[Livinhope]

I am going to have a glut of ridge cucumbers very shortly and would like to pickle some.  Question is.......once pickled how long do they last?

[Trillium]

Until you finish them. If you bottle them, they'll last short of forever. If crocked, you'll have to keep skimming the skummy mold on the surface.

[Livinhope]

Here we go  .  By bottled you obviously mean in vinegar, in a jar or, do you mean the old fashioned method of bottling which I have never had the nerve to try since I learned about botulism.  What do you mean by crocked?  It sounds a bit dodgy if scum is involved.

[Trillium]

By bottling, I mean putting the finished mason/kilner bottles of pickles in brine in a water bath for about 10-15 minutes to vacuum seal the interior. Botulism usually comes with sloppy prep habits, but with vinegar and boiling, botulism is virtually impossible to initiate. I prefer to bottle my pickles so that I know they'll never have problems in my cool basement storage room with the dust and spiders. 

Crocking is when you store the pickles, kraut or whatever in a large, open-topped stoneware crock and the contents are kept under the pickling liquid with some sort of weight. The impurities coming off the cukes and sugar causes a scum to form but is harmless to the veg due to the vinegar and salt in the liquid. With this method, it's necessary to occasionally skim off the scum so it doesn't become too thick and spoil more than it should. This is really the only way to make certain pickles and definitely kraut, but with time at a premium for me, I prefer to also bottle up my kraut once it's ready and know there's no more fermenting or spoilage. Whenever I need kraut, I have only to pop open a kilner jar and it's ready to go.

Hope that helps.

[mumofstig]

I never could get my head round sourkraut, how could something that's fermenting in vinegar taste good But when a German friend made me try some........it was nothing like I imagined 

[Trillium]

Vinegar in kraut? That's blasphemy. Real kraut is fermented only with coarse salt. It's way way way better than kraut done in vinegar  Commercial kraut must have vinegar so it doesn't turn, according to health standards, but properly handled, it won't considering that they're tinning or bottling it anyway.

[Livinhope]

Thank you Trillium, that was todays thing learned.  The only thing I had ever heard of being put into a crock was when I was little and my grandparents had too many eggs they (the eggs not grandparents) were put into isinglass to use in baking.

My grandmother used to bottle all sorts of thing but I think my favourite was loganberries.

[sloegin]

Thank you Trillium, that was todays thing learned.  The only thing I had ever heard of being put into a crock was when I was little and my grandparents had too many eggs they (the eggs not grandparents) were put into isinglass to use in baking.

My grandmother used to bottle all sorts of thing but I think my favourite was loganberries.

Very interesting post What is isinglass?

[Livinhope]

Not a clue.  I believe it came from the chemist in powder form (?) and was added to water then you carefully placed the eggs into it and it stopped them going bad but you could only use them for baking. 

[Trillium]

What is isinglass?

Something you never expected 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass

[sloegin]

What is isinglass?

Something you never expected 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass

Ha  Yuk never knew that! Amazing how these things are discovered!

[Livinhope]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

[arugula]

You should see what else they use to clear wine!