinegar to provide the acid, OR, in our case, letting Lactobacillus, which lives on the surface of a lot of veggies, digest the veggies and produce lactic acid... while living in a salty environment, which prevents the growth of some nasty bacteria until the acid levels come up.

The recipe we used came out of this book:

Available on Amazon here

25lb Pickling Cucumbers
112 cloves garlic
4 cups dill weed
1/2lb Salt (Not sure about this one, my memory is failing me after 2-1/2 weeks)
A couple gallons water... eh, you'll need to check the book out from the library or buy it...

That said, I've got some pictures... those are more fun that reading anyway!

Pack'em in there!

The first step for me was to pack a layer of cucumbers in the bottom as tight as I was able to... I didn't think everything was going to fit into our 5 gallon crock.

Adding the dill, and garlic in there...

I would pack in a layer, like the first pic, then thrown some garlic in there and half the dill, then do another layer of cucumbers and throw the rest of the spices in... I think there was only two layers before I got this thing about topped off.  Either way, the next step didn't go quite as it will next time...

This recipe was for a gallon crock and I scaled it up... only problem, I packed the pickles in a bit tighter than the recipe expected and I didn't have room for all the brine.  I can't recall what I did, but I eventually had to taste the brine in the crock and compare the taste to some brine from the book.  Next time I'll mix up the brine in a jar and pour it in until I top things off... oh well... it seems to be working so far!

I'll try to take some more pic's and show you what it looks like as it ferments!