April 10, 2016 at 05:06AM

Today I Learned: 1) ... how to pickle/jar things! Most saliently, the key to pickling successfully (i.e., without killing yourself or letting your food spoil) is keeping the pH of your picklees below 4.6, or ideally below 4.2. The only real danger in pickled stuff is C. botulinum, which grows well in the kinds of anoxic environment that pickling produces, *but* which can't survive below pH 4.6 (it's fairly heat-resistant, so even pasteurizing by boiling won't completely kill it). pH 4.2 is even better, because then you won't get random fluctuations bringing you into the danger zone. 2) Another pickling tip I learned today -- when you cap a jar to be pickled (leaving a bit of air on the top!), don't tighten the jar too much. The trick to getting it exactly tight enough is to screw the lid using the tips of your fingers. Without the leverage of your whole hand, your fingers apply just enough force to seal to the right level of tightness. I think what's going on is that if you do seal your jar too tightly, then air won't be able to escape as the jar heats, so when you take it back out, you have exactly as much air as you started with. That won't form a vacuum-seal, it will just be 1 atm air. 3) Apparently pine needles are edible, and can be used to make flavored water, tincture-style, or flavored sugar or syrup, mead-style. They don't all *taste good*, but some do, and rumor has it that many have a nice lemon-like flavor.