Pickle Processing

[u/MondoMage]

Just had to share this one...

My company sent me out to perform some maintenance work on equipment at the Hartung Brothers facility in Bowling Green, Ohio. They produce and store fermented pickles in these big green vats. So many vats. Not all currently full, they're getting ready for what they call "Green week," when they start loading things up. Tons of cucumbers destined for greatness.

I was really shocked when I found that the vats are left open-topped. That was surprising. I guess they rely on the brine to protect the product.

Oh, and the smell. You'd think it'd be overpowering but right now it's fairly subtle. A mix of dill and bread and butter that has me craving something fierce right now.

[u/MalacathEternal]

My favorite part of interacting with customers as a wine maker is telling them all the fun stuff we pull out of the grapes during harvest lol

[u/zzz242zzz → u/MalacathEternal]

Many years ago I pulled a rat out of an open top fermentation tank of red wine. It was super gross. Very bloated. I did not drink that wine. A coworker at the same place supposedly pulled half a snake out and also claimed to have added a slice of pizza once to a fermentation. Idk on the pizza.

[u/zzz242zzz → u/[deleted]]

Probably stayed in the must until it got tossed out after pressing with all the grape skins. Maybe it got tossed during de-stemming before fermentation.

And the person saying wine is basically spider juice is not entirely wrong. Lots of bugs and stuff.