Dry versus fresh spices to infuse vinegar

I am looking for a way to get the brine for my pickles to be ready faster, what gives brine faster and stronger flavors?

Fresh or dry?

I will boil the spices in the vinegar.

Someone feel free to correct me if I am wrong but I think dried spices are stronger than fresh!

You are correct; dried are stronger than fresh. If subbing one for the other use a ratio of 3x the amount fresh for dried in a recipe.

Agreed! Dry herbs and spices has more concentrated flavor and aroma as all the moisture are already gone and what's left is all the beautiful fragrance of nature.

This is from the SFG Foundation FB page. Has anyone made herb/fruit vinegars?

http://www.gardeningchannel.com/how-to-make-herb-vinegar/

For most spiced pickling sweet or not , I've put the  dry spices in a small muslin cloth tie up , drop it into six  pints of white or malted vinegar.
In the UK our vinegar is usually  a 6% strength , I think in the USA it's only 3% .) so be carefull where your recipe comes from .
I ruined several pounds of French yellow bean & another of courgettes one year because I used an American recipe asking for six cups of vinegar ,  me adding six cups of 6% made it inedible it was far too acidic to consume .

Bring to the boil cover at what ever dilution rate it says , slip the herbs & spices in , cover with a lid and simmer gently for 10 min tp 15 min  is how I spice our vinegar for pickling .

 Some recipes call for brining in salt water so many hours prior to pickling & rinsing them off then draining them a little  before paxcking in jats & pouring on the hot or cold spiced vinegars .


Do remember to add new about 1/4 of a teaspoons worth of unboiled seeds to the jar before you put the veg in and add the spiced /sweetened & spiced vinegar .... they help keep a good spicy flavour for a couple of years .

 We found that making up our own ratios of spices for the spice mix was cheaper and nicer than  shop purchased mixes for if your not into pepper spices you can leave them out and bring in ginger etc . to suit your own tastes .



 One pickle recipe we will be doing again next year is sweet pickling mini knobbly cucumbers & dropping in a decent sprig of fresh out the herb bed dill in th jar as we pack the cuc's in then pouring on hot sweetened spiced vinegar .

Plantoid, I like your idea a simmering the infusion before storing in clean bottles. I just looked at my white vinegar and it states 5%. There are other vinegars at 6, 10 and 20%.