Pickled Asparagus

Given my large stockpile of beer and an immanent move I have decided to hold off on brewing any more beer for another month or so.  In this pause of beer brewing I've played around with a couple other fermented foods - cheese and bread.  Now I'll try a fourth - pickles.

Fermentation is an awesome process.  Almost seems like magic.  Especially so when no special action is taken to inoculate the food to be fermented - spontaneous fermentation.  This is the case for naturally fermented pickles which uses the lactobacillus on the vegetables to acidify.

I've decided to try pickling some asparagus via this method.

I've done quite a bit of reading on pickling after not having thought of it much.  It's an ancient form of food preservation.  Primitive humans found that salt had great preservative effects for their food.  They didn't know it but this is because the organism responsible for spoilage (like Clostridium which produces botulism) can not thrive in a salty environment.  You have to wonder how many primitive humans died in order to secure this knowledge.  Lactic acid bacteria are capable of thriving in a salty environment and they slowly acidify the food which changes the flavor and texture.

The process appeals to me for many of the same reasons that beer brewing does - you do a little work up front and then over time what you've created transforms into something quite different.  Very neat.

The really exciting thing about picking is the wide variety of flavorings that can be added during the aging.  Garlic, peppercorns, dill, horseradish, and chilly peppers are some of the common flavorings but the sky is the limit.  For my first attempt I'm using garlic, peppercorns, and hot cherry peppers for the flavoring.

Based on my reading I've decided to go with a brine strength of 1 tbs of salt to 1 cup of water.  Brine strength seems to be a variable that can be experimented with.  I'm using store bought asparagus which must have been shipped in.  The amount of processing that it's undergone is an unknown variable so the amount of resident LAB is an open question.  I expect there will be enough to allow fermentation to proceed but we'll see.

Ingredients:

• 8 cups water
• 8 tbs of kosher salt
• 1.25 lb of Asparagus
• 3 Cherry Peppers
• 8 garlic cloves
• ~ 1 tsp of peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves

Process/Notes:

• 10/8/16
• Boiled about half a gal of tap water to eliminate chlorine
• Poured ~8 cups of near boiling water into a large mason jar. 
• Added salt to the hot water - it dissolved with no stirring
• Let it cool to room temperature over several hours
• Peeled garlic and added to the water - these sunk

• Measured out peppercorns and added - these floated for a bit and then sunk
• Added the bay leaves - they floated
• Cut out the stem and rinsed out the seeds from the peppers and then cut them in half.  Added them in and they floated

• Snapped off the woody bottom of the asparagus, quickly rinsed them, and pushed them in with the heads down - these floated
• Made sure everything was submerged by weighing the contents down with a measuring cup.  Put a paper towel over the top of the jar and secured it with a rubber band.  Seemed to hold it down well
• Left this on top of the fridge to ferment
• 10/10/16 - The mixture has started to get pretty cloudy

• 10/12/16 - The mixture has gotten even more cloudy.  Sampled an asparagus.  It was quite salty (as you would expect) and had picked up some of the heat from the peppers as well as some of the garlic flavor.  A bit of sourness has developed but it's very mild at this point.  Still had a nice asparagus flavor
• 10/15/16 - The pickles seem to be sitting almost entirely submerged without any weight so I am going to remove the measuring cup and let them ripen for a few more days with just the towel on top.  Added a bit more water to compensate for evaporation.
• 10/19/16 - The pickles have started to form a bit of pellicle and the liquid has gotten very cloudy.  I tried another asparagus and it had a nice bit of sourness.  It's really crisp and has absorbed the nice flavors in the brine.  I'm going to call it done with these and move them to the fridge.  Added an air tight lid and moved them to the fridge in their jar.  There was a red film on top of some of the stocks.  It scared me a bit but it comes off very easily - I think it's from the peppers.

• 11/5/16 - I've been trying a few of these a week and they're very good.  I think they're ready for some tasting notes soon.  The vegetables all sank to the bottom of the jar soon after going into the fridge.  The liquid dropped clear after about a week of cold storage.  There is quite a bit of sediment in the bottom of the jar.
• 5/12/17 - Still have 5 or 6 asparagus pickles left.  Had a couple more last night.  They are still nicely crisp and I think the sourness has developed more over time in the fridge.  I like them but I think I was a bit heavy handed with the salt and garlic.  I'll make sure to cut down a bit on these the next time I attempt pickling.