Wednesday, July 25, 2012

What I'm Canning Right Now

Pickles and Wine The good and bad news about making long-term canning projects is you have plenty of time to decide when you want to deal with what you’ve made and it never seems to happen at a convenient time.

I currently have a 5 gallon batch (from left) of Skeeter Pee (Hard Lemonade), Peach Wine, and Spicy Garlic Dills happily fermenting in the basement, which is fine and great except for that whole moving thing going on right now. It just so happens that I need to do something with all of these babies before the big moving day comes and that takes time to coordinate.

skeeter pee, peach wine, and pickles

Both the Skeeter Pee and Peach Wine were started about 3 months ago. I’ve never made Hard Lemonade and wasn’t completely bowled over from my initial tastes of this batch, so it might not make it. The Peach Wine is a Jack Keller recipe and I know it’ll take a little time to age before drinking. I used all those frozen peaches I had stored in my deep freezer from last summer.

The Spicy Garlic Dills are a traditional fermented pickle recipe from The Joy of Pickling. I started those about 4 or 6 weeks ago. How do you know when they’re ready? When they taste ready! As a matter of fact, I gave one big cuke a try tonight and they’re perfect. Not as spicy as last year’s batch, but I can add more pepper flakes to the jars when I process them.

Pickle crock filled with yummy pickles!

The green, flappy looking thing on the top is a raft of fresh grape leaves; those help keep these babies nice and crisp. No one likes a limp pickle! I use a glass pie plate with two full quart jars on top to keep everything weighted down.

Looks like I’ll be canning this weekend whether I like it or not!

2 comments:

Mary W said...

You are brave to tackle canning, bottling, fermenting and moving all at the same time! You GO girl!

Just the Right Size said...

Mary,

Meh...would it be bad to say that I've had thoughts of dumping everything out?!!!

The dill pickles are "ok"...not as good as last year. Maybe I'll just compost them now that I can!!!

 

design + development by kelly christine studio