Day 39: Food Preservation Part V—Pickling

Dear Student,

Humble vinegar is an oft-overlooked and undervalued treasure. It’s got nearly unlimited uses and is an integral part of most self-sufficiency endeavors.

From miraculous-seeming health and cosmetic benefits to a myriad of cleaning possibilities, plus food preservation through pickling… you should make vinegar your new best friend and put all its potential to work for you in your new self-sufficient life.

For today’s lesson, we’ll begin with the basics of vinegar and then get into how to use it to preserve food…

Vinegar

As I said, vinegar is a highly useful player to have in your self-sufficiency game, so I want to focus on the MVP before I digress into some details on pickling and other vinegar uses…

There are a few different vinegar sources commonly used today:

• Wine vinegar (wine)
• Cider vinegar (apple)
• Malt vinegar (beer)

Regardless of the source, though, vinegar is always essentially the same thing. It’s produced by allowing aerobic (oxygen-loving) acetobacter bacteria to convert the alcohol in a liquid into acetic acid, the active ingredient in vinegar.

Traditionally, vinegar has been used for cleaning and disinfecting, as you likely noticed in our lesson on homemade cleaning products. Vinegar has a wealth of cleansing properties… Acetic acid can kill harmful bacteria and/or prevent them from multiplying, making it an effective antibacterial agent (though, importantly, it doesn’t kill staphylococcus, so it can’t replace stronger chemicals in all cases—at least not by itself).

It’s also a strong antifungal. For anyone living in the tropics, note that vinegar is your best friend in the constant battle against mold. It’s the most efficient way I’ve found to get rid of black mold once it’s taken hold. Save your arms the scrubbing and just let some vinegar sit on the mold to kill it and make it easy to remove (maybe add some baking soda for a real one-two punch).

It’s also a wonderful deodorant, either by itself or mixed into a solution with some pleasant-smelling additive. Use it in the microwave, dishwasher, car, on smelly feet, or anything else than you can shake the funk off of!

Medicinally, vinegar has countless uses thanks to its anti-inflammatory properties. It’s been used for centuries (or more) in home remedies to treat nail fungus, lice, warts, ear infections, sore throat, dandruff, bruises, bug bites, to soothe skin irritations, to relieve sunburn, and much more.

And cosmetically, it’s a godsend. Any good grandmother will tell you that her grandmother told her to use it on practically everything. Rinse your hair in apple cider vinegar for extra shine, use it as a facial toner to get rid of redness, add some to a tub to ease whole-body inflammation or in a foot bath to quiet your barking dogs, or apply it to razor burn or bumps to help them heal faster.

Even More Uses For Vinegar…

• Boil vinegar (1 cup) and four tablespoons baking soda to boil in your tea and coffee pots to clean them.
• Run a coffee maker with vinegar instead of water to clean out its pipes.
• To remove limescale from your kettle cover with vinegar and boil. Leave to cool overnight and scrub the next day.
• Clean the filter on your humidifier by soaking it in a pan of white vinegar until all the sediment is off.
• Wet a cloth with vinegar and sprinkle with baking soda to clean fiberglass baths and showers. Rinse and dry with a cloth for a shine.
• For a clean oven, scrub with vinegar and baking soda paste.
• A 1-to-10 white vinegar and water solution is great for washing glass. Spray on and wipe dry with newspaper.
• Deodorize your refrigerator and freezer by cleaning the insides with a solution of equal parts vinegar and water, then wiping dry.
• Hang clothes above a steaming bathtub filled with hot water and a cup of white vinegar to remove smoky smells.
• To prevent mildew, wipe down surfaces with vinegar.
• Use a sponge dampened with vinegar to clean shower curtains.
• To unblock a showerhead of limescale build up, soak the head in pure vinegar overnight and rinse thoroughly.

Making Vinegar

If a liquid has sugars or alcohol in it, you can probably make vinegar out of it… Use non-sulfite alcohol only, though, as sulfides kill the bacteria.

Acetobacter bacteria is found in the air, so leaving a loosely covered container of non-distilled alcohol at room temperature, or one covered with a thin cloth top can do the trick.

But more certainty can be achieved by using the “mother of vinegar” (a piece of a successful acetobacter colony from a previous vinegar-making effort). If you have any friends or family who enjoy pickling, they’ll likely have a vinegar mother you can avail of. If not, you can buy starter sachets online (similar to the yeast packets you buy for wine) to make your own.

Making A Vinegar Mother Using A Starter Packet:

1. Make a mother starter by adding the vinegar mother sachet to water, per its instructions (if you’re using a piece of the bacteria colony from a previous vinegar production just add this directly).
2. Add it to the alcohol in a clean glass container, cover with cheesecloth, and leave for two to four weeks, stored at 60 to 90°F.
3. A jelly-like mass will grow in your liquid. This is your acetobacter colony.
4. Taste the mix intermittently until the vinegar achieves the taste you want, then remove the colony and use it to make a batch of vinegar.
5. Strain the mixture, removing the mother and leaving you with vinegar, which you can bottle for use.
6. Take the removed mother starter and leave it in a clean container with some vinegar until you are ready to make more vinegar.
7. When making wine vinegar, add clean unchlorinated water at a ratio of 50% of the wine volume. If you don’t have unchlorinated water, boil tap water for five minutes and let cool.
8. If the vinegar stinks, smells like turpentine, or goes moldy, throw it out and start over.

Making A Vinegar Mother Without A Starter Packet:

1. If you can’t get a mother starter, buy natural, unpasteurized, unfiltered vinegar from a health food store.
2. Leave it open in your kitchen, with a cheesecloth tightly over the top, for a week or two until a jelly-like mass grows in it. This is your vinegar mother.
3. Age the vinegar in its bottles for six months (this is the ideal time, but you can use it earlier).
4. Dilute if too strong and infuse with herbs or flavors if you wish.

Making Apple Cider Vinegar (The Easy Way)

This method isn’t labor-intensive, but it’s a little less reliable than the long-form production.

Instead of throwing away the peels and cores of apples, you can make apple cider vinegar at home. For example, if you’re making a tarts or sauces from apples, you can put all your scraps to use.

Making apple cider vinegar in this way is super economic, with a gallon costing about 10 cents when all’s done.

Equipment:

• 4 quart-size jars
• Small piece of plastic or balloon
• A rubber band
• Coffee filter
• Cheesecloth or other fabric lid

Ingredients:

• Apple peels, cores, and any browning bits from organic or very well-washed large apples (approximately 24). Don’t use rotten or moldy apples.
• 10 tbsps. sugar
• 10 cups water, boiled and allowed to cool

Process:

1. Place equal amounts of apple byproduct in the four quart-sized glass jar, filling no more than three-quarters full.
2. Ensure no apple sticks out of the water by weighing it down with a small balloon under the lid or with a small, clean kitchen utensil.
3. Cover the jar with a paper towel or cheesecloth and secure it with the rubber band.
4. Place the jar in a warm, dark place for two to three weeks (a pantry is usually fine).
5. Strain out the liquid.
6. Return the liquid to the same jar and cover it again (same paper or cheesecloth).
7. Return the jar to the same warm, dark place and leave it do its thing for roughly another four to six weeks, stirring with a clean kitchen utensil.
8. After the first four weeks, you can begin to taste it, and once it reaches an acidity you like, transfer it to a bottle with a lid and begin using it. (Don’t worry if it’s a little cloudy, it’s all natural.)

Pickling

Aside from all the uses vinegar has on its own, if add some food to it then you’re really reaping its full benefits.

Pickling is easy, fun, and tasty. There are a great array of vegetables and other foodstuffs that have typically been preserved in times gone past, and many are still pickled today all around the world.

While the origin of pickling comes from extending the shelf-life of various foods and making them easier to travel with, pickled foods are a delicacy unto themselves. The flavor of pickled foods is often quite distinct from the flavor of the raw food, and they make perfect pairings for certain foods.

And for some dishes, pickled foods are de rigueur—have you ever been served a deli sandwich without a gherkin on the site? Tapas or French cheese plate without cornichons? A martini without a cocktail onion? A traditional slider without a slice of pickle? Or sushi without pickled ginger? There’s no substituting cucumber slices on a burger, a slice of raw onion in a cocktails, or raw ginger on a sushi roll… but the pickled version? Ah, now there’s a pairing made in heaven!

The art is currently undergoing a renaissance, with craft pickling the a new hip and trendy pastime among young folks who are just discovering the beauty and fun of pickling for themselves.

Pickling involves the use of vinegar and sometimes brine and anaerobic fermentation to preserve foodstuffs and to enhance the flavor and nutrition. In Asia, people pickle using a vinaigrette (oil and vinegar).

Most things can be pickled (meat isn’t usually pickled, but it’s possible).

Some of the best fruits to pickle include…

• Pickled pears—tangy and work great in salads
• Pickled figs—a great accompaniment to any grilled meat
• Pickled lemons—excellent for middle eastern food
• Pickled grapes—cinnamon and black pepper-infused pickled grapes are also great salad accompaniments
• Pickled ginger—goes great with pickled mango to make a relish
• Pickled pineapple—for any Asian stir-fry dish

And vegetables…

• Pickled beans
• Pickled cucumbers
• Pickled capers
• Pickled beets—beetroot is delicious in sandwiches and salads
• Pickled cauliflower—especially good when pickled with carrots and red bell peppers
• Pickled green chili peppers
• Pickled eggplant—mix with olive oil and feta cheese and serve with fresh bread for a savory tapenade-style appetizer
• Pickled celery sticks—no need for ranch when they’re pickled!
• Pickled okra
• Pickled halved brussels sprouts
• Pickled corn—goes with meat dishes

Simple Pickling Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup vinegar, such as white, apple cider, or rice
1 cup water
1 tablespoon kosher salt or 2 teaspoons pickling salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar (optional)
1 teaspoon dried herbs or ground spices (optional)
2 cloves garlic, crushed or sliced (optional)

Equipment:

• Knife
• Cutting board
• 2 wide-mouth pint jars with lids

Process:

1. Wash jars, lids, and rings in warm soapy water and rinse well.
2. Wash and dry the produce and prep them for eating as you would if you were cooking them (e.g. peel carrots; trim the end of beans; cut into desired shapes and sizes, etc.).
3. Add your flavorings by dividin the herbs, spices, and/or garlic you are using into the jars.
4. Pack the vegetables into the jars, making sure there is a half-inch of space from the rim of the jar to the tops of the produce. Pack them in as tightly as you can without damaging.
5. Combine the vinegar, water, salt, and sugar in a small saucepan over high heat to make the pickling brine. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar.
6. Pour the brine over the vegetables, filling each jar to within half-inch of the top. (You might not use all the brine.)
7. Place the lids over the jars and screw on the rings until tight.
8. Store the jars in a refrigerator.
9. Pickled foods will improve with flavor as they age—try to wait at least 48 hours before cracking them open.