Last night I made refrigerator pickles–I salted cukes, radishes, and red onion and let them drain for an hour, then rinsed and covered with a simmered brine of vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard seed and a couple other things that I’m forgetting–it is a Martha Stewart recipe.
In any event, the pickles are a bit too salty–my guess is that I didn’t rinse enough after I salted and drained them and/or put a touch too much salt into the brine itself. We’re going to be eating them with pulled pork so maybe the saltiness won’t matter.
But, I’d like to tone them down if I can. Is there anything I can do? The only thing I could think of would be to add some water to the brine but that may just give me watered down brine with really salty pickles…
To add at bit. The ones I used to make–and the recipes I’m seeing online–do not pre salt. Mine did not even heat the “brine.” It was sliced cukes and onion in a bowl topped with sugar, vinegar and a little salt. There may have been some celery seed and mustard seed. Just let it sit in the fridge overnight.
I have never pre salted and have had great luck with refrigerator pickles. I thought there were salt cured pickles and vinegar cured pickles but I did not know you could do both.
My thought is to pitch the brine, make a new one with no salt and more sugar and put the pickles in the new brine. Diffusion should then solve the problem if you have enough time.
I would just pour out half the brine, and replace with the same concentration solution before, minus the salt (that is, same amount of water, vinegar, sugar, and spices, and refill.)
Option B would be to take the pickles out, soak them in water for a couple hours, changing it every so often, and putting them back into the brine. (Although test the brine itself to see how salty it is.)
I went with option B–took the pickles out and let them soak in water this afternoon, draining and refilling a few times. The brine itself was fine so I definitely didn’t rinse enough at the outset… They taste great now!