Alton Brown Makes Homemade Dill Pickles | Good Eats | Food Network

[Music] - is next to pickle miss so uh scrub three pounds of three to five inch cukes under warm water while you're at it trim off any ends of the stem they contain an enzyme that can soften cucumbers time to brine and these amounts are important 5 and 1/2 ounces by weight of pickling salt goes into a one gallon container why because we're going to dissolve said salt in exactly one gallon of water now keep in mind that chlorine will kill our little bacterial buddies here so either use filtered water have a filter on this system or you're gonna have to use bottled water do me a favor give that a stir every now and then win now the most popular pickle flavor of all time has got to be dill and it comes in two culinary forms here we have a teaspoon of dill seed which we will use but we also have one large bunch of dill fronds now we want to turn these into kosher Dill's we'll need to add garlic I have two crushed cloves here and I also like to add a little heat so one tablespoon each black peppercorns and red pepper flake now we're ready to build the crock and I want to just dump the cucumber's in so I'm gonna lay it on its side and arrange these vertically that'll ensure that each one gets its share of the flavor I'll just pour this on to your cucumbers until they float up to about two inches from the top of the crock you'll see some of the spices floating that's okay and we'll stop about there we've got plenty of brine left over and some of that is gonna go into a zip-top bag this is gonna be our weight our lid so to speak you could do this with regular fresh water but what if it were to spring a leak you would be in trouble then because you're a brine would end up being too diluted so make sure that this is good and sealed you can throw away whatever brine you've got left there that goes on top and should hold everything down with a little room to spare temperature is a big factor in fermentation we don't want to let this get higher than say seventy-five degrees the fermentation would still take place be really really slow which is not something we want to do so we're aiming for 68 to 70 degrees tops now if you do not have your own climate-controlled snazzy wine cooler like this don't despair just look for any clean spot in your house that will maintain that temperature if it's a clean corner of your basement that's fine in the winter I've actually used my own garage and in the summertime when my air conditioning was broken I put my crock and a cooler that I just added some ice to every day or two to the cooler not to the crop that would be a bad thing so 68 70 degrees tops for three days three count them not two not four three I'll be back now from here on out think of this crock as your virtual pet it does not need to be walked or talked to or scratch behind the ears but it will need to be skimmed of scum each and every day or at least every couple of days now here's how I do it most of these scum will actually be on the bag itself so carefully lift and just dump that right into a vessel of clean water and it'll wash off then take a spoon and look around the edges and just scrape off anything that kind of looks white and moldy it's not actually mold at least it shouldn't be every now and then it is usually it's just leftover stuff by-product from the fermentation process if any of it gets down actually on the pickles try to get that off best you can there last step gonna wipe that down with a clean paper towel right along the edge try not to let anything fall in you're gonna get a few of the herbs and that's okay there we go take a look at your bag make sure that it's relatively clean there we go and right back in place and make sure that you don't use tap water for that tap water contains chlorine and chlorine will be bad pickles should be mostly fermented and somewhere from six to ten days you'll know when mostly firm in it has been reached because the bubbling will stop at that point you've got some choices to make you could move your pickles to the refrigerator replace the bag with a loose cover like a plate and continuous coming occasionally for about three days the cold will put the brakes on the fermentation and you'll have yourself a Polish or on area and dill pickle which is a very nice pickle indeed if you then move the pickles into a jar it strain the juice and add that cover it keep it refrigerated you'll keep them for up to two months if they last that long if you

Channel: Food Network

Views: 557,869

Rating: 4.8865047 out of 5

Keywords: food network, fn, food, cooking, recipe, how-to, how to make, tutorial, alton, alton brown, good eats, homemade, at home, pickles, pickle, dill, dick pickle, snack, pickling, cucumber, how to pickle, how to make pickles, pickle recipe, dill pickle recipe, good eats recipes, vegetablefood network, cook, chef, directions, ingredients, eat, recipes, easy recipes, easy recipe, food network recipes, best, simple, quick, food trends, trendy food, new food, travel food, world food, best eats

Id: Tl4SKZ9BF2c

Length: 4min 56sec (296 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 24 2019