It should be noted right away that salting cucumbers this way in a city apartment is extremely inconvenient, so this method is suitable for summer residents and owners of private houses. However, the result is so delightful that even city dwellers should try this technology in action.
For pickling, you will need a 100-liter wooden barrel, and as for the cucumbers themselves, autumn varieties are best for pickling. The fruits must be fresh, of regular shape, and not overgrown – up to 10 cm in length. You should choose cucumbers of a dark green color with firm flesh and thin skin.
In addition, we will need such spices as dill, peeled horseradish root, finely chopped garlic, dried red pepper, hot chili pepper, as well as a number of optional additions: tarragon, currant leaves, cherry leaves, oak leaves, and horseradish leaves.
First, spices are placed in the barrel, and then it is filled halfway with cucumbers, followed by another layer of spices. Then cucumbers are again placed until they are slightly above the rim, and then they are covered again with spices. It is important to remember that the denser the cucumbers are packed, the better the result. Usually, for pickling 100 kg of cucumbers, you take 3 kg of dill, 500 g of horseradish, 300 g of garlic, 50 pieces of red pepper, 100 pieces of hot pepper, 1 kg of currant leaves, 400 g of horseradish leaves, and 500 g each of oak and cherry leaves.
The barrels filled with cucumbers are sealed with bottoms that have holes, through which brine is subsequently poured. Its strength ranges from 7% to 9% - the larger the cucumbers, the stronger the brine should be. The contents of the barrels should first ferment in the cold for 1-2 days, or 3-4 hours in a cool room. After that, the holes in the bottoms are plugged with wooden stoppers and the barrels are stored at a temperature around zero degrees. When stored in a cellar, the cucumbers are ready to eat after one month.
By following these simple rules, you can get wonderful aromatic fruits with firm crunchy flesh, which are highly valued in Russia. It is simply impossible to achieve the same result with other methods, so many farmers have built their business on the production of barrel cucumbers. Their cost is very low, and the quality is much higher than that of jarred cucumbers sold in stores.
Anyone can set up mass production of barrel cucumbers – the spices used for this are quite cheap, especially if bought in bulk. Barrels can be purchased at sawmills or ordered from craftsmen. The only drawback of barrel pickling is the large weight of the barrels themselves.
Their transportation will require special equipment, for example, barrel tumblers. If barrels are stored on pallets, they can be transported using a hydraulic hand truck, as well as a stacker or a hydraulic lift table – depending on the volume of production, you can select equipment of the required capacity.