Use a Sous-Vide Circulator to Preserve Pickles

Like many of us living in these dystopian, apocalyptic, puff-sleeved cottage times, I have stepped up my pickling efforts this year – partly because who knows if the plants will still be around by next summer, and partly because which is good, I am at home a lot and I have time. Why not make pickling suddenly an important part of my self-awareness and a support for my subtle emotional stability?

While a lot of people are just now getting on the pickle train and dismantling Ace Hardware shelves of cans and supplies (seriously, there is a shortage across the country ), my personal pickle train left the station in June and swallowed everything perfectly. this time. summer except for one problem: heat. High acid pickles (with vinegar) are usually canned in a boiling water bath. A boiling water bath is exactly what it sounds like: a giant pot of water large enough to cover a few quart or pint cans by at least an inch or two. It takes forever to bring the water to a boil, then you have to boil the empty jars to sanitize them before filling them, and then you dip the canned jars in that hot hot water for the duration of the recipe canning (usually in the 10-15 minutes range ). Ultimately, this means that you have a giant pot of hot water under your elbow for an hour, and the joy of having all that steam and heat stays in your kitchen even longer.

I grew up in South Florida with the understanding that air conditioning is a fundamental human right. Today I live in idyllic Rhode Island, where the people of the state confuse it with Long Island (which isn’t even a state) if I mention it somewhere outside the Amtrak corridor, in a house that’s over 100 years old. The only air conditioner it has are the blocks that I muscularly stick into the windows in a late spring ritual of pain. My kitchen is very small, and it has a refrigerator between 30 and 1,000 years old, a creaky dishwasher with wheels underneath, and somehow a brand new gas stove that – in any setting – threatens to burn my hair. your forearms from three feet away. Having a stove, powered by a flame brought forth straight from Hell, speeds up the boiling of a giant boiler of water, but also turns the whole house into a sauna – not a relaxing sauna, but a very uncomfortable sauna full of rotting vegetables and stinking their smell. vinegar.

It goes without saying that I would love a canning option that doesn’t require boiling baby-sized water for a long time. So I was delighted – albeit skeptical – to find that the USDA had approved a safe canning method that uses low temperature pasteurization to safely seal high acid foods in their cans. The process is simple: Soak prepared cans in warm water (120-140 ° F), heat the water to 180-185 ° F, and then keep it in this exact range for thirty minutes .

Initially, the idea of ​​standing over Hades ridge with a thermometer in a pot, trying to hold the water at 180 degrees, was not attractive. But then the thought arose: why don’t I just do it with a submersible plate? After all, a temperature of 180 degrees Fahrenheit is 180 degrees Fahrenheit, and the advantage of an immersion cooker is that it allows precise temperature control without intrusive oversight.

First, a few words about the safety of canning. As someone who worries about just about everything, it is no exaggeration to say that I live in mortal fear of botulism, a rare but potentially fatal disease caused by ingestion of the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. Botulism spores are common in the environment. However, the spores themselves are not a problem – they only become dangerous when they can grow into bacteria. And here’s what’s interesting: canned botulism is invisible! You cannot smell, taste, or smell it. You would only know it was there if you were sick.

Clostridium botulinum loves a cozy, low oxygen environment like a jar. What he doesn’t like is acid. Thus, maintaining a non-fatal experience of eating homemade pickles means ensuring that the pH of your pickles stays below 4.6, which is safe in the “high acid” range of foods. This is why a popular pickle rule is to maintain a 1: 1 ratio of water to vinegar in brine. Contrary to popular belief, a boiling water bath alone will not completely protect your pickles from botulism. This is because while the botulism bacteria can be killed by boiling water at 212 ° F (or actually 180 ° F and above), spores are only killed at 240 ° F, which can only be achieved by pressure canning (here why pressure canning is the only safe method of preserving low acid foods). When using an immersion circulator, acid is the key to preventing botulism.

For my first attempt at sous vide canning, I used a simple bread and butter recipe that I’ve made many times before. I must warn you that this is not what the USDA advises! Low temperature pasteurization as a canning method was first incorporated into a practice approved by the USDA in 1988, but it is clear that this method should only be used with certain recipes, as written in USDA guidelines. The National Center for Home Food Canning publishes the USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning , which is replete with information and proven recipes and is available as a free PDF (skip directly to Guide 6 if you want to read about pasteurization at low temperatures and see approved recipes for yourself). I am, however, a renegade in the marinating field, and I figured if my acid is solid and I salted the cucumbers to remove excess water, then sous vide should work just as well to make unauthorized cucumbers.

My first attempt was successful. In addition to killing bacteria, another goal of the thermal preservation process is to seal the cans and make them shelf stable, preventing new bacteria, mold or yeast from entering and spoiling the pickles. My sous-vide lids closed just as securely as the lids on the cans I boiled the previous week, and so far I haven’t noticed any signs of spoilage (it’s been about five weeks since my first experiment.) of my obsessive nature, I use pH strips to test the first new can of every pickle batch, just to make sure my acid is where it needs to be. (These strips are usually sold specifically for making kombucha, but they are also suitable for pickles.)

The biggest benefit of canning sous video – and frankly, the real reason most people in air-conditioned homes choose the low-temperature pasteurization route – is to improve texture. Cucumbers soften when preserved in boiling water; you can combat this by adding calcium chloride (also known as Pickle Crisp), but I’m not a fan. Firstly, I feel that calcium chloride gives its own texture, which is slightly different from the crisp natural one, and the softer pickled cucumber slices still don’t bother me. But sous vide pickles retain a lot more crunchy cucumber, which is very popular with many. If you want some really crunchy pickles, cold pickles are best, but sous vide canning does offer a stable sweet spot. When my unauthorized bread and butter pickle recipe seemed to be a success, I also made USDA-approved Dill Pickled Pickle recipe USDA-approved with no deviations to back up my results. The pickles aren’t overly seasoned by my standards, but the texture was great.

The real breakthrough came when I canned my fermented cucumbers in the cans I usually keep in my very crowded refrigerator where they have a limited lifespan. Post-sous vide, they didn’t stay as crispy as they were in the refrigerator, but showed a whole world of improvement over the softening effect of canning in boiling water. Sous-vide canning does kill the beneficial bacteria that make fermented cucumbers good for the gut, but that’s a trade-off I’m willing to make for shelf-stable fermented pickles.

That said, I would not use a sous-vide approach for any vegetables – there is a reason why seasoned (laughs) pickles tend to stick to well-proven and thoroughly tested recipes published in a USDA bulletin or by such adherents. conservation like the Blue Book Ball. Different vegetables have different water content, different gravity and therefore different canning needs. While sous vide canning appears to be safe enough for most highly acidic cucumbers, it may not work as well for pickled carrots or green beans. Perhaps there simply weren’t a lot of trials in this arena, or it could be that the trials ended in failure – USDA bulletins say nothing, and details are sometimes not disclosed. (You can and should call your local cooperative office to ask questions about food preservation and safety! They are super nerds who will happily provide you with all the information you may need.)

Will I be able to continue the sous vide of some pickles? Absolutely yes. The hands-off process is very simple, I ate large amounts of them and did not die, which is my personal gold standard for food preservation success. Plus, I minimize the need to fill my kitchen with the humid heat of the rainforest, so my curvy sleeves stay alive for the apocalypse. In these dark times, I will take my victories wherever I find them.