Dill Pickle reciple needed

[OmegaMan]

I was wondering if anyone has a good dill pickle recipe? I came across some nice organically grown
pickling cucumbers today and I have never had great success in canning them with a really good
recipe.  I don't really like the sweet variety and I prefer alot of garlic and heat If ya catch my drift). 
If anyone could help me out I would really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

Patrick

[jimguy]

Hi Omegama

This might be too late for your crop but something for the future.

To make a short story long, my mother did not like to wait for a large batch of cukes to be ready since she prefered small ones for pickles. This recipie is made for 2 quarts but is easily adjusted for 1 to however many.

Fill jar with cukes, add fresh dill weed, one or two spregs, clove of garlic and a pepper (chile pepper, chile piquin, whatever fires your taste buds).

Bring to boil 1 cup vinegar, 4 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp salt. When boiling, add to jars, fill with boiling water to top of jar. seal

Mom did what she called a cold pack to seal. After filling the jars, she put them upside down in a pan of boiling water for 5 mintues or so,  then took them out right side up to cool and let the nature of cooling seal the canning lids. The longer they sat in the fruit celler the better they tasted but were always crisp

You mentioned garlic. Add another clove if you desire.

Mom has been gone for over 10 years and we found a jar of her pickles not long ago. they were great. I can't say they will last forever because they usually went fast.

[OmegaMan]

Hey jimguy,

Thanks for the reply.  The recipe I used for this last batch used the basic ingredients you described along
with some thinnly sliced white onion.

I had a few questions if you don't mind following up your post?

What kind of salt did she use? I'm using pickling salt.
Did she use cider vinegar?
How long did she wait until trying them? This recipe I found says to can them they way you describe
and then store them in a cool, dry place for at least 3 weeks.
Did she ever cut them into spears?

I like the cold pack idea, I would assume it makes whatever you pickle crisper (5 min.)...

BTW, I am going to be pickling some green tomatos, cucumbers and other veggies I have on hand hopefully next week.

Thanks for the reply,

Patrick 

[nsxbill]

I have sent you over 40 recipes to your private email address.  Dill pickles.... I like sweet ones, but save all the recipes I come accross because my wife likes them.

Enjoy

Bill

[jimguy]

Hi Omega

The salt was probaly pickling salt, the main difference between usual table salt and pickling salt is purity, most table salt is iodonized,  iodine added.

The vinegar was white vinegar, though i doubt it really matters, perhaps cider would add a bit more flavor.

The point of using this recipe was mom like small pickles, not quite gerkins, but small, like 2 to 3 inches long therefore no quartering was needed. I follow that ideal prefering small pickles to the larger ones which are never as crisp.

Though I have never tried it, I would imagine using other veggies with this recipe would work just fine.

As I said, this is a recipe that can be used to make one quart at a time, as the cukes came to size, not waiting for the whole crop. I helped many tmes when the crop was ready, canning tomatos, beans,,, having the big boiler going on the coal stove on days when it was too hot outside let alone inside. That was the reason mom loved this recipe, she could do one or two quarts early in the morning with little bother.

[OmegaMan]

Hi guys,

Wow Bill, 40 recipes.  Thanks a bunch.  I'll be trying a few of them out when I get back from fly-fishing the Sierras next week.   :)

Jim, I came across these organicly grown cucumbers that are rather large (4-6) and are kinda difficult to pack more than 2 in a quart jar.  I'm going to quarter some up and give that a go...

My best friend's Italian grandmother used to pickle all sorts of veggies that were unbelievably good.  Unfortunately she passed away before I could get the recipe and I've never been able to pickle anything close to hers and I'm pretty certain I never will. 

Thanks again,

Patrick