Who doesn’t like pickles? There are sweet ones and sour ones.. hot ones and mild ones.. crunchy or soft.. they can be whatever your craving.

But you dont get that in the store. They have you fooled! They tell you pickling is hard. They are soooo lieing to you. You can pickle just about anything in 20min or less. And depending on the density of what your makeing they can be ready to eat in an hour for soft things or a day or two for hard things.

Ok.. so gather round and let’s all kick those liars in the sack and make way better pickles than you can buy.

Step 1. Ingredients.

Depending on the flavors you want you can add all kinds of things to your mix but some things always stay the same.

1. Water.

2. Vinager. (Most use just standard white vinegar, but you can sub in any vinegar to change the flavors. Or even make a custom mix of different vinegars! )

3. Salt. (Pickleing salt is best but any salt will work just fine.)

4. Sugar. (Regular white sugar.)

Ok.. so those are the basics of the brine. The different amounts will vary depending on what your pickleing and how you want it to taste. But I will start you out with a simple cucumber brine and then show you how you can modify it.

First you will need a pot for the brine and a jar with a lid. Any big jar with a lid that seals will work. Just make shure it is well washed.

Into the pot…

Four cups water.

One and a half cups vinegar.

3 tbsp salt.

Half cup suger.

That’s it. Simple right?

Now just set it up to boil and stir occasionally.

Now slice up your cucumber and stuff the jar with em till it is half full.

Now you can add stuff to change the flavors. I like spicy pickles so I add 2 sprigs of dill, a few pepper corns and a habanero pepper with a slice down both sides. (Dont cut it in half. Just slice the sides and pop the whole thing in.)

Now pack the rest of the cucumber in up to about half an inch from the top of the jar.

Is the brine boiling? Great! Now slowly pour it into the jar untill it just covers the top cucumbers.

Put the lid on.

Done….. seriously.. that’s it. Just let it cool to room temp then pop it in the fridge. (You do need to refrigerate)

Wait about 2 hours and your pickles are ready to eat. You will also notice over the next couple days those little fuckers will continue to develop flavor and they will get better and better.

Now let’s look at picking other stuff.

What realy matters is how hard it is (I see you back there snickering…) and how spicy it is.

Harder things.. (carrots for example) take longer to pickle and need a little more vinegar and salt. (Experiment! Test out small batches untill you find the ratio you like best!) It also helps to ether slice them thin or into little sticks. Smaller pieces pickle faster. Hard things also take vary well to spicy flavors so dont be afraid to add a sliced pepper or two.

Spicy things like ginger or jalapeno peppers take more vinegar and sugar. (You can also add a generous pinch of oregano to balance any bitterness)

And that’s it! Now go pickle the shit out of everything in the crisper drawer! And never buy crappy pickles again.

Best wishes -SirHanz