Thread: Pickles
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Old August 12, 2009   #20
remy
Buffalo-Niagara Tomato TasteFest™ Coordinator
 
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Z6 WNY
Posts: 2,354
Default My Pickle Recipe

Hi,
I keep getting requests here at home for my pickle recipe in fact I got emailed tonight so I figure I might as well share it here while I got it handy.

Here's the recipe for a 2 gallon crock(probably around 6lbs. of pickles.)
~soak washed whole gherkin pickles(make sure stems are gone) in salt water solution in the crock overnight(up to 24 hours.) The solution is 1/2 cup canning salt to a gallon of water. Distilled water works best. Use only canning salt. Put a plate on top of the pickles and then like a bowl of water to hold the plate down. Cover with towel, pot lid, whatever to keep anything from falling in.
The next day, drain and rinse pickles.

Pickling solution :
9 cups distilled Water
6 3/4 cups Vinegar
4-5 tablespoons Canning Salt- must use canning
1-2 tablespoons of Sugar- depends on your taste

Combine the water, vinegar, salt, sugar in a large pot. Bring to boil.

For wide mouth pint jars(for Quarts increase the quantities of course), add the following to the clean and warm jars:
Grape Leaf~ a piece a bit smaller than the circumference of the jar(if you don't have access to grape leaves, the recipe will still work.)
Onion sliced very thin ~ 1 slice
Heads of Dill~1
Hot Banana Pepper cut into 1/2 to 1 inch chunks ~ 1
Peppercorns~ 3 or more
Mustard Seed~ 1 tsp.
Bay leaf ~ 1 small or cut a big one in 1/2
Garlic cloves cut in 1/2 if big ~ 2--3 pieces

Then pack with gherkins. I save the smallest gherkins for the pint jars. I have the best luck cutting my gherkins into spears if they are big also.
Top with vinegar mix that has been boiled leaving 1/2 inch head space. Use a plastic or wooden tiny spatula (or anything like I have plastic chop sticks that work nice) to run around the inside of jars to knock out any trapped air bubbles.
Screw tops on firmly. Process in water canner, 5 minutes for pints, 10 minutes for quarts. If you don't process, put in fridge.

If anything doesn't make sense, let me know!
Remy
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