Dec 02 2015
For our Thanksgiving family dinner I took all out to eat at J Maries; a new restaurant in Wapakoneta, Ohio. They do all their cooking in two brick wood fired ovens and the food was good. For an appetizer we tried some of their IPA brined pickles. I thought they were good.
I searched the net and found a recipe for them. I found about the same recipe several places. One site was thebeeroness.com and they have a lot of recipes using beer. The recipe was for doing cucumbers and sweet peppers but I did cucumbers and carrots.
I bought an English cucumber and some organic carrots. I only bought one cucumber and should have got two but I made do and added some sweet onions to help pack. I smashed 4 cloves of garlic and placed in the bottom of the jar, a slice of onion, and then packed in the cucumber that I cut in wedges and 3 stems of fresh dill. I filled the void with some more sweet onion. The brine was a bottle of Founders IPA, ¾ cup apple cider vinegar and 2 tablespoons coarse kosher salt. After adding the brine to the pickles I added a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes.
Some of the carrots were small enough I left them whole with some of the top on; the larger ones I cut into sticks. I washed them good and cut to length to fit the quart jar and leave room on top for the brine to cover. I added 4 stems of fresh dill; poured the brine over and added about a teaspoon of coriander seeds.
The pickles I did in a Fido jar and the carrots I used a quart Mason jar. I let them set at room temperature about 3 hours and then in the fridge. Today they had been in for two days.
I had a ham and Swiss cheese on rye for lunch today and tried some of the pickles. They were plenty sour and good. I will try the carrots for supper tonight but they may need to set longer.
Update: Dec 19 I tried the pickles after two days and they were pretty sour for me but I liked them. This would be good for a quick pickle to have making on short order, one or two days ahead. I didn’t care for the carrots that well; doing the sweet peppers may be better. I have since found a different recipe I will try that may tone down the sour some. I thought some of you might like this idea to play with, search for a recipe you like or I will PM you the new recipe I am going to try.
Smokin Don
