I made my first batch of Bozeman's pickles, and realized I will have way more cucumbers than I care to put in even half gallon jars.  Has anyone ever attempted barrel pickles?

My end objective is to have a vat of pickles that are safe to have out on the counter at room temperature that the family can eat safely from.  They have them at almost every grocery store deli I've ever been in, selling those bad boys for a buck a piece.  Surely this should be possible to replicate in my own home.  Thoughts?

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I have done this before and came out good. Just know the amount of vinegar does determine how long they last cold or not. And if you add garlic they will last longer because it is garlic.

FERMENTED DILL PICKLES
These authentic old-fashioned style pickles have all the flavor of those pickle-barrel treats from long ago. Use the following quantities for each gallon capacity of your container.

4 lbs of 4-inch pickling cucumbers
2 tbsp dill seed or 4 to 5 heads fresh or dry dill weed
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup vinegar (5%)
8 cups water and one or more of the following ingredients:
2 cloves garlic (optional)
2 dried red peppers (optional)
2 tsp whole mixed pickling spices (optional)

Procedure:

Wash cucumbers. Cut 1/16-inch slice off blossom end and discard. Leave 1/4-inch of stem attached.

Place half of dill and spices on bottom of a clean, suitable container (see page 6-1). Add cucumbers, remaining dill, and spices.

Dissolve salt in vinegar and water and pour over cucumbers. Add suitable cover and weight. Store where temperature is between 70°F and 75°F for about 3 to 4 weeks while fermenting. Temperatures of 55 to 65°F are acceptable, but the fermentation will take 5 to 6 weeks. Avoid temperatures above 80°F, or pickles will become too soft during fermentation. Fermenting pickles cure slowly. Check the container several times a week and promptly remove surface scum or mold.

Caution: If the pickles become soft, slimy, or develop a disagreeable odor, discard them. Fully fermented pickles may be stored in the original container for about 4 to 6 months, provided they are refrigerated and surface scum and molds are removed regularly.

Canning fully fermented pickles is a better way to store them. To can them, pour the brine into a pan, heat slowly to a boil, and simmer 5 minutes. Filter brine through paper coffee filters to reduce cloudiness, if desired. Fill jar with pickles and hot brine, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process pint jars for 10 minutes and quart jars for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Altitude Adjustment: At altitudes over 1000 feet above sea level, add an additional 5 minutes; above 6000 ft, add 10 more minutes.

Note: These pickles may be processed for 30 minutes in a boiling water bath of 180°F which results in pickles which are crisper and have an improved texture.

To process using this low temperature pasteurization method, place jars in a canner filled half way with warm (120 to 140°F) water. Add hot water to the canner until water is 1 inch above the jars.

Bring the temperature up and maintain a constant water temperature of 180°F to 185°F for 30 minutes. Use a candy or jelly thermometer to be certain that the water temperature is at least 180°F during the entire 30 minutes. Temperatures higher than 185°F may cause unnecessary softening of pickles.

The pickle barrel was a good sandwich shop.

Thanks!

When you did it, did you go ahead and process them into jars, or did you eat straight out of the fermentation bucket?  I'm sure it will create a wildly unsterile environment with kids' grubby hands reaching in and pulling out pickles, but I imagine my family of seven could go through a bucket a week.  I can't imagine too much could go wrong in that timeframe.

I loaded one of my 5 gallon beer fermenters with 25 lbs of cucumbers this evening.  This is the recipe I used, very similar to Yarael's.   It certainly smelled good going in, and since I grew everything other than the vinegar, salt, and pickling spice it's only a $7 experiment.  

We'll see where we stand in three weeks.

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This is something I'm inspired to do eventually but this is the first year I've tried my hand at pickling. Right now I'm doing refrigerator pickles and all my friends and family that sampled my first batch said they kinda sucked. I like them because they are super crunchy but I will concede that I probably over did it with vinegar.  The cukes are still coming on strong though and so I'll be adjusting this next batch. That will be this week. It is all an experiment for me at this point but once I nail that I want to learn how to ferment them too.

You've got good friends. All kidding aside.

Well? We're waiting!!

Damn I had cucumbers going to waste I should have done this

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Sorry for the delay on the final product.  It's been busy around here.  The pickles fermented for an extra week, not big deal.  Just so everyone is clear on what I fermented in, here's a picture:



This is the first time it was opened in the entire 4 weeks of fermenting.  As you can see, there's just a little of the "fuzz" that comes from an infection.  Using an actual fermenter helps A LOT with keeping down the nasties that could spoil your batch.  The plate is there to keep the cucumbers submerged, the jar is pressing the plate down from pressure from the lid.



And here's a look at the pickles.  My two major mistakes in this recipe: 1) Using dried dill (I wasn't sure I had enough fresh on hand) makes the end product a little of a mess to deal with because of all the dill floating around sticking to things.  2) The cucumbers I used were too mature.  Still very edible, but some of them had seeds that were larger than ideal, and the bigger ones actually developed a hollow cavity on the inside through the fermenting process.  



I had a one gallon mayo jar laying around, so I stuffed it full of pickles and topped it off with juice out of the fermenter so the kids have easier access to them throughout the day.  The rest of the pickles will stay in the fermenter until we need them.  That should be a good way to minimize introduction of bacteria and whatnot into the batch.  



Overall the taste is mildly dill, with a mild heat from the actual fermentation process.  The texture of the pickles is not mushy, but not necessarily crunchy either.  The overly mature cucumbers are the worst part about this batch, I'll be sure to use only prime cucs next year.  I may also add a little more vinegar than the recipe calls for, just because I like that vinegar bite.  I'll definitely do it again next year, maybe 2 batches (10 gallons).  Fermented pickles are pretty darn good for you and 4 out of 5 kids agree that they're absolutely delicious (despite the look on the little one's face).  The 5th doesn't really count anyway...she's always picky about food.

Those look good, love the pic of the kids

I made some pickles last year using mason jars and store bought pickling mix, they turned out ok but a bit limp.  Being a beer/mead brewer I looking forward to trying again next year using a fermenting bucket and airlock like you have.