I’ll be posting more pickle recipes in 2010. Come back to visit in July and August!
In just 3 days, Sunday through Tuesday, I picked 16 pounds of cucumbers from my garden. Then I picked 7 more pounds from Friday through today (Sunday again). 
It all started when I went out of town last week and neglected to tell my husband that he needed to be picking cucumbers. Some had gotten pretty big by the time I went through on Sunday. I made 7 pints of dill relish: mmmmmmm. I saved some of the smaller cucumbers and then made sure I stayed on top of picking for a few days. Voila! Perfectly sized dills–7 quarts, to be precise. My next cucumbers are destined to be sweet relish (for the big ones I missed) and bread-and-butter pickles, for the medium-sized ones.
Home canning is easy and inexpensive, as long as you focus on canning things you’ll actually like eating. I like pickles, so I grow cucumbers. Having tried a lot of different varieties like “homemade pickles,” “little tyke,” and “pickalot,” over the years, I have to say that this year’s crop of “endeavor” has been the best ever. I suspect it may be a combination of good rain and variety. You just can’t beat a Kirby like “endeavor” for the traditional warty look. The overwhelming majority of my more-than twenty pounds of cucumbers I’ve picked this week are “endeavor,” from a single seed packet I purchased from Renee’s Garden: http://www.reneesgarden.com/seeds/packpg/veg/cucumber-endeavor.htm Yep, from a single $2.69 seed packet plus shipping, I’ve already picked in the vicinity of 25 pounds of cucumbers in just a few weeks.
I’ll leave relish for a future posting. Here I want to talk about how easy making dill pickles can be. Start by gathering your equipment:
canner or other very large stockpot
glass jars that will accept canning lids
Note: mayonnaise jars work well and are free–after you buy and eat the mayo! Since we are using the boiling water method, not pressure canning, any sturdy jars will do. Use only real Mason jars, though, in pressure canners.
new canning lids, with rubber softened in hot but not boiling water.
Do not use old lids. They’ll fail to seal, and you’ll waste money.
canning screw rims
cucumbers
garlic
dill seed
vinegar
canning salt
Begin by washing your jars well. When you think you’ve washed them well, wash them again. Do you think I’m kidding? My neighbor delivered what appeared to be a beautiful jar of home-canned pears last fall. A month later, I noticed a green glob growing inside the jar. She had definitely not followed good hygiene. Now put your well-washed jars, open side up, in your well-washed canner or stockpot, with about an inch of water in the bottom. Turn on the heat, put on the lid, and let the jars steam to clean them some more.
Now wash your cucumbers really well. I recommend giving them a quick rinse and then plopping them in a clean sink full of water, so you can scrub them one by one. You’ll be amazed at how much dirt comes off! Then rinse again. Now trim off a tiny slice at both the stem and blossom ends.
Coarsely chop enough garlic to have at least one big clove per pint or two per quart.
Get out your dill seed. We’ll need a tablespoon per pint, two per quart.
In large pot, mix together equal quantities of good-quality apple cider vinegar and water to start your brine. You’ll need about 0.625 cups of each (water and vinegar) + 1 tablespoon canning salt per pint, or about 1 1/4 cups of each liquid plus 2 tablespoons salt per quart. Heat up the brine to boiling.
While it heats, take your hot, sterilized jars and put them on a clean surface. Start stuffing in your cucumbers, beginning with the largest. If you need to quarter a few to make them fit better, feel free! Then add in your dill seed and garlic. Make sure you’ve left at least 3/4 inch space at the top of each jar. Finally, pour in the hot brine, leaving a half inch of space at the top of the jar.
Wipe the jar rims clean and set on your canning lids. Now screw on the rims. Go back and check your screwing job again. I can usually tighten the rims a bit more. Finally, place the jars in the canner, cover them with at least an inch or two over the top, and turn your burner on high. When the water starts boiling, start timing ten minutes. When the ten minutes is up, turn off the burner and carefully lift out the jars and set them on towels or a rack to cool. Do not disturb them, and especially don’t touch the lid!
Pop! That’s the sound you should hear for each jar you’ve canned. That’s the lid sealing. Be patient. The jars that are on the edges of your cooling area will most likely seal much sooner than those on the interior. Okay, now walk away for about 24 hours. Then remove the screw rims and store your pickles.
Remove the rims?!? Why? Here’s a great tip I learned from my grandmother and Alton Brown: If the screw rim is on and your canned product goes bad, how will you know? If the screw rim is off, the bad product will pop the lid.
Last year, we put up several dozen jars (half pint, pints, and quarts) of cucumber pickles, specifically sweet and dill relish, bread-and-butter pickles, and dill pickles. We like pickles, so for us it’s a really good deal!
Quick tip for locavores wanting to eat falafel with tzatziki in the winter: instead of using fresh cucumber with added dill and lemon with your yogurt, instead use well-drained dill relish or finely chopped dill cucumber. After all, it’s still cucumber, dill, and an acid; it’s just not lemon!
Have a question about pickling or canning? Post here, and I’ll try to answer it!
Here are a few answers to search questions that may have led you here.
*Pickles should be processed in boiling water canners, not pressure canners. Pressure canners are overkill.
*You need enough hot vinegar or vinegar brine to cover the cucumbers completely in the jar and leave just a little head space.
*If your lids did not seal, you have two options. Let’s talk first about why the lids didn’t seal, so you can avoid the same problems in the future. Two–maybe three–things could have happened.
1. Did you make sure to wipe and wipe again the jar rims before you put on the lids?
2. Were your lids old? Make sure to use those that are only a year or at most two years old.
3. Did you re-use lids? Bad, bad, bad. Don’t do that again!
Okay, so I now count four problems.
4. Did you warm (but not boil) the lids in water before you put them on?
Next thing you should do is figure out what to do with your unsealed lids. First, do give them at least 12 hours to seal. Sealing time can vary widely based on temperatures. If your jars are showing total sealing failure, with pickles you would probably be safe to try again with new lids, but remember that you’ll be boiling your cucumbers twice and may not like the results. Instead, I recommend putting the poorly sealed jars in the fridge and, for pickles, using within a month. (I’d use other home-canned products much more quickly.)
What about cloudy liquid in the pickle jars?
If the cloudy liquid appeared almost immediately, it is probably a mineral/metallic reaction. Aluminum bowls and spoons or pots can react with the brine and cause this problem. Using regular salt instead of canning salt can cause it too. Hard water can also cause a cloudy reaction Neither of the three is serious. They affect appearance not quality.
If, however, you have any questions about your process and the cloudiness developed over a longer period of time, you should consider whether the pickles are going bad. First, make sure that you have removed the screw rims. Bad product will usually pop the lid open eventually. Smell the finished product. Does it smell bad? Don’t eat it. Is the skin portion of the cucumber slimy? Don’t eat it.
Should you use store-bought cucumbers to make pickles?
Generally, you should not use store-bought cucumbers for pickles. First, most store cucumbers are not pickling cucumbers. They are designed for fresh eating. Second, because store-bought cucumbers take a long time to go from farm to distributor to store to your kitchen, they are generally coated with wax. This wax will prevent the pickling mixture from penetrating. You can try to scrub it off, but chances are you’ll still end up with an inferior product. If you can get locally grown cucumbers from your farmer’s market, I would consider using those. Just check the variety to make sure they are good for pickling.
For more on this question, see the “comments” section and my correspondence with Barbara in Canada.
[...] the original post: Pickles, Pickles, Pickles! « Ozark Homesteader: Sustainable … AKPC_IDS += "229,";Popularity: unranked [...]
Hello, please help. My friend and I made 47 1 litre jars of pickles last weekend. Today, all of the jars are cloudy. Is there anything we can do?
Barbara, I’m so sorry to hear about your pickles. The good news is that they are most likely all right. If you were careful about cleanliness through the process and made sure not to use any slimy pickles, chances are you just have a metallic reaction. Did you use regular salt or pickling salt? Sea salt, kosher salt, and table salt all have minerals that can cloud the pickle liquid. That’s why you should always spring for pickling salt. Did you use aluminum spoons or bowls during the process? They can react too. (I have a gigantic ceramic bowl that almost got donated away, but it’s what I use for big piles of pickles!) If you did any of these things, it’s no big deal. They’ll affect appearance but not quality. (It’s okay; my husband pickled a beautiful batch of green tomato relish last year and did the same thing!). Hard water, by the way, can also produce cloudy pickles. Cloudiness in this case doesn’t affect eatability.
If you don’t think you have some kind of mineral reaction going on, there is a chance that your product is bad. Typically, though, if you are sure you followed good hygiene and careful use of vinegar and salt all the way through, you should be okay. How quickly did the pickling liquid appear cloudy? Right away? See above. Did it develop later? That’s another story. Did you remove your lid rings yet? If so, most bad product will pop the lid. Still, before you chaw into your first pickle, smell it. Does it smell off or yeasty? If so, don’t eat it. Feel it for slime on the skin side. That could be a bad sign too.
Okay, I have to ask, did you process these jars all at once or in several batches? If it’s several batches, I find it hard to believe that every last one of them turned bad. That really makes me think it’s minerals.
Please come back and let me know what you conclude.
Thank you so much for getting back to me. I am wondering if this could be caused by my water softener. I had turned it up really high a couple of days prior. Do you think the salt from the water softner might be causing this reaction? Do you think we could redo the brine?
We made the pickles August 29 – I hadn’t looked at the pickles until September 8th so I am not sure exactly when they went cloudy.
We did them in 2 different batches, but both went cloudy.
We also made pickled garlic – the garlic went blue.
Your help is much appreciated
Barbara, I think the blue garlic confirmed it. I’m 99% sure that your pickles are fine and that it’s just the mineral content in the water you are using. If we are talking about pickles that have already been processed in a boiling water canner, I would *not* open them, drain the brine, add new brine, and reprocess. It’s been too long since you made them (24 hours max is the rule for re-processing). I also think you’ll end up with over-processed pickles. I would open one jar and do the smell and taste thing to make sure they really haven’t gone bad. If they haven’t, eat the rest over time. The problem is appearance, not quality, so if you are serving them to company, just serve them out of the jar. If you were planning on giving some away as gifts, give them to people you know well enough to explain the cloudiness–at least that’s what I’d do! And for my next pickling adventure, I might invest in a water filter.
Once you open a test jar, if you get a chance to come back and let me know if the pickles still taste good, I’d love to hear it!
(By the way, your garlic is probably just fine too.)
Hi Ozarkhomesteader
The other problem is, we changed our process a little. We sterilize the jars – use new lids and seals – but this year we did not boil the sealed jars. I was advised that this was why our pickles were not as crunchy. Now, some of the jars don’t seemed to have sealed properly. Can we reseal? or should we boil the jars?
I am so thankful I have you to ask all of these questions too.
You can’t re-seal after 24 hours. It’s just not safe. You can, though, put the jars in the fridge and eat the pickles soon.
It seems to me that crunch is as much caused by the age of the cucumber as it is the processing. I do the 10-minute boil because I get more usable jars; it just seems to be safer and more consistent in terms of seals. To get crisp pickles, I keep my cucumbers small. Any that are overgrown will be watery, so I use them only for relish, after I’ve cut them in half, scooped out the seed section, and chopped them and then drained them. (The juice tastes good to drink or you can reduce the amount of water in your relish according to the amount of juice you get.)
You know, we’ve never discussed what kind of pickles you’ve made. What kind are they?
We used number 2 cucumbers for garlic dills. What if we boiled the jars now – do you think that would help?
Usually the max time you are supposed to wait for re-processing is 24 hours, so I would feel very nervous about processing now, more than a week after your lids didn’t seal. I’d head straight to the fridge with the ones that didn’t seal, after you check to make sure they’re still okay.
I’ve made lots of mistakes over the years canning. I chalk every lost can up to another lesson learned.
#2? About how long and wide are those?
[...] with cornbread (to complete your vegetarian protein), good greens (like turnip or collard), and pickles, chow-chow, or tobasco. My ancestors made these beans on the top of a wood stove or in a kitchen [...]
I used Mrs Wages to make my bread and butter pickles last night. I packed the cucumbers in the jar and even added a few more after putting liquid in. All my pickles have floated to the top leaving about 1 – 1 1/2 inches of liquid at the bottom. Will they be safe to eat or can I unseal and reheat to boiling, can and reprocess in water bath?
I’ve never had that happen with cucumbers but have had tomato slices separate that way in a boiling-water bath. As long as all of your pickles *were truly covered with liquid* when you started, you should be fine. The boiling water bath creates a vacuum, sucking the air out of the jar via the lid as it goes. That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to head space (the gap above the liquid and product) in the top. Anyway, with pickles I would not worry a bit. They’ll most likely settle down in a few days.
Sometimes whole cucumbers, by the way, will look like someone de-plumped them right after you can. Give them a couple of weeks and they plump right back up!
Hi Everyone,
I canned dill pickles this year my standard process I have used for the last 3 years, which came from a friend who had been using the recipe for many, many years. However this year about 2 weeks after canning them I noticed a few looked cloudy and as I was checking it was because the aparently opened sometime after the fact. I typically dont touch them for 24 hours then I check them to ensure they are all sealed.
I put them in the fridge as soon as I noticed but am unsure how long they had been popped.
Even after this check realizing that I had over a dozen jars that came unsealed, a day later I found anothwer & then another day later I found another.
There were several of us who canned the pickles but not at the same time & our lids came from varying places so we ruled that out. The only thing we had in common was we purchased the cukes from the same place.
Could it be possible for them to just unseal after time?
Are these gonna be ok? I placed them in the fridge but dont know. I even ate a piece & it seemed ok just had not sat long enough.
Thank you for all your help.
Brenna in Oregon
Hi, Brenna. I’m so sorry to hear about your pickles. I know that must be heart-breaking after all the work you put into them.
Clouding can be caused by minerals in the water or your salt, which is no big deal. Unsealing can come from using older lids (not necessarily used but ones that had been hanging around a store too long) as well as failing to wipe the jar rim before you put on the lid. How many batches failed among your friends? Was it just a jar here and there, or did everyone have the same failure rate?
Did the cucumbers look and taste okay when you pickled them? Are the cucumbers slimy on the outside now that they’re pickled? Is the texture what you’re accustomed to getting from this recipe? If it’s dill pickles, ordinarily I might go ahead and leave them in the fridge and eat them fairly quickly because they have so much salt and vinegar that it’s tough for the bad bacteria to live in them, but then again I also like my egg yolks runny, so I think you have to use your own judgement on whether they’re safe. If everyone else just had a lid here and there fail, I’d chalk it up to a bad batch of lids for you, but everyone had massive failure like you did, I’d be much more hesitant to eat the pickles.
Do you have a nearby college? You may be able to get a class there to test your pickles for common bacteria.
I have about 70 jars of pickled dills I did Thursday and pickled carrots Friday. After 24 hrs I tested to see how many had sealed and very few did. Some seem sealed when I screwed off ring to see but the lids arent snapped down tight,I can tell the ones that did cause they dont pop when touched. Yesterday, Saturday ,I processed the ones that I was sure didnt seal. now Im thinking most of the others didnt because they still can pop when touched. What can I do? Would you recommend reprocessing? Also woulod you explain the best way to process. I did it with the lids not tight and only filled to the base of the jar rings for about 5-8 minutes. Also is that from the time the water returns to a boil? Im sick about it and wondering what can I do? Thx
Marilyn, I feel for you. First, please understand that I’m just another home cook and not a scientist, so any advice here should be taken for what it’s worth. Five to eight minutes sounds too short for both the dills and the carrots. The good news is that, as long as your vinegar strength was correct, you shouldn’t be putting yourself in too much danger by re-processing, although you may lose a bit in quality in the cucumbers, since boiling will leave them less crisp. If I re-processed, I’d do it *today* with *new* lids after you carefully wiped the rims. Your liquid should leave 1/2 inch headspace. For cucumber dills, you ordinarily need 10 minutes after the water starts boiling for pints and 15-20 minutes for quarts, but that’s starting with a hot pack. For starting cold (which you’ll be doing), I’d go longer by 5-10 minutes. For pickled carrot slices, ordinary processing times for the recipes I have is 15 minutes for pints, 20-25 for quarts, so use those as baseline and add another 5-10 for starting cold.
I hope this helps. Please come back and let me know how things turn out.
I forgot to clarify: the time is from boiling, not total time from cold to hot. If I’m starting with hot water (if I’ve already processed a round), I add a few minutes at a hard boil.
we live in the country on a well my pickles clouded up and when i opened them they just started to boil over are they alright to eat they are not slimey and they smell all right
I think the clouding up and “boiling over” are two different things. Clouding up if you know you have high mineral content in your well is okay. Can you describe more what you mean by “boiling over”?
One more question: was the lid sealed?
lids was sealed by boiling over once we opened the jars about 6 weeks later they just started to fiz over
I lost about 2 inches of jucie and it kept fizing
Rita, did you have rings on the lids while you stored the pickles? If so, they could have gone bad but not popped the lid because the ring was keeping it from popping. If it were me, I would be very hesitant to eat them. Is every jar the same way? Maybe it’s just a few.
the dill pickles are the ones i”m talking about the bread&butter ones came out alright the top pickles where soft I don:t use rubber seals with the new lids you can buy to day
Yes, I was talking about the two-part lid, but I wasn’t clear. There’s the lid and there’s the ring that screws down. I take my rings off about 24 hours after the lids seal. That way, I can reuse the rings. I also can tell if something went bad, because without the ring on, the lids will unseal.
I’m afraid the dills may have gotten contaminated somehow. It seems really unlikely, given the high salt and vinegar content, but it can happen.
If you haven’t opened all of the dills, remove the screw ring and see if the lid unseals in the next few days.
when I undo the ring it pops like its under presser, its like opening a bottle of pop after you shake it up
I’m almost positive (like 99%) that they’ve gone bad. I’m so sorry. The only way I could see them being okay was if you used a vinegar that still contained the mother yeast and was still producing gas, but I think that’s unlikely.
Storing the jars with the rings off could have alerted you sooner. I learned this tip from my grandmother and Alton Brown, and it’s never failed me.
I appreciatethe information found on your site. Today, I found 37 jars of my sealed pickles,unsealed. I had to throw all of them away. What sadness!! this has never happened before to me. (16 years with the same recipe) someone said I could have moved them to my cold room too soon. My husband thought it had somethimge to do with the wine I enjoyed while making them! one of the pickles was actually vibrating… crazy!! So for all us ‘pickle makers’ who decide to do one big batch and lose them all…. it’s nice to know we are not alone!
Vibrating?!? Oh, my! I’d be so sad if I lost that many pickles.
Could be the wine . . . or it could be your lids. Were the lids all from the same batch? How you store them can make a big difference too.
PIckles are the only thing I’d be willing to re-process that I can, but only in the first 24 hours.
Hi!
I know you have said only 24 hours for re-processing. For me, it’s been 30 hours since canning these pickles that didn’t seal!! Can I reprocess them still? AND how do I reprocess them? Pour out the brine, re-boil it and pour it back in? Or just stick the jars in a canner and boil them for 10 min? I’m not sure what to do! There are too many jars not sealed to try to eat them in a month! Although I am pregnant and am loving the pickles…
Jill
Hi, Jill. You at least have to change the jar lids. If they didn’t seal the first time, they won’t seal the second time. The safest thing to do would be to reboil the brine and pour it over the cukes in freshly washed jars. I do know people who just change the lids and reseal by putting them in the canner for 10 minutes at full boil, but I’ve never seen data on how much bacteria can build that way. If it were anything but pickles, I’d be really nervous, but I confess I’ve eaten some pickles that I found unsealed long after the fact and didn’t know how long they’d been unsealed. I’ve also tossed them under those same conditions when something about the long unsealed pickles seemed not quite right.
Since you’re pregnant, can you get a taster to eat the first pickle out of each jar as your open it after you re-process?
(Oh, and congratulations!)
Thanks, that’s a baby in 2011 AND 2012! I’ll be busy!
Anyway, my dad came over and took over. My mom says she is never doing pickles again and I believe her. Last year they were cloudy but we ate them anyway. This year, they don’t seal. I suspect I didn’t wipe the rims well enough? So my dad is boiling them for 15 min. I told him about bacteria and such but he didn’t think it would be a problem. He’s canned before but I don’t think he knows about this kind of stuff. I guess we’ll just have to see how they turn out. I’ll take all 7 that did seal, just for safety’s sake. My 8 month old loves pickles
Thanks, I’ll keep consulting your blog, it’s a great resource!
Oh my, Jill, double congratulations! How sweet of your dad to take over. Cloudiness can come from using aluminum tools or bowls during the process. Like I said, I personally have fewer fears about pickles than anything else I can. I wish you luck with yours!
Please come back and let me know how everything goes!
Hi there! I’m thankful to find somebody who knows what they are talking about and somebody else in the same boat as me! I just did a bushel (55 quart jars) of pickles (on a very hot day in Ottawa, also with a baby Jill!) and came back this evening to find that HALF of them (well, 20 at least) have not sealed. Ack!
I will wait until tomorrow for the final count, but I suspect I either a) didn’t leave enough head space, or b) didn’t make sure the rim was clear of brine before I put the lids on (they were new). My recipe that I have used for years doesn’t involve canning – only packing in hot brine and they seal themselves no problem.
Do you think I could remove the lids, replace with new ones, then process in the canner? or would I need to take all the cukes out, heat up the brine and re-do the whole process? I worry that they will turn mushy from being heated (and spending the night at room temperature).
Any and all suggestions would be VERY welcome…I’m curious to hear how Jill’s re-processing went (did you boil them the first time? or hot pack?)
Hi, Jodi. I have about 40 pounds of cucumbers waiting for me right now, and you and Jill are making me nervous.
I know you said your lids were new, Jodi, but were they this year’s production? I’ve had new but still year-old lids not seal before. If they came from an area of the US that’s had unusually hot weather too this year, they could have deteriorated. (I store mine in my guest room instead of in the garage for that reason.) I hope that’s not the case for you.
Like I said to Jill, I worry less about pickles than I do anything. Yes, I’d wipe the rims, use new lids, and process at boiling for 10 minutes, as you are thinking. That said, starting with hot brine could actually reduce your time coming to boil, since the jars wouldn’t be sucking off the heat.
My caveat as always: I teach history, not home ec or agricultural extension, so always do the look and sniff test before you taste.
Please come back and let me know how everything goes!
I have made some pickled onions – I sterilised the jars in the oven, used table salt and bought the malt vinigar but they look like there is some slime in the jars – I only made them 2 days ago and it happened straight away. When I was pouring the vinigar in the jars there was some slimy stuff in the vinigar but I discarded this, do I need to start again? What did I do wrong?? Please help
Hi, Fiona. I think what you have is acetic acid bateria, a normal byproduct of natural vinegars. How slimy was the slime? Did you process the onions in a boiling water canner? We typically make pickled onions fresh in small batches and keep them in the refrigerator, but we usually use red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar. Did the vinegar smell and taste right when you started?
the slime was just one big lump – I took it straight out of the vinigar tub and have emptied the pickled onions and there was no slime in the new jars just, when the pickled onions sit for a while they just look slimy but dont feel it, its like they are a bit murky. I didnt taste the vinigar but it smelled ok, just like normal malt vinigar. I brined the onions following guidelines then patted then dry and put in sterilised jars with sugar, some balsamic vinigar and spices. I have not put them in the fridge but in a cool dark place. Im just concerened they are going to be bad.
I wish I could say for sure. I suspect that they are okay. Was the original vinegar cloudy?
it was malt vinigar so a little hard to say if it was cloudy but maybe a little, will they taste funny if they are not right, I dont want to poison anyone
I’d feel like they were 99% safe if you’d processed them in a boiling water canner. Given the vinegar and salt, I suspect they’re still safe. If it were me, I’d try them myself first. Were they for gifts?
thank you for your advise I will try them out on my husband in a month
On your husband?!? Oh my! I do hope that they’re okay!
I hope everything comes out okay for you.
Ozark:
My question pertains to pickled green beans but could be applied to any pickled product I suppose. I canned around 17lbs of dill pickled green beans last week. All jars sealed perfectly. I opened a jar to test taste last night and found them too “raw” or tough still. My question: can I re-process the jars so the added time in the water will further soften the beans? Is this safe? If so should I open all jars and apply new lids or can I add the sealed jars into the canner?
Thanks, mike
First, let me say that this is only my opinion, and I’m not a scientist. I suspect that the beans will soften a bit over time in the vinegar, but I can’t guarantee it, as I haven’t had this problem. Therefore, if I reprocessed, I’d start with new lids. Once the lids have sealed that first time, they’ve done their job. I’d be very hesitant to reuse the lids. I would make sure too that the beans processed extra time because you’re starting with cold liquid. Whether you reprocess or wait and see if they soften, do come back and tell us how it turns out!
My pickles didn’t do so well because we had spring flood so I have a few here and a few there only enough for a quart every few days which is way to much work do u know the best way to store them I between pickings? Or. A good fridge recipe? I don’t have much fridge space but I’d give it a try been canning for 30 years. I hate to waste these pickles. Lov your website thanks
Thank you for the kind words!
Do you want to make dills or sweet pickles? I have cut down my recipes before and can do it here. I typically can in a stock pot instead of a huge canner when I’m doing a small batch. Let me know which you prefer, and I can work up the recipe for some half pints and pints.
For the refrigerator, use slices. Sometimes I just pour on old pickle juice. You can also sprinkle on salt so that there’s a bit on each slice and then splash on vinegar. Toss regularly. Use soon.
I forgot to cover storing between pickings. I store mine unwashed in the vegetable crisper in the fridge.
Hi, I just pickled some green beans yesterday, processed them and put them in the fridge just in case. I noticed this morning that they seemed to have air bubbles and foamed at the top like they had carbonation in the liquid. This evening two of the jars no longer have the bubbles or carbonation, the other two did. I opened both of those jars, the seal was solid, there was no foaming or off smell after opening and I tried one, outside of being a bit too sour they were crisp and seemed fine to eat. The recipe I used did have sugar in it, would that have caused the issue? Is there anything I should worry about?
Again, I’m not a food safety specialist, but I’d say with 99.99% assuredness that beans you pickled yesterday are safe to eat. I would not have put them in refrigerator, though, so soon after pickling. Rapid chilling may cause a lid to seal that might not have otherwise. What size are the jars and how long did you process them in the boiling water bath?
As hard as it is to believe from taste, sugar won’t change the acidity of a solution, and it’s the acid that makes it safe to process non-acidic vegetables like beans in a water bath. I would not worry about the sugar, unless it was such a huge quantity that it changed the ratio of water to vinegar.
My trick for making sure that everything that I can is safe is to remove the rims after the lids seal. If a jar’s contents is unsafe, it will pop the lid. Thank my grandmother and Alton Brown for this tip. Color, smell, and a tiny taste will also tell you if something has gone bad.
Oh–I forgot to address the bubbles issue. You may have trapped air when you put the beans and liquid in, or you may have left too much space at the top of the jar. Air is the enemy when it comes to eliminating bacterial growth in canned goods, but I personally worry less with pickles than I do any other products. If the beans are fully covered with the solution, relax. Okay, maybe don’t give away the jars that make you nervous, but enjoy them yourself. Oh, and you can make bubbles in any pickling jar by shaking it.
I canned dill pickles and they all sealed so put in cupboard for about a month then checked them and button was up but flat lid was still fastened to jar. Is this normal and are they still safe to eat?
It is not normal. If the button clicks when you push on it, they did not vacuum seal. Did you check the button before you put them in the cupboard?
The safety question is a bit more tricky. My legal disclaimer is that I’m not a food scientist and that I’m telling you my own experience. I am not offering advice. I would check carefully for bubbles or off smells first. If the suspect jars pass that test, I personally would taste one. If it tastes okay, I would refrigerate the jars and use them as soon as possible. If we were talking about anything other than pickles, I would have given a different answer, but the content of acid in pickles make it highly unlikely for them to develop anything nasty in one month.
so, we made a batch of dill pickled cukes during the season. they all sealed fine, no problems there. the issue is that i don’t think the flavor pops enough, and was considering adding some vinegar and salt to each jar and reprocessing. any thoughts?
I think if you re-process at this point your cucumbers will become mushy beyond belief. Are you keeping these pickles for yourself? You could always add salt and vinegar as you open each jar.
Let me know what you decide and how it works out!
Hi there, Thanks for all of these helpful posts! so I made my second batch of bread and butter pickles yesterday but they are still in a big bowl that has been covered in the fridge since last night. i decided last night that instead of just putting them in jars and eating quickly, i would like to seal them in canning jars by doing the boiling process. of course, now they are already cold, so i can’t stuff my cucumbers in jars and pour my hot liquid over and then seal and boil. Is it too late to reheat and move them to jars? will it make them soggy/bad/subpar? what if i drain the liquid, stuff the pickles into jars, reheat the liquid and pour over pickles? or should i just eat these and wait for the next batch to try and can them?
Thanks for your help!
Amanda
You are most welcome! I’ve been interrupted during canning before and understand your dilemma. Bread and butter pickles aren’t terribly crispy anyway, but if it were me, I’d drain them and then heat the liquid and pour over the cucumbers, onions, and seasoning in the jars. Of course you could just eat them too.
If you do go the re-heat route for the liquid, please come back to let us know how they turned out!
Thank you! we just decided to eat them and shared small jars with neighbors. Delicious. I’m glad to know your suggestion, should i be in this position in the future. Thank you!
Your solution was an excellent one, especially the sharing part.