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.
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!
ReplyDeleteHave 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
ReplyDeleteAP, thank you! Very helpful (for next year - ha).
ReplyDeleteIf 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. :(
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.)
Dilly beans sound delicious. And what a gorgeous crock!
ReplyDeleteI'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 :)
Crock envy!
ReplyDeleteI'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!
Those cans are gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
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