Who likes soggy pickles?
Sue writes with a question:
"I have a problem when making dill pickles (or any home canned pickle). For some reason, after canning, the pickles are soft. Now if I just do refrigerator pickles they are nice and crisp; it's just the ones that I process that turn out soft. Do you know how to fix that?"
AUNT MILLY answers:
TRY THIS! I can about bet your family will love them! and as another note I also made this recipe below for years and added a big grape leaf from our wild muscadine vines and placed it directly into each jar after I learned that was the old fashioned remedy to keep pickles from being soggy. But there are other factors like over processing, using larger cucumbers, and not pickling directly after fresh picking them. I have successfully soaked my cukes in ice water for a few hours if I cannot pickle until a bit later and that helps preserve their crunchiness. I have found that the pinch of powdered alum works quite well to keep them crispy.
AUNT MILLY answers:
TRY THIS! I can about bet your family will love them! and as another note I also made this recipe below for years and added a big grape leaf from our wild muscadine vines and placed it directly into each jar after I learned that was the old fashioned remedy to keep pickles from being soggy. But there are other factors like over processing, using larger cucumbers, and not pickling directly after fresh picking them. I have successfully soaked my cukes in ice water for a few hours if I cannot pickle until a bit later and that helps preserve their crunchiness. I have found that the pinch of powdered alum works quite well to keep them crispy.
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ZESTY DILL PICKLES
Into clean quart jars put small / medium cukes or larger ones cut into 1" chunks. Do not peel - always cut off both ends (the ends can cause sogginess and spoilage) don't use larger over-sized cukes with large seeds.
Into each quart jar put:
1 heaping tsp. dill seed or 2 bunches fresh dill heads + 5 peppercorns
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes + 1 Tbsp. onion flakes
1/8 tsp. alum powder (must go in there or they will be soggy!)
2 whole garlic cloves - peeled and cut in half
1/8 tsp. turmeric
Then put your cukes into the jar on top of this. While you are doing all that have
your pot of brine on to boil - when it boils pour it over all to fill each jar:
BRINE:
6 cups white vinegar + 3 cups apple cider
1 1/2 cups pickling salt - if you don't use and use table salt - they may get all cloudy.
19 cups water
Pour the boiling brine over; seal them up after wiping the rims and put them down into another pot that has BOILING water in it until each jar is covered by BOILING water.
Keep it on high heat but do not let them stay in that hot water any more than 10 minutes...longer times in this hot water will cook them to sogginess.
Watch for a broken seal on your quart or pint jar, sogginess, discoloration, etc.
DISCLAIMER: Do NOT eat any home canned foods that are questionable re: their freshness.