Cucumbers, salted in a barrel for the winter, retain their taste better, remain crispy and aromatic until spring. Salting should be carried out during the ripening period of the greatest amount of vegetables.
The preservation of cucumbers pickled in barrels will depend on what kind of vegetables were selected for harvesting. Cucumbers should be green, not overgrown, firm, with small seeds. The skin should not be thick. It is desirable that the vegetables are of the same length. It is recommended to pickle cucumbers of medium size (90-100 mm) and small (70-80 mm). The cucumbers must be washed thoroughly. If they are heavily soiled, soak them for 20-30 minutes and then wash them in clean water.
For salting vegetables, use oak, linden, beech barrels or tubs. Previously, they must be soaked in water for 2-3 weeks so that tannins come out of the wood. After soaking, fill the barrels with boiling soda ash solution (60 g per bucket), stand for 15-20 minutes, drain the solution, then rinse the barrels several times with cold water and scald with boiling water.
Spice composition per 100 kg of cucumbers: 3 kg of dill, 0.3 kg of garlic, 0.5 kg of horseradish roots, 50 pcs. dry red pepper, 100 pcs. capsicum hot pepper. If desired, you can also add 0.5 kg of tarragon, 1 kg of currant leaves, 0.4 kg of horseradish leaves. If the cucumbers are salted in soft wood barrels, you must additionally take 0.5 kg of cherry or oak leaves.
Place the cucumbers in the barrels as follows. Place the spices at the bottom of the container, then fill it halfway with rows of cucumbers. They need to be placed as tightly as possible. Then put the second layer of spices, then fill the barrel with cucumbers to the top and lay out the third layer of spices. Place the spices as follows: on the bottom of the barrel - dill, then pepper and other spices, on top - in the reverse order.
Cucumbers will work best if they are tightly packed in barrels.
Seal barrels filled with cucumbers and spices with tongue-and-groove trays. The brine is poured using a funnel. If salting is done in open barrels, put a piece of linen on top of the cucumbers, on it a circle of wood and a light weight. The brine should have a strength of 7 to 9 percent, that is, for 100 liters of water, you need to take 7-9 kg of salt. Medium and small cucumbers are poured with 7% brine, large ones - 8-9.
Leave the cucumber barrels for 1-2 days at room temperature for fermentation, during which you need to top up the brine. After the end of fermentation, close the holes in the barrels with wooden corks, under which you need to put clean pieces of linen. Then the barrels must be placed in a cold room (glacier, cellar, basement). The closer the temperature is to 0oC, the higher the quality of the cucumbers will be.
If the cucumbers are salted correctly, they have a crispy firm flesh, a salty-sour taste, a greenish-olive color, and a pleasant aroma of spices. The brine should be clear or slightly cloudy.
Fermentation will completely stop when stored in a glacier after 1, 5-2 months, when stored in a basement - after 30 days, after which cucumbers can be eaten. If the cucumbers were stored in open barrels, films of filmy yeast may appear on the surface of the brine. As a result, vegetables soften and become unsuitable for eating. Therefore, when such a film appears, it must be removed immediately, and then a small amount of dry mustard must be poured into the barrel.
