Friday, September 8, 2017

Dill Pickles, Two Ways

My green beans produced enough for us to eat as well as can!  I am so pleased.  I canned green beans as pickled dilly beans because my cucumber dills have been mushy the past few years, but dilly beans are not mushy.  I did some research on cucumber dills.  I'm going to try Pickle Crisp next year.  I'm going to possibly grow cucumbers, because apparently super-fresh cucumbers make the crispest pickles.  And instead of just scraping off a little bit of the blossom end of the cucumber, I'm going to cut off at least a half-inch.  


In the meantime, I made fermented kosher dills.  Look at that sweet pickle crock my dad found at an auction for me.  The wide crock is much easier to fill than a jar. 



However, fermented dills are tricky.  Too short of a fermentation time, and they just taste salty.  Too long, and they get mushy.  Mushy cucumbers!  The bane of my canning.

9 comments:

Jennifer Jo said...

I've never found a properly crisp, homemade dill pickle (that's why I make the refrigerator dills), so if you find a good one, let us know!

AP said...

Have you tried the lower temp, longer time process for cukes? It worked pretty well for me last year and I did the same thing this year (still need to crack open a jar to evaluate though!). Also, I think brining the cukes overnight in saltwater before canning them helped. And freshness of cukes definitely matters. Still aren't quite as crisp as refrigerator pickles but I wouldn't call them mushy. I used the instructions here: http://www.simplycanning.com/dill-pickle-recipe.html

Margo said...

AP, thank you! Very helpful (for next year - ha).

Alica said...

If you find the secret to crisp dills, I'd love to know! I don't even try anymore. We like banana pickles, which are a sweet variety, so that's my usual pickle of choice for canning now. I planted 3 or 4 plants this year, and after one small batch, they all wilted and died. :(

e said...

I go the refrigerator route too. I'll be interested to hear how yours turn out with Pickle Crisp. Have you tried the grape leaf method? I haven't, just curious.

I opened a jar of tiny dills yesterday that was from the 2015 season. Still delicious and crisp! (I have a small fridge in the basement just for pickles, otherwise the main fridge would be full to the bursting.)

jenny_o said...

Dilly beans sound delicious. And what a gorgeous crock!

I'm wishing I was a preserver kind of person. I need to find a couple of bottles of jam, jelly, or preserves to donate to a raffle basket for our craft sale in October. I'm going to have to cheat :)

Becky said...

Crock envy!

I've given up on any dill but quick pickled. Thankfully, they keep a long time, so my fridge is currently packed with what we'll need to get us through the year. My husband likes them in egg salad, so I need to keep some on hand at all times.

I wasn't planning on doing green bean pickles this year as we still have some from last year, but my husband requested some, so I guess I'll be making some!

Christy said...

Those cans are gorgeous.

Carole said...

I never tried making dill pickles, but lime pickles make very crisp sweet pickles. There are recipes on the package of lime. I don't know if it has one for dill pickles, tho. This is just a thought that might work. I always grew my own cucumbers and used freshly picked ones.