Homemade Dill Pickles

Homemade pickles are one of my favorite things to can and preserve from the garden! We canned this recipe every summer growing up. I had a wonderful mother that was the one that taught me how to can these, just like she learned to can them from her mother and so on. I thought I would try to convey some of the things she taught me.

This is an older recipe, so the amount of vinegar and the processing time will be less than you would find in a current Ball canning book. I've never had a problem with them though!

Ingredients:

Pickling cucumbers (Pickling cucumbers usually have a bitter skin, such as Boston Pickling Cucumbers)

Fresh dill (Mine is volunteer Mammoth Dill that came up from last years crop)

Heinz Apple cider vinegar (5%) (I'm sure any brand will work, but Heinz tastes the best)

Plain salt (Or pickling salt, mostly you want no iodine added (Iodine can cause pickles to turn spotty or off colors, and can have a bitter taste when heated)

Alum (For crispness of pickles)

Water

Supplies:

Mason jars (Quart or pint size)

Jar rings

Jar lids

Equipment:

Water bath canner

Jar tongs

Stove

Don't feel like you have to have a huge garden to be able to make these pickles! I have 3 cucumber plants that just started bearing fruit this week and I was able to collect enough to do 3 quarts of pickles. The trick is to pick the cucumbers when they are the right size and then put them in a bag in the fridge and save them up for a week or so.

You want to pick the cucumbers when they are about 3 - 5 inches long and before they get too fat and have seeds inside.

Pick the dill once the dill has formed from flowers into a head, but before it turns brown. The best taste is when the heads are still green. See the pictures attached, 1 shows the correct dill and 1 shows dill that is too young. Just clip the whole head further down on the stem, we will trim is down later.

Get your mason jars ready by washing them in hot soapy water, make sure to rinse them well.

Fill the water bath canner with water and start it heating. Add a splash of vinegar to the water to help with hardwater sticking to your jars and the inside of the pot. If you don't have a canner, you could process the pickles in a stock pot. The pot needs to be large enough to fully cover the top of the jars by about 1 inch.

Now for the fun part! This time, I am making pickle spears, you could also do whole pickles or just slices. For spears, just cut the pickle in half and then cut each half into thirds, fourths, or what seems like a reasonable size.

Place the cut spears into the jars, I find it easiest to place them with the jar on it's side. Lightly shaking the jar will help the pickles settle.

Once the jar is full, trim the main stalk of the dill to around half and inch. Gather the bunch and fold it in half, then place into the jar with the seed portion facing down.

Use any odd shaped cucumbers to make a couple slices to place on top of the dill to fill the empty space and keep things from floating around.

Add a pinch of Alum to the top of each jar. A pinch is about a 1/8 of a teaspoon or less. The alum helps to keep the pickles crisper.

Get all of your jars filled and ready so you know how much brine to make in the next step.

Here is the brine recipie:

3 cups water

1 cup Apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup plain or pickling salt

Bring to a boil and boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into jars.

This was enough to fill 2.25 quarts, this will vary based on type of pickles and how tightly you can get them packed.

Fill the jars up to where it transitions to the neck of the jar, or about 1/2" to 1" headspace (Headspace is measuring from the top of the jar downwards) If you put too much brine in it will expand and leak out during processing, too little at there won't be enough vaccum formed to seal the jar when the jar cools down.

Using a clean towel or rag, wipe off the rim of the jars. This is important or the jars won't seal.

Heat the lids in a pan with some water until it just starts to simmer. Using the jar ring, lift up the lid from the water and place it on top of the jar. Screw the ring on the jar to fingertight, this is a little tricky to gauge, but I twist the ring with just my fingertips and stop when they slip on the ring. (If you put the lid on too tight, it won't let the air escape as easily and might not seal, or might break the jar during processing. Too loose and it might not seal when pulled out of the water.)

Take all the jars and place them in the water bath canner. Lower them into the water and make sure it covers them by 1 inch.

Process the pickles in the boiling water for 10 minutes. Current recipes call for 20 minutes. The time starts when the water is actually boiling, sometimes it will stop boiling for a bit when lots of jars are placed in the water. The processing time is relative to your elevation. The higher the elevation, the cooler the temperature when water boils, so longer times are needed at higher elevations. I'm canning at around 4500 feet. Don't go less than the 10 minutes, but increase the time if your elevation is higher than mine. Contact your local university extension office for help finding the correct processing time for your area.

Use the jar tongs to pull the jars out of the water and set them on a towel on the counter.

As the jars cool, you will likely hear some popping! This means the jars are sealing, but don't touch them until they have cooled completely! Once cool, check all the jars have sealed by tapping lightly on the lid. If it moves at all or makes a popping sound then it didn't seal. Remove the rings and store in a cool place.

It will take around 1 month before they will fully become pickles in taste. If you have jars that didn't seal, you can either try to reprocess them with a new lid, or just keep them in the fridge and use sooner. If you choose to reprocess them, they can get more mushy.

If you are concerned with getting processing times right or other canning food safety things, you can consult a local university extension office or a reliable canning book like the Ball Blue Book.