hey there welcome back to another uh
slightly redneck caning video making
dill pickles today because it's cucumber
season and I'm going to share with you
my favorite dill pickle recipe super
easy to make and delicious so stick
around we'll get right to
it okay first things first we're going
to work on preparing our cucumbers it's
best to have cucumbers that are no
bigger than about 3 4 in long couple of
these got a little bit big for me I'm
going to pickle these whole but you
could slice them up in slices or spears
or ever you prefer them um but the
smaller the Cucumber you know like I
said about a 3 to 4 in cucumber uh the
better it is it's going to stay crispier
um not going to it's going to have much
better flavor to it not a whole lot to
do to prep them uh soak them in cold
water overnight I put them in ice water
and leave them in the fridge overnight
that's going to help with uh crispness
as well the only thing you need to do
you've got a stem end to the cucumber
and then you've got a blossom end this
is the end the flour comes off you'll
need to cut off about an eighth of an
inch or so of that blossom in because
that can add bitterness to your
cucumbers so I guess maybe more like a/
qu inch sorry qu inch of that so I'm
going to go ahead and and do that with
these and then that's really all we need
to do to get my cucumbers ready for
pickling so let me get this done with
all my cucumbers and uh we'll come back
and pick up the next step so we're going
to go ahead and prepare our brine right
now uh we're going to start off with a
non-reactive pot stainless steel not
aluminum uh you can use porcelain you
can use a couple different things but
not aluminum non-reactive whatever it is
you're going to need some salt make sure
you get non-iodized salt this is a
pickling and canning salt works great or
you can use a kosher salt if you want to
um you're going to need some vinegar um
I use the cheap stuff because heck it's
just vinegar vinegar is vinegar but do
make sure that it says on the jar or on
the bottle that it's distilled within 5%
humid acidity excuse me you don't want
anything less than 5% acidity and that's
important um and of course you're going
to need some water we're going to mix
our brine up we're going to mix up a
gallon of brine this should do about
eight pint jars um or eight qu jars
excuse me um you you're going to mix it
half and half um 2 quarts of vinegar 2
quarts of water and 2/3 of a cup of
canning salt now you can scale that
recipe up and down uh just use the same
ratios do not lower the vinegar content
now you could add more vinegar if you
want to but do not lower the vinegar
content 50% vinegar is the lowest
recommended uh vinegar content for safe
canning by the USDA and for a good
reason um you need to have a certain pH
within your products when you can them
and water bath can them like we're going
to do you need to have a low enough pH
that it it keeps the botulism bacteria
from multiplying because when it
multiplies when it reproduces IT
produces a toxin that can be deadly you
can't smell it you can't taste it you
can't see it so you wouldn't even know
it's there if you have botulism in your
you know canned goods you eat them you
could very easily die so keep I don't
mean to scare you this is perfectly safe
as long as you keep that vinegar ratio
and to be honest
my grandmother handed this recipe down
and it came out with one qu of vinegar
to 3 quarts of water and she used that
for 50 years and nobody ever got sick
off that but just to be on the safe side
don't go below 50% vinegar two quarts of
vinegar 2 quarts of water and that makes
one gallon and again 2/3 of a cup of
salt so mix all that together put it in
a stainless steel pot stick it on the
stove and bring it up to just a boil
just under a
boil Okay so while my brine's heating up
I'm going to go ahead and start
preparing my jars make sure um you know
prepare your jars like you would for any
other canning uh I'm not going to do a
lot of detail on that I've got another
video I'll link to here that you can
watch if you need help on that but to
the jars we're going to add one hot
pepper I'm going to use Habaneros if you
don't like spice nearly as much use a
jalapeno or you can leave the pepper out
completely couple of cloves of garlic I
really like garlic so I use two cloves
if you want to tone it down you can use
one instead I'm going to put a bunch of
Dill just a handful of dill and again I
really like Dill so I'm also going to
add a tablespoon of Dill seed to the jar
and I'm going to add an eigh of a
teaspoon of Alum and this is just uh let
me show you what the jar looks like
that's what it is alum it's for a
crisping agent to help the pickles stay
crisp and not get real soggy um that's
also a grape leaf I'm going to add into
that and that's for the same purpose
these have tannin in them if you can't
get grape leaves you can use oak leaves
they work really well as well um and
that's also to help with Cris so all
those go in the jar and then we're going
to start packing in our cucumbers and
there's nothing special about the way
you pack your cucumbers just shove them
in there it's kind of like a big game
Tetris to get them all get as many as
you can to fit in there let me get these
packed and then we'll come back and
we'll start adding Brian to these
jars all right so I got my jar filled uh
with uh cucumbers here um ready to add
my Brine and that's just a simple
process of just uh ladling into the jars
and we're going to fill it up to oh
about a/4 of an inch of head space at
the top of the
jar okay once you got that filled with
brine then wipe the rim like you uh
would for normal canning make sure it
gets a good seal we'll put a lid on
it with a ring again just fingertight
this is ready to go in the caner you can
process it for 15 minutes or if you want
to make these a refrigerator pickle then
just put the can the jar in your
refrigerator let it cool off first of
course put it in the refrigerator uh let
it ex set for a couple of days before
you eat it and then uh use it up within
a month but I'm going to can these so I
can have long-term storage so they're
going to go in the water bath caner for
15 minutes set for 5 minutes afterwards
take them out and let them cool off all
right well that's about all there is to
it it's pretty simple process um you can
pickle uh okra the same way I do my okra
and I also do uh zucchini in the same uh
same process for those so works for many
different vegetables and it's a great
Brine and a great solution to use for
that so hope hope you enjoyed this video
hopefully you learned something um hit
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bless