Adventure in food: Half Sours

When I asked Deena what sort of pickles she would like, she said "Half-sours". I'd never seen a half sour, but the wonderful book "The Joy of Pickling" (by Linda Ziedrich, The Harvard Common Press, ISBN 978-1-55832-374-2, which I got from the Sunnyvale Library) had a very simple recipe. I prepped and spiced the cukes into a quart plastic container, then brined them with a low-strength brine (1 TBS salt per cup) and put a bag full of more concentrated brine on top to weigh the pickles down.

It worked, Deena says they taste right, but the brine got very cloudy. Is that normal in these types of pickles? I don't know. They taste fine, though.

I dreamed of making sourkraut again last night.

Tomorrow I pull my pork bellies out of the cure and smoke them. Wulfric (Mad_Baker) is right, it's the easy way into charcuterie. If this works, I think the next step is to make some bacon for GMatt and Xtal.