Wish me luck! Apparently this is a touchy process, so these could go bad. All that growing and they could end up in the compost! Two ended up going into the compost. I like to taste my cucumbers after I cut the ends off, just to be sure they haven’t gone bad. All it takes is to cut a thin slice from the end. Glad I checked before attempting to put it through the process. Here’s what it looked like (it’s a tiny jar).

What’s in it:

4 Small cucumbers, halved

1/2 Jalapeno, sliced

1 Large clove garlic, chopped

1 tsp. Dill seed

1/2 cup pickling salt to 1 gallon water, fill to cover

In the recipe by Alton Brown, he suggests leaving the pickles in a crock to ferment at a room temperature of 68-70F, or 20-21.1C. Watch the video, it’s super helpful. Other recipes I’ve seen suggest anywhere from 60-80F, or 15.5-26.6C works best. After three days at this temperature, bubbles should start appearing. Alton’s recipe is probably backed by science (test kitchens) as the best temperature for this, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. I have mine sitting pretty at 76F, or 24.4C.

That is to say, barely sitting pretty. They’re in an Igloo , temperature controlled, with ice cubes and a max/min thermometer (see Supplies). The control is nice, I’ll give this system that, but I’d prefer to keep them out on the counter! I wanna see the bubbles!