The Abbott Family Blog

There’s something great about something pickled. It makes a great gift. There’s something automatically presentual about a jar. You can easily put a bow knot or stick a card on it. (something you can’t normally do with food) Also, it’s preserved so you can put it on your shelf for a while for presentation points. A very attractive pickled vegetable has to be pickled cucumbers (I.e, pickles!). Especially when the brine is very light and clear. Clear brine accentuates the pickles and gives it a very pleasing feel. Dark brine is a tad disgusting.

Now, I’ll tell you my personal 3-4 year experience in making pickles and also show you how to make your own!

I’ve always wanted to make pickles but never did it. Every once in a while, I’d get an urge to but it just wasn’t enough to get out the jars. Well, one day, I watched the Pickles Story on Andy Griffith and that was the final push I needed to make them.

It was cucumber season so I got some pickling cucumbers seeds and planted them. In the meantime, I bought pickling salt, dill weed (nothing illegal!), peppercorns and vinegar. About two months later, the pickles were ready to pick. The Joy of Cooking book said to pick them when they are four or five inches long. Well, at that size, they are pretty mature and get a bit fat but I picked them, scrubbed them really good (’cause I was afraid of the botulism) and made the brine. I got the brine recipe from Joy of Cooking which usually has really good recipes. However, the recipe for dill pickles was pretty potent (which I didn’t know until after I made them). 2 parts vinegar to one part water. Well, I came out with about six jars of that. After waiting six weeks for them to cure, I opened a jar and dove in to one (a pickle, not the jar). Whoo, strong stuff. It didn’t taste bad. It was just . . . strong. I thought it was better than it was. . . until I realized that there were 5 more jars I’d have to slog through. Pa said that it’s more of a sandwich pickle. Too strong to eat alone but good if sliced in a sandwich.

A week or two later, some friends of ours invited us to a music-jam/potluck party. I decided then to start a tradition of bringing homemade pickles there. So, that’s what I did. A jam buddy there partially liked them. He said he has asthma and the pickles really cleared out his sinuses. To quote him, “they’re like Drain-o, but in a good way!” Suprisingly, the party ended with most of the pickles gone.

Next year, I used the same recipe but, upon Papa’s advice, used more dill. Whoo, I went a little overboard on that too. That same jam party happened again so again I brought those homemade pickles. Not as many were eaten, but still, a good amount were taken. Even more suprisingly, I got some compliments from a few people (which probably means the rest thought they tasted like crap but decided to hold their peace).

Next year (last year), I realized that something had to be changed with the recipe. For one, too strong, I had to lightly push myself to eat the pickles! Also, the pickles were too soft. I like ‘em crunchy so something had to be changed about that.

So, I took quite a stand and tried out several different recipes. It felt pretty wasteful since I only made one jar at a time and I had to boil a whole pot of water, just for one jar (even though the pot could hold 5 jars). Well anyway, for one jar, I decided to use 1 part vinegar to 2 waters water (instead of the opposite), 2 TB salt and dill instead of 4. Plus, I added 5 cloves of garlic and peppercorns. The result, mouthwateringly delicious! Man, sooo much better than the previous batches. So, after I found a good brine recipe, I tried adding things to the brine like, more garlic, onion, peppers, etc. They came out fine. The onion and peppers kinda sweetened the pickles. However, I like my pickles savory rather than sweet so I omitted those two ingredients. Finally, for crunchier pickles, I picked the cucumbers earlier. (When they were 2-3″ long rather than 4-5″). I’m not sure how the big boys do it. They use 5″ cucumbers and they are still crunchy! Well, no matter. Smaller cucumbers brought some crunch to the pickles.

So, now this year. I found the perfect recipe so it was time to safely make a whole lot of ‘em! However, I came across a problem this year that’s never happened in any other year. You see, after I poured the brine in the jars (with the pickles inside), I’d seal them up and put ‘em in the bubbling pot of water. Well, this year, each time I did that, a jar would break! Only one jar out of the three. I did the same process as in the past years the jars but they didn’t break back then. Later, I realized that I was really stuffing the cucumbers in the jar so the pressure probably broke the jar.

So, a few days later, I got three jars of cucumbers all brined up and ready to go in the vat. Keep in mind, the cucs were carefully placed inside. Then, when I put ‘em, two jars cracked! Augh! What a slap in the face!

Later, we decided that probably since I was putting the jars right into the boiling water, that’s what made them crack (even though I had already put them in the boiling water earlier to sterilize them and they didn’t crack then). So, next time, we put the packed ‘n brined jars in mildly hot water and slowly brought it up to a boil. To my amazement, none cracked! Huh.

So, in summary: Pick premature cucumbers. Wash and scrub them. After they are clean and any dirt is removed, keep the cucs submerged in water. While that’s going, prepare your brine. In a pot, boil, for each jar, 2 cups water, 1 cup vinegar, 2tbs salt, 2tbs dill weed, cloves of garlic (depending on how garlicy you want it) and a few peppercorns. Let that boil.

But wait! Before you boil that, a quick bit on getting the garlic ready if you are using a whole bulb or two. First, get a bag and a hammer. Put the garlic in the bag (duh) and smash it with the hammer. That efficiently separates the bark/skin from the garlic. Since we are gonna be straining the brine before we put it in the jars, we don’t have to worry about peeling off all the garlic shell/skin. Next, get a blender thingy and chop the garlic into a fine grain. Then, it’s ready to be added with the rest of the brine ingredients.

While that boils, put the cucs in the clean jars. Then, get a strainer and funnel and pour the brine into the jars. Then, put the lids on the jars and screw the caps on.

Now, put them in a pot of hot water and turn the heat on. Once the water starts boiling, set a timer for 20 minutes. Once the timer goes off, turn off the heat and take the jars and put them on a cloth and leave them in a rather consistently temperatured environment.

There you have it!