Two types of pickling are hot water canning and quick refrigerator pickles. This year the garden produced an abundance of cucumbers. Fresh cucumbers are great in salads and make tasty cucumber sandwiches, but inevitably the novelty wears off. Pickling cucumbers can save the day! Pickling can seem intimidating but following a recipe carefully will result in a delicious treat.
Shelf-stable pickles
Shelf stable pickles means preserving fresh cucumbers for up to eighteen months in brine using a simple hot water canning method.
- Pick your cucumbers at the immature stage before the seeds get too big.
- Wash cucumbers thoroughly and cut off the flower end about 1/4 inch to insure crisp pickles.
- Set mason jars and lids in a large pot of water and heat to minimum 160° F for at least 10 minutes to sterilize.
- Start boiling brine (2 cups water, 2 cups vinegar, 1/3 cup salt, 1/4 cup sugar)
- Add fresh dill, garlic cloves, dill seed, mustard seed and peppercorns to the sterile jar.
- Add cucumbers and hot brine leaving about 1/2 inch airspace at the top of the jar.
- Put hot lid on jar and tighten ring “finger tight”.
- Place filled jar into hot water bath and boil for 35 minutes.
- Remove jars and set aside to cool.
The original recipe can be found here: https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=picklecrisp
Fresh Pack Half -Sour Pickles
These are fresh pickles that need to be kept in the refrigerator for only one to two months. This method uses salt as a preservative.
- Try to select cucumbers before the seeds mature.
- As always carefully wash cucumbers removing “burrs”.
- wash and clean 1/2 gallon mason jar.
- Add chopped garlic (4+ cloves) peppercorns (2 tsp) fresh dill, mustard seed (2 tsp), dill seed ( 1 tsp.) to the jar.
- Add to jar 4cup water and 2 tbsp. of salt. Mix that the salt dissolves.
- Add cucumbers to jar.
- ferment using fermentation lid with airlock spout at room temperature for 3-4 days.
- Refrigerate for seven to ten days.
- enjoy deli style half sour pickles for up to two months.
The original recipe can be found here:
https://www.bhg.com/recipe/easy-half-sour-pickles/
Alternate Dill Pickle Recipe
This is an alternate recipe from social media. This wasn’t tested so proceed with caution…
Dill Pickles which use an old European recipe where the pickles aren’t canned at all. I start by running the jars through the sterilize cycle in the dishwasher. Once done I move them into the oven, preheated to 200 degrees. With the brine just almost boiling, I pull one jar from the oven, add a medium sized grape leaf (the tannins in the grape leaf help with crispness), 2 garlic cloves, a head of dill, and 10 peppercorns (for taste and a bit of heat.) Add the cucs and quickly fill with the brine, wipe the rim, place the warmed lid on and then the ring, finger tight. Then place on a towel on the counter and go on to the next jar. It doesn’t take long before the ping. Of course you can’t do this with most things, but it was described to me by relatives that the salt and the vinegar in the brine allow you to do it with dill pickles. You end up with the crispiest dills imaginable, because they aren’t cooked in the water bath or the pressure cooker. And they last for years. As an aside, I run the pickling cucumbers through the clothes washer for 90 seconds on gentle. You’ll be amazed at how dirty the water comes out. This way also knocks those little spikes off of the cucumbers. I also trim off both ends of the cucs. Brine is 8 1/2 cups of water, 2 1/2 cups of white vinegar, and 1 cup of pickling salt.
