Melba's Jammin' wrote:
> In article >,
> zxcvbob > wrote:
>
>> Epsom salts in water also works pretty well if you can't get lime.
>> (everybody thinks I'm joking whenever I mention this) It's not as good
>> as lime or calcium chloride, but it's cheap and universally available
>> and it works.
>>
>> Bob
>
> I've been thinking about something for quite a while, Bob: Where in
> heck do you come up with your alternative products? I mean, how do you
> decide you're going to use epsom salts because you didn't have, couldn't
> find, or didn't want to pay the price for, say, calcium chloride? WHY
> did you consider epsom salts, fercryin'outloud? Serious question.
> Inquiring Mind and all. . . .
>
> Is this a cheap Texan's trick? Farm knowledge? Are you one of those IT
> guys who's training is in chemistry? Hmmmmmmmm?
>


Seriously? Because calcium ions Ca++ are what causes calcium chloride
(also lime) to crisp vegetables by binding with the pectin. Epsom salts
is magnesium sulfate, which dissolves to make Mg++ ions. Magnesium and
calcium chemically react *very* similarly. So I tried it and it worked.
I just haven't fine tuned it enough yet because my garden hasn't
produced enough stuff to pickle anything lately. Because Epsom salt
contains a *lot* of water bound up in the crystals, a rough guess would
be to use twice as much as the Pickle Crisp instructions say -- but that
sounds like an awful lot and I'd be afraid to start there, at least for
the "add it to the jar" method.

(You can also use Epsom salts to coagulate soy milk to make tofu; I have
no idea what the magnesium is binding to in that case because I don't
think there's any pectin)

Best regards,
Bob