On 6/26/2013 3:52 PM, Wilson wrote:
> On 06/23/13 3:31 PM, sometime in the recent past George Shirley posted
> this:
>> On 6/18/2013 3:49 PM, Mark Curry wrote:
>>> Hi all - regular lurker here with a question.
>>>
>>> Last year took I took a dive into making various pickles with mostly
>>> success. Dilled Carrots, Olive Oil Pickles, and a few quick pickles
>>> were a great hit.
>>>
>>> The Half-Sours that I tried tasted ok, but were mushy.
>>> Most are still sitting in the fridge waiting some kind of
>>> use as a relish or chutney, where the texture won't be noticed.
>> Fermented pickles don't do well at all with Pickle Crisp Mark, PC is
>> primarily for making fresh pickles and, even then, they need to sit in a
>> dark place for a few weeks in order to be crisp.
>>>
>>> Found out about Pickle Crisp in this newsgroup, and want to
>>> give it a try. I'm not sure on the use for fermented pickles
>>> however - should I add the Pickle Crisp before fermentation or
>>> after? It's just another salt, so I think it shouldn't affect
>>> the fermentation too much. The package doesn't help much.
>>> Most of the recipes I'm using are from The Joy of Pickling
>>> by Linda Ziedrich
>> Pickle Crisp is calcium chloride and, if I remember correctly, is made by
>> treating limestone, in the instance I'm aware of it was Texas caliche
>> rock,
>> of which we Texans have a lot of. Primary use for calcium chloride is for
>> road "salt." A road salt that doesn't rust your car out.
> George, I think your comment that calcium chloride doesn't rust your car
> out is in error. Here in the northeast they have been using it as a
> liquid slurry to treat the roads before snow or icing can be packed down
> by traffic. The result is a lot of premature break-lines rusting out and
> other forms of accelerated rusting even greater than NaCl - regular
> salt. Just saying
>
> Jarden (Ball)
>> dropped the PC for awhile but brought it back in a more efficient form,
>> larger pieces.
>>
>>>
>>> Looking for suggestions from the more experienced folks here.
>>
>>>
>>> The garden just gave us about 5 lbs of cukes - kids can only
>>> eat soo many fresh. There's a few quarts worth ready to go...
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Mark
>>>
>>>
>> Best advice I can give you for fermented pickles is to keep them in ice
>> water, very near freezing for a lengthy time and then ferment them.
>> Lots of
>> recipes for fermented pickles on the web and how to keep them crisp. Hope
>> this helps.
>>
>> George
>>
>> I thought I had sent this earlier but never saw it show up.
>
>
You could be right Wilson, I did some work for a client in Louisiana a
number of years ago who made the "road salt" and I got the info from
them. Fortunately, this far south we've had no need for salting the
roads. Did experience that when I was in the Navy fifty-five years ago
and was stationed in the NE US. Sure rusted out my 1953 Ford flat head
eight cylinder. Haven't researched it since. Lots of caliche in Texas,
most goes for gravel the rest for road salt and Pickle Crisp I guess.