Brine for Pickling

Ingredients

• 1 pint pickling salt
• 1 gallon water
• 1 pinch saltpeter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 egg

Instructions

1. Use rain water if possible, and regular picking salt — it is coarse and much stronger than cooking salt.
2. Lacking rain water, soften other water by dissolving in it the day beforehand a pinch of washing soda — this neutralizes largely the mineral contents.
3. Put over the fire in a deep, clean kettle, bring to a boil, put in salt — a pint to the gallon of water is the usual proportion.
4. Boil and skim, add a pinch of saltpeter and tablespoonful of sugar for each pint of salt — the pinches must not be large.
5. Add also six whole cloves for each gallon.
6. Take from fire, let cool, drop in an egg — it should float to show the size of a quarter of a dollar. Otherwise the brine needs more salt: dissolve a pint extra in as little water as suffices, add to the brine, then test again.
7. Put the brine when cold into a clean, roomy vessel, a keg or barrel, else a big stone crock. It should not quite half fill it.
8. Provide a heading that will float upon it, also a light weight to keep the heading on the pickles when put in, and hold them under the brine. Unless so held the uppermost rot, and spoil the lot.
9. Mold will gather around the head in spite of the cloves, but less than without them. Whenever you put in fresh pickles, take out the head, wash and scald, dry, and return to place.
10. Anything edible will make pickle — still there are many things better kept out of the brine. Cabbage and cauliflower do not need it; green tomatoes, onions, and Jerusalem artichokes are likewise taboo. The artichokes make good pickle, but it must be made all at once.
11. Cut anything intended for the brine with a bit of stalk, and without bruising the stalk.
12. Sizes to cut at: cucumbers should be small, and even in size; gherkins about half grown; string beans, three parts grown; crook-neck squash very small and tender; green peppers for mangoes, full grown but not turning; muskmelons for other mangoes three parts grown.
13. Wash clean or wipe with a damp cloth. Cut pickles in early morning, so they may be fresh and crisp. Never put in any wilted bit — thereby you invite decay.
14. Watermelon rind makes fine pickle, sweet and sour — also citron. It must be fairly thick, sound and unbruised. The Rattle Snake melon has a good rind for such uses; the finer flavored and thinner-rinded varieties that come to market are rarely worth cutting up.
15. Cut the rind in strips rather more than an inch wide and three to five inches long, then trim on each side, free of green outer skin, and all trace of the soft inside. There will remain less than half an inch thickness of firm pale green tissue.
16. Firm clingstone peaches not fully ripe can be put in the brine — they had better, however, be pickled without it.
17. Whatever is put in, and saved by salt, must be freed of the salt by long soaking before it is fit to eat. The soaking process is the same for everything: take from brine, wash clean in tepid water, put to soak in cold water with something on top to hold the pickles down. Change water twice the first day, afterward every day, until it has not the least salt taste.
18. You can make pickle by soaking in brine three days, then washing clean, putting over the fire in clear water, bringing to scalding heat, then pouring off the water, covering with vinegar, and bringing just to a boil.
19. Drain away this vinegar, which has served its turn, pack down the pickles in a jar, seasoning them well with mixed spices, whole, not in powder, covering with fresh, hot vinegar, letting cool uncovered, then tieing down, and keep dark and cool.