1 hour ago, Anna N said:The idea that one can add leftover lemon slices leads me to believe that once I have juiced a lemon, as long as the peel is intact, i.e., I have not zested the fruit, I can just add the emptied citrus rind to the jar.
I've never done that, mostly because I thought it would be a nuisance to be sorting through the jar, looking for a new vs old one to take out for use, but I don't see any problems with it. Over in the Preserved Lemons topic, @andiesenji described a great crock set-up and again here, that allowed one to add new fruit and remove the older ones. The second one says they dump the brine and replenish with fresh every 6 months. At least one person in that older topic said they routinely added more fruit, salt and juice to keep a batch going.
I'll probably end up adding fruit over time if I go for a truly mixed batch of Citrus Shine as all the varieties don't appear in the market at once.
1 hour ago, Anna N said:Further, her suggestion to move the fully pickled fruit to an empty jar so as to reuse the brine, sounds brilliant—but will the fruit dry out?
I haven't done that either. I feel better when the fruit stays submerged rather than exposed to air. But I have no evidence of harm if that happens.
I haven't re-used the brine either. I figured salt was cheap and felt better starting a fresh batch with fresh salt but my last jar of lemons is getting low so I will try that. It usually gets super thick by the time the jar is empty. And I'll definitely save the brine from the preserved kumquats as they really had a different flavor.
Edited to add that I routinely fully quarter my citrus instead of trying to hold them together. It's easier to pack the jars full and when they're done, I tend to use a quarter in a recipe so I don't need to remove and replace a partial fruit, just easily remove a quarter.
