Pickling Log for 2008
Portland, OR

Aug. 29th, 2008 - Searching...

I cannot find pickling cucumbers! Called most of the farms in the Tri-County Farm Guide looking for cucumbers. I found one ($1/lb.) even amongst the farms that advertised u-pick pickling cucumbers.
Called most of the farms on www.pickyourown.org that advertised cucumbers; None.
Called three quarters of the farms on www.tricountyfarm.org that advertised cukes: None.
I heard "don't do u-pick" "don't do cucumbers" "don't know anyone that does"over and over. Drove I-5 south past Wilsonville and into country roads looking for u-pick farms.
Wasted the whole week.

Sept. 6, 2008 - Picking and Purchasing...
I've gone to Sauvie Island in the past and gotten what I needed but it's a bit more of a drive.
I drove the entire island and looked at every farm except Bella u-pick; I'll call them next year.
There are two farms on Sauvie Island that sell u-pick cucumbers.

GM Farm                                 :$0.85/lb.
Sauvie Island Farm  <            : $1.00/lb.>

GM farm had a problem this year with root rot and only had 7lbs. already picked.
I purchased all.
Sauvie Island farm had a beautiful crop about 4 weeks ago and they are now the size
of gourds and are rotting on the vine. I got about 2lbs.

Kruger's Farm Stand had 10 people queuing for pickling cucumbers at an unknown price
to be unloaded or packaged or delivered or something. I don't know how long theywere
standing there waiting. I waited for about 10 minutes and said"screw this". Ilater
heard from a local that their pickling cucumbers are not grown on Sauvie island but
shipped in from somewhere else (but I didn't confirm this).
                                   
Pumpkin Patch had three 25lb bags for $18.95; I bought one.
They also had a 10lb. bag but I didn't look at the price.
Bunch of Dill                          :$1.89
Vinegar at Winco                  : $2.90/gallonat Winco (they were sold out of Hy-Top brand at $1.88/gal.)
Kerr lids at Fred Meyer        : $2.35/dozen

Purchases;
Cucumbers ~42lbs.  : $ 35  = ~$0.83/lb.
Vinegar                      : $  3
Dill                               : $  2
24 Lids                       : $  5
==========================
Total               : $ 45 (ouch!)

Sept. 7th, 2008 Canning

Inventory:
            42 lbs. of cucumbers
            2 big heads of garlic
            one bunch of dill (used most of it)
            48 quart jars and rings (used 34)
            15 dozen lids (whoa! didn't realize that.)
            mustard seed (used about 2 TBSP)
            peppercorns (used about 2 TBSP)
            pickling salt (one 4 lb. box was more than enough.)
            vinegar (one gallon wasn't enough, it took about a gallonand a half)
            about 50 grape leaves (canned one pint of the leftovergrape leaves to try dolmoths this year.)

Brine Recipe:
            7 Cups of Water
            4 Cups of White Vinegar
            10 TBSP Canning Salt

Tools and Utensils
            Canning Vessel
            Six Quart Cooking Pot
            Buckets
            2 Jar Tongs
            Canning Funnel
            Towels
            Soft Scrub Brush
            Timer
            Ladle

- Sorted out all jars and lids and rings.
- Washed jars and rings in dishwasher.
- Washed he lids by hand.
            I use the old lids if they look good and aren't dented. Iknow that I'm not supposed to
            but I've been doing it for years and it works for me. Icarefully look to see that the
            coating is still intact on the food side of metal of thelid.
            Washed the cucumbers by hand with a small scrub brush inthe sink.
            (I may look into an ultrasonic cleanser bath in thefuture.
            I have a schematic for one but haven't gotten around toit.)

- Added pinch of mustard seed and pinch of peppercorns to each jar.
- Added half a garlic clove to the jar.
- Added half a grape leaf and a dill floret to each jar.
- Stuffed jars with cucumbers.
            This isgetting to be a pain. Since I'm stuck with baggedpre-picked,
            I don't get a good mix of small and large cucumbers.U-Pick is better!
            Next year I may try soaking the cucumbers in a brinefirst to see it they soften up.
            I bruised a few cramming them in there. If there was awater soluble food
            lubricant that didn't alter taste or the pH... I don'tknow of one.
            I wish that I had started with a wider jar collectionthan quarts,
           but if the jars are too big then they takes up too muchroom in the refrigerator.
- Started the bath boiling.
            I put 7 jars full of water in the canner, then add enoughwater to cover them about an inch.
            Then take out the jars of water to get the right volumeof boiling water.
            (I've had too little water in the past and had to wait for it toboil again after adding more.)
- Started the Brine.
            In big spaghetti pot on high heat
            7 cups of water
            4 cups of vinegar
            1/2 cup + 2 TBSP salt. (10 TBSP)
            I used canning salt this year but Ihave used bulk sea salt in the past with no ill result.
            I've run out of salt in the past andused iodized table salt too but I seem to remember from
            somewhere that this was not good. Iuse the cheapest white vinegar available. One gallon
            wasn't enough for 34 quarts ofpickles. Next year get two gallons.
            I used two canning tongs this year. One in each hand.This really sped things up. =)
Next day....
- Tested the lid seals.
            I had 5 of the 34 the didn't seal. Put on new lids andre-processed them in a bath.

2006

Pickling Log for 2006

Sept. 4th, 2006
Went to Century Farms on Roy Rodgers rd. for u-pick.

spent $27.50

$0.60 lb cukes
$1.75 dill
42 lbs

It would have been cheaper to buy a 25lb bag.
GM Farms on Suavies Island was $0.45lb (for quantities over 25lbs)

2005

Pickling Log for 2005

Labor Day, Monday, September 5th, 2005
* Ok... where's the purple pickiling documents from the last 3 years?!!!
Right on! I found them with my old computer manuals!
ok let's see.... these all need to be converted to soft copy....

Mom showed up at 1:22pm. grab isaiah ...
Schitlerings century farms in sherwood.
Pckles went up to $.50/lb for u-pick!
This year just did dill pickles, no sweet pickles ...

2003

Pickling Log for 2003

Pickles with LuAug.28th 2003
20lbs cukes@ $5.95<---- geez. it was cheap back when.
3 big garlics
4 jalapano<--- don't bother
1.2 gal vinegar

prices Winco
vinegar $1.58/Gal
Kerr $6.98/ jars ,lids and rings /dozen
ball wide mouth $1.79/dozen
$3.50 for just lids and rings
$1.79 for just lids

3cups H2O
3cups white Vingar
6 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp sugar<--- don't bother

13-15 pepercorns per jar
2 cloves garlic
3-4 beans<--- don't bother
3-4 onion rings<--- don't bother
1 sm. tsp pickling spice<--- don't bother
1 green chili<--- don't bother
1 red chili<--- don't bother
1/2 big dill head per jar
* 1/2 -1/4 grpe leaf

7 brine batches

total 22.5 qts.

2002

Pickling Log for 2002

Pickles September 9th, 2002
purchaced:
23lbs. of pickles @ $12
$2.20 vingar
$1.25 dill
$.40 peppers
lids and rings safeway $3.50/12$2.00 at discount store

Used Ruth Keating's Pickle recipe (I have modified this over the years)
3cups white vinegar
3cups H2O
5TBSP Salt
30 Cukes

Wash cukes
Cut off blossom
leave stem
Boil H2O, vinegar, and salt

2 cloves Garlic per jar
1 dill blossom per jar
1 layer cukes<--- don't bother
more garlic
more dill
more pepper
more layer cukes
more dill

20 minutes in hot bath<----too long

What we did ...
8cups h2o
8 cups vingar
1 cup sugar
1 cup salt
1 tsp alum<---- don't bother
1/4 grape leaf
14 pepercorns
1 dash tumeric<--- don't bother
3 dill florettes
1 garlic clove
1 dried chile<--- don't bother
mustard seed

one brine batch made 8 quarts
made 12 quarts i think . val's notes were poor

2000

Pickling Log for 2000

August 12th, 2000
pickles lasted me almost 9 months. they were good, although some people saidthat they were too sweeet. The ones that I cut into chunks fit alot more picklesin the jar and still held thier crispness pretty well. I was overall very pleasedwith my first attempt. There has not been any spoilage (i was suprised).
Some mistakes that I made were :
larger Jars - I had used pint jars and sould have used widemouth quarts.
hot peppers - I had added hot peppers to my cans
next time use REAL HOT peppers and don't add to all cans .
carrots, onion - don't bother.
less dill.
more cans - The usage that I had was very light even for just one person.
I expect to go through twice as much this year.
Suarkraut - do a bunch of suarkraut also. I found that I was buying italot this year and the cost was going up up up.

It's time to start thinking about pickling and canning again sooff to the farmers market I go. I was pretty pissed when I got there andlooked around. The sellers had oviously gotten wise becausetomato was over 2$/lb.and pickle cukes were over $1/lb. nearly twice whatI paid last year. A crate of peaches was $20 (yikes). I know that I wouldn'thave been able to get twenty small jars of peaches out of one of those crateseither.

I will have to get together with some people I know and go out to the farmsthis year if I want to put any food by.

Pickling with Jessa 8/20/2000
Got up this morning and proudly looked at the 28 bottles of Pinot Nior that were sitting onthe kitchen floor in front of the garbage compactor(wow love that toy) that I had rackedlast night.They would have to be moved and the carboys would have to be cleaned before I would be able to start canning today.I wanted to do pears today but, my friend Bill Walker, who was asleep when I called him at noon, called me back at one and said that the pears weren't really ripe enough to can yet.He would experiment with ripening them inthe house during the week and see how that went.

This year I had borrowed my stepmother's car instead of doing everything on the back of the motorcycle like last year.She has a big maroon station wagon and it drives great.(George tried to say it was red but that is just not true-J)Got Jessa and headed off to the Corralflea market on 171 and Division.I especially wanted to get a five gallon pressure cooker, a hot plate and more jars.I had managed to pick up 48 wide mouth quart jars at a thrift store the day before for four dollars the day before.I have most of the pint jars from last year but I think that I am going to save those for tomatoes.I remembered from when I was a child that when you went to a flea market you couldn't throw a rotten banana with out it bouncing off three boxes of mason jars and landing in a canning vessle.The Corral flea market sucked.They had many many useless items wich I wisely walked right past, I just don't need another car stereo or set of speakers.Although Jessa did get some Toblerone chocolate for very very cheap.After a little driving and praying to the god of free or almost free very useful stuff I stopped the Goodwill As Is store on McLoughlin Blvd.I picked up a hot plate and asked Jessa where the kitchen stuff was.In a huge bin full of total crap like the toystory dinosaur puppet that Jessa got for Astrid and a boy scout mess kit, I saw a shining bright five gallon canning pressure cooker.A Vessle.A Presto model 21-B pressure cooker.I had to dig around for another ten minutes, with help from Jessa, to find the lid.I also found a very good condition Bill Blass over coat and am going to have to prone myself this evening to thank the god of free and almost free stuff.This is an amazing score.I had priced a similar pressure cooker at one of those highly overpriced yuppie cooking stores for people who drive suv's, they wanted 189 dollars for one.I payed five.[SCORE!]If you see one of these in a thrift store-get it!They are very hard to find used.If you don't want it get it anyway and I will buy it off you to use on one of my next projects.

We stopped at a vegetable stand on the edge of town and talked with and old couple and their three lady looking dogs.Some kind of terrier, who knows, they are small and yappy.Tomatoes and peaches were again too expensive, but I bought a 13.5 box of pickling cukes for eight dollars.These are the larger size pickling cucumbers and will have to be cut in order to get them into the jars.The old woman showed us her recipes and was very surprised to hear that I was the one who would be canning and not Jessa.She even commented that it had taken fifteen years of promises for her husband to help her make pickles this year.

I am not sure if the lid for the canning vessle has the pressure release valve.Jessa says not.It does have a vent for it though, and a pressure gauge.

Back off to the store to get more supplies.

Shopping List 8/20/2000

lids<- lids at Durst's were pretty expensive I thought.
widemouth lids with rings<- 2.05
widemouth lids<- 1.69
kerr reg mouth w/ lids<- 2.19
white vinegar<- 2.59/Gal
sugar<-$3.29/10lbs.
Cabbage 6.5 lbs $2.14<- .33/lb
pressure cooker pressure regulator (weight on top) $7.29<- ace hardware
pressure cooker sealing ring $7.50<- ace hardware

I put the water on in the cooker about an hour before I was gonna start becasue I knew that it would take a long time to heat up. Started cleaning the kitchen and the jars and whatnot.

Lost the rest of the documentation for the 2000 pickles.

1999

Pickling Log for 1999

Saturday,September 11th, 1999
How I made pickles....(the first time! I DON'T USE THIS RECIPE NOW...)

I went to the farmer's market in the Park blocks by PSU and bought 11 lbs of pickling cucumbers. Buying that many gave me a bit of a discount and i wound up paying $6.60for a hefty 1/2 full shopping bag.I bought these at the first stall thatI had come to in the market, which looked like a good deal because afterwalking around for a half hour i saw many stalls wanted about $8.00 for10 lbs. The draw back was that I allowed the farmer to load up the baginstead of picking out the cukes that I wanted. I got all different sizes,including some that i knew would never fit into the jars that I had in mind.

I got a big stalk of dill weed at the farmers sugestion as well as a poundof string beens (that I wanted to make into pickled drink garneshes) and2 honkin garlics.

I couldn't buy any more stuff at the farmers market (although i should have)I didn't really find thier prices any better than the supermarkets anywayexcept for buying in bulk or just befor they all pack up to leave in theafternoon (it's the best time to buy cuz they don't care and will give youwhole bags of vegitables for the price of one fruit). The motorcycle simplycould not have any more food strapped to the back.

I brought home the cukes and tasted one, it was very bitter and didn't tasteanything like a regular cucumber. Oh well.

Ok, I had left the recipe that a co-worker had given me on my desk at work,so i got on the internet and found many many useless pages about cucumbersand pickles and every possable pickled food. There were about 4 or five recipesthat looked promising and a few that said it would take me 4 days to make pickles.This recipe looked like it would handle the bulk of the pickles that Iwanted to make if i tripled it so i went with this one.
Quick Dill Pickles
(makes 3 quarts)
4 pounds of cucumbers
6 tsp salt
3 cups vinegar
(was 2 cups vinegar)
1 cups water
(was 1 cup H2O)
3 Tbs dill seed or
9 heads of fresh or dried dill weed
18 whole black peppercorns or
3 small dried red peppers
1. For whole cucumbers, small sizes up to 4 inches long are preferred.Larger sizes may be packed whole provided they are processed for alonger time. Wash cucumbers thoroughly.
2. combine vinegar and water.
Pack cucumbers into clean jars.
For each quart, add 1 tablespoon or three heads of dill,5 whole black peppercorns,and 2 teaspoons salt.Fill with vinegar-water solution to ½ inch of top.
3. Seal. Process 15 minutes in simmer hot water.If more tart pickles are desired, use 3 cups vinegar and 1 cup water.

Some of the tips that I had picked up were that :
alum makes them crisp (USE GRAPE LEAVES INSTEAD!)
don't leave them sitting to wilt as they will wilt quickly 24 hours from picking(2).
all recipes seem to call for water, salt, and vinegar
i could add little hot peppers if i liked
use white vinegar cuz it's cheeper and won't color the veggies
always check for spoilage when opening the cans
don't use aluminum bowls or pots.

Next I went through all my cuboards and and found the some tureracand green pepercorns. ok, off to the supermaket i go. My localsuper market is Durst's thriftway on NW 23rd. it's great and I love it.

I got some little onions, carrots, alum, mustard seeds, peppers,a gallon of white vinegar, a box of morton kosher salt, ginger root forexperimental purposes, and 24 Kerr wide mouth 16oz mason jars.It all cost $30 which I put on my credit card cuz i was broke.
It took me two trips on the motorcycle to get the jars home.

I knew that I should have bought jars and lids at an estate sale months earlerwhere I could have paid $2 a dozen insteadof $7.5 a dozen, but I'm much moreof the grasshopper than the ant. My runing cost is now at $36 bucks for 24jars of pickles ($1.50/jar) which isn't the most cost effective way to go butI would have the jars again next year and will probably go staright to thefarm to buy the veggies cheaper instead of the farmers market.

Got home and put on the radio and set to work cleaning the kitcen througholy.i put the little hot peppers in the sun on the windowsill to try and darkenthem to red - didn't work though.

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