Crunchy Dill Pickles

I don’t know about you, but if you’re a canner and have ever opened a jar of your summer’s cucumbers pickled only to be met with a floppy mess, you may be leery of recipes claiming crunch.

The first key to our pickle recipe is the addition of tannins in the form of oak leaves. Lucky for us, we have planted about 6 swamp white oak trees on our property since moving here, so never have a lack of leaves. Alternatives to oak leaves include grape leaves (I’m guessing many of you might have grapes growing wild or otherwise), raspberry or cherry leaves.

The second most important key for crunchy cucumbers is to pick them small! We have been learning this the hard way. It’s not always easy to get out there every 12-24 hours to pick them, and even more so challenging to have enough ready at the right time to preserve their crunch. But we have transitioned to pickling our cucumbers WHOLE and this has really improved their crunch.

If you have pickling cucumbers that are wider than an an inch, consider making it into bread and butter pickles or sweet relish instead. This is what we do with our “too big” cukes, of which there are always some (and sometimes too many). And these other pickling recipes are less urgent in my opinion, and can be done up to a week after harvest, so that’s a definite bonus too. They also make great holiday gifts.

The final and equally important step for good pickles is to soak them in an ice water bath for an hour before processing. This gives you time to get the oak leaves, peel the garlic, clean the jars, and get them set up in the hot water canning bath.

In the past I’ve used recipes that are 50/50 distilled vinegar and water and they are, frankly, intensely vinegary. So this year I’ve switched to the Ball canning jar brine recipe but with my tried and true seasonings. I think the slightly lower acidity and small amount of sugar will help balance the sourness just the right way.