Pickles - making your own?

[alien_host]

Anyone make your own pickles? I'm over run with cucumbers (some pickling, some regular) and was wondering if I should attempt a batch of pickles.

TIA!

[mikeys_mom]

We make our own pickles. They are super yummy! I'm not a huge pickle lover but DH's family is a bit obsessed and my kids seemed to have inherited the love for all things salty. His mother and grandmother have been making them for years. We make then in the late summer and early fall. We usually do about 25 large mason jars, which typically last until around May.

DH changes it up every year but this is more or less his mixture for each jar;

- 3 cloves of garlic peeled
- 1-2 tbsp pickling spice
- 1-2 bay leaves
- 1 cinnamon stick - sometimes we leave this out
- 1 hot pepper (only in a few jars as it makes them too spicy for the kids)
- some dill weed from the flowering-type of dill. Usually we try to get a stalk with a few flowers on it per jar.

The brine mixture we use is 20 to 1 to 1.
Water:vinegar:Kosher salt

So, for every 20 cups of water, use 1 cup of white vinegar and 1 cup of kosher salt.

We use pickling cucumbers or the small dill cucumbers. Also, a couple of years ago DH was googling and discovered a very innovative method of cleaning the pickles. That is typically the longest and most tedious part of the process. Stick them in a top-loader washing machine on gentle cycle with no soap. No joke, it really works. We don't have a top-loader so he heads over to his mom'e place to wash them each time we do a batch. It has saved many hours of scrubbing cucumbers.

I think this is the youtube video that inspired him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7ArkcJflYk

[alien_host]

THanks for the recipe and info. How long do you let the cucumbers sit before they are ready to eat?

That washing machine video is interesting!

[mikeys_mom]

After 3 weeks you will get half sours and they are usually fully pickled after 4 weeks.

Forgot to mention that you heat the brine until it boils and then pour it into the jars. Not sure if that was obvious or not.

[sophiesmom03]

Don't you have to hot water process or pressure can the jars?

[lizzywednesday]

Don't you have to hot water process or pressure can the jars?

No, you can actually make quick-brine pickles or "refrigerator pickles" without having to worry about processing or pressure-sealing the jars.

You do have to be sure they're clean, of course, but you don't have to drive yourself crazy.

My intro to refrigerator pickles came from the "American Pickle" episode of Good Eats:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/good-eats/american-pickle/index.html

More recipes are available online; here's one from Ted Allen:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ted-allen/refrigerator-pickles-cauliflower-carrots-cukes-you-name-it-recipe/index.html

[mikeys_mom]

Don't you have to hot water process or pressure can the jars?

MIL and her mother have been making pickles for year and never did the whole pressure canning thing. When we started doing it, DH questioned them about that because everywhere he read said that you need to do it. Their response - Ach! You have been eating non-pressure canned pickles for 30 years. Why are you worried now?!?!

I think that more acidic stuff like tomatoes or things like preserves might need it but it seems the pickles we make are fine without it. Don't want to cause anyone to get sick, just letting you know what we do ;). We don't store the jars in the fridge. They are kept in a closet in the basement for up to 10 months.

Here is what we do to make sure we get good seals on the jars;

- First we sterilize the jars in the dishwasher. We run it on the hottest setting without soap.
- When we fill the jars with brine, we leave one cm at the top of the jar empty.
- Before placing the lids on we wet the top piece a bit - it is supposed to help get a better seal.
- As soon as the hot brine is poured into the jars, we drop the top part of the lid on the jar.
- Then, we go and screw the neck piece onto the lid. Because it's so hot you can't really get it that tight yet.
- Leave the jars for a bit and tighten the lids as they cool and you can get a better grip.
- Within a few hours we typically find that the lids are sealed down and don't pop back when you push them. some don't get that good of a seal but we have never had any issues with the pickles going bad even if the seal isn't the best.
- We always use new lids. I reuse the jars from year to year but not lids.

[pharmjenn]

I have to laugh, because my first thought was of the Andy Griffith episode where Aunt Bee is making pickles. Sounds like people have much better results than she was getting, but with my luck and history, they would turn out just like hers.