Canning pickles

We decided to can pickles. I know it sounds crazy, but it was actually pretty fun. Jason grew some cucumbers and had the idea to can them. Well of course it was Loni and I who actually did all the work. The guys came in at the last minute to 'help'. Matt wanted to 'help' get the sterilized jars out of the water, and he flew boiling water all over his left foot, which I thought he deserved and Jason said the jars needed to be put right side up when done, and of course he was wrong and Loni was right, they needed to go upside down.

It all started at 9:00 pm (we can't get anything started before dark). Loni and I went to Dierbergs to get all the supplies, figuring if any place was going to have it all it would be there. Well, wrong again, they didn't have dill canning mix, only dill salt, and they were all out of fresh dill. I had a brilliant idea of getting fresh cut up dill and wrapping it in cheese cloth, well I just don't think they make that any more. Then Loni had the brilliant idea of just using pantyhose.


Once we got home with all the so-called supplies, we realized that we had no pickling seasoning, the salt we bought was not the same thing. We called Schnucks and they had that, so the guys stopped by there to get that...which was a big help...thanks guys!

So, the process started. We had to boil jars and the lids, but separately in separate pots.

We had to cut up all the cucumbers. We let them soak in the pickle and canning salt for about 15 minutes. They were suppose to soak for 24 hours, well oops we didn't have 24 hours.

We put all the seasonings in the jars. We decided not to use pantyhose and just put it all in there. We used fresh pre-cut dill, crushed pepper and 1 garlic clove. Then we decided to make one 'experiment jar', we put in alot more crushed pepper and some cayenne pepper sauce. So we have one spicy pickle jar.

We had to pack as many cut cucumbers into one jar as we could.

We then put the lids on all of them and put them in the worlds largest canning pot! I had to use 2 burners. It took about an hour and half to get the whole thing boiling. Talk about a hot house, oh my goodness, it was actually cooler outside than in.

These are our finished products. The red one on the right is the 'spicy experiment'.

We filled the jars with simmered kosher mix with part vinegar and part water.

This is where are jars will sit for at least the next two weeks. When they are all done, we have agreed that we are all going to take a bite at the same time. So I will keep you all updated.