Canning Dill Pickles – Grandma Ella’s Recipe – Insightful Nana (2024)

FAQs

Should you salt cucumbers before pickling? ›

You will need a recipe, most of which will tell you to salt your sliced cucumbers and let them sit for about 3 hours (more is better). This salt treatment draws water out of the cucumbers and flavors them, so it's critically important.

The classic ratio is super easy to remember and is easily scale-able depending on how many pickles you're making. It's 100% vinegar, 50% water, 25% sugar and 12.5% kosher salt by weight. So for example, 200g vinegar, 100g water, 50g sugar and 25g kosher salt (again, you can scale this up or down!).

Label and date your jars and store them in a clean, cool, dark, and dry place such as a pantry, cabinet, or basem*nt. Don't store in a warm spot! To allow pickles to mellow and develop a delicious flavor, wait at least 3 weeks before eating! Keep in mind that pickles may be ready to enjoy earlier.

Adding natural tannins such as grape leaves, black tea, or oak leaves can delay the softening process and keep your pickles firm. This is entirely optional and only works if your cucumbers aren't already soft.

Add a Source of Tannin

Tannins work against softening enzymes and help keep pickles crunchier. They can be found in various sources, such as grape leaves, oak leaves, raspberry leaves, black tea, etc. Add some directly to your jars!

In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup water, 1 cup vinegar, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and 2 teaspoons sugar. (Scale recipe up or down as needed.) Bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, pack vegetables into a large jar or a few small jars.

Two components of the pickling process, acid and salt, are key participants in the preservation of perishable products. Acid, which may be added directly or produced through microbial conversion of indigenous sugars to acids, will lower the pH of the product and inhibit spoilage microorganisms.

For a quick and easy way to help ensure crisp pickles: soak cucumbers in ice water for 4 to 5 hours before pickling. This is a safer method for making crisp pickles. Using lime, or calcium hydroxide, in solution for soaking cucumbers changes the amount of acid in the cucumber tissue.

Surface mold or a bad smell are additional signs the pickles should be thrown out. The fizzy brine I experienced, Smith says, was likely a sign of microbial growth. “A lot of times when microorganisms grow, as part of the fermentation process they produce carbon dioxide gas,” she says.

The next step is to make a saltwater solution and soak your cucumbers for a minimum of 12 hours (up to 7 days). The beauty of soaking your cucumbers is that you don't need to be ready to make pickles right when you pick your cucumbers (or bring them home from the market).

Do you have to do a hot water bath when canning pickles? ›

Most fruit preserves and pickles are sufficiently high in acid to be canned via a method called water bath canning, where jars are submerged in boiling water for a prescribed amount of time. This destroys any pathogens in the food, and creates a seal, thereby rendering the jars shelf-stable.

Fill jars of cucumbers with pickling brine at temperatures between 165-180 degrees, Add filled and capped jars to the canner, and cover jars with 1-2” of hot water. Heat to 180 degrees F and maintain this temperature for a full thirty minutes. Temperatures higher than 185º F may cause unnecessary softening of pickles.

Add one or two leaves to your crock if making old-fashioned fermented pickles or 1 leaf per quart jar when processing . Other products used to keep pickles crisp are oak leaves and black loose tea which all contain tannins, the natural substance which adds the crispness.

The next step is to make a saltwater solution and soak your cucumbers for a minimum of 12 hours (up to 7 days). The beauty of soaking your cucumbers is that you don't need to be ready to make pickles right when you pick your cucumbers (or bring them home from the market).

No matter how you dress them, salting and draining sliced cucumbers maximizes crunchy texture. The challenge: More often than not, by the time you eat a cucumber salad the cucumbers have gone soft and watery, losing their appealing crunch and diluting the dressing to near tastelessness.

After the cucumbers have been salted for a period of time, you'll want to rinse off the excess salt. At this point, you may be thinking 'what the hell, I just spent all this time removing the water!