Making Dill Pickles

Our cucumber crop has been possibly the best crop in ten years.  Each day I go out and pick a bucketful.  My favorite way to eat them is to slice them up, splash a little vinegar and oil on top of them and then sprinkle some salt and pepper on them. They are cool and refreshing.  That's the way that we eat most of them.  We also use some to make tzatziki.  We also like pickles a lot, so today we're going to weigh out 3 pounds of some organic pickling cucumbers picked at the peak of crispness to make some dill pickles.

Fresh Picked!

There are many recipes out there.  I guess the easiest one is the one on the box of Morton Kosher salt. Morton actually has a salt mine not far from where we live.  It is at Weeks Island in Iberia Parish. The recipe calls for:

3 pounds pickling cucumbers
3/4 cup Morton® Coarse Kosher Salt
2 quarts water
3 cups distilled white vinegar
5 cups water
12 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons whole mixed pickling spice
6 sprigs of fresh dill
6 small hot peppers

Ingredients

Wash up the cucumbers.  Ours really don't take any scrubbing.  They were pretty clean and the rain had them washed nicely.  Cut them up into 3/4 inch slices.

Sliced

Dissolve all the salt in 2 quarts water and pour over the sliced cucumbers and let them sit for 24 hours, covered.

Soaking for 24 hours

After 24 hours has passed, drain the salt water from the bowl of cucumbers. Combine the vinegar and 5 cups water into a pot and add pickling spice and garlic. Bring it all to a boil.

Boiling vinegar/water/spices/garlic

While you are waiting on the water to boil, sterilize your jars, lids, rings and gaskets.  We use Tattler brand reusable lids/gaskets.  Pack your jars with the sliced cucumbers, and add a jalapeno pepper and a sprig of dill to each jar.

Packing the jars

Using a canning funnel, we pour the hot liquid into the jars, bringing the level of the liquid to within 1/2 inch of the top.  We pour the liquid through a strainer that is placed in the funnel.  The directions avoid this step as it calls for the garlic and pickling spices to be boiled in a cheesecloth bag.

Filling the jars

Once filled we put gaskets and lids on jars and tighten the rings/Tattler lids "finger-tight".  We place them in a water bath canner ensuring that the jars are covered with water by 2 inches.  The water is brought to a boil and once it is boiling, we start the timer for ten minutes

Processing the jars

When the buzzer goes off, we pull them out and place on a cooling rack and, according to Tattler directions, we further tighten down on the lids "hand tight."

Lettin' 'em cool

We allow them to cool and once we see the lids are sucked down ensuring a good seal, we remove the rings.  We test the seal be lifting the jar by the lid.  If the lid comes off, the pickles go in the fridge for eating soon.  If we can lift the jar by the lid and it doesn't pop off, we move them to the pantry.  We made 2 batches - one batch of 5 jars and the other with 6 jars.  We'll likely make several more batches to build up our "stash."