Making Fresh Pack Dill Pickles (2152)

Fresh-pack dill pickles are the most popular and the easiest pickles to make at home. To make them, wash freshly picked cucumbers, leave them whole and pack them into clean canning jars. Add a head of dill or one tablespoon of dill seed, dill weed, or dill juice to the jar. You may add a peeled garlic clove, if you like. Then pour a boiling-hot pickling solution containing water, vinegar and salt over the cucumbers and place lids on the jars.

As soon as you fill the jars, place them in a boiling water bath canner with enough rapidly boiling water to completely cover the jars. Process the filled jars for 10 minutes. Begin the timing as soon as the jars are in the canner. This short processing period is important if you want to have high-quality pickles that will not spoil or become soft. It will not overcook the product.

There are many possible recipes for the vinegar-water-salt proportions in the pickling solution. But, if you want a flavorful, safe pickle, do not dilute the vinegar too much.

Three parts water to one part vinegar is strong enough to provide safety, yet it is not overpowering. Use distilled or cider vinegar with five percent acetic content. Because salt in this kind of dill pickle is primarily a flavoring and not a preservative, you may adjust the amount of salt to your own taste. However, sometimes you need salt to get a characteristically flavored pickle.

Salt substitutes may make the pickles bitter. Use canning or pickling salt. The compounds that keep table salt free-flowing will make the solution too cloudy. Most people use three-fourths to one cup salt per gallon of pickling solution. You may add small amounts of sugar to reduce the tartness, but this is not common in most dill pickle recipes.

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