I’ve been on a hunt for a shelf-stable pickle recipe for a long, long time. Sometimes the pickle was great, but only for a short while, or the processing destroyed the crunch or the brine was too sweet or the cucumbers were bitter. Eventually, however, I figured it out: a pickled vegetable that remains crisp for two years on the shelf is, it turns out, easy to make, as long as you can get really fresh cucumbers and you have an immersion circulator.
Choose the right cucumbers
Most people who make pickles go wrong before they ever start the pickle process. If you’re buying pickling cucumbers at the grocery store, you’ve already lost the war. To be good pickles, you need cucumbers that were picked within the last 24 hours, ideally that same day, and were kept cold. In case you’re new to pickles, there is a difference between your standard salad cucumber and pickling cucumbers, which are smaller, curved and feature a bunch of bumps on the side. You want to choose medium-sized, deep green cucumbers. Yellowing is not a good sign, and they should never be soft.
I grow my own, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get ahold of fresh pickling cucumbers. Most farms will bag up five or ten pounds specifically for picklers the day before markets. Get yourself to a farmers market, buddy up with a farmer, ask about securing some cucumbers for the next week, and then be sure to follow up with a phone call the day before. When you show up to the market, have your cooler with you and ice those cukes down as soon as you get them. You can certainly try the recipe with less-fresh cucumbers, but they tend to get bitter and don’t remain crispy. Five pounds of cukes will yield about 12 pint-sized jars, but cucumbers vary in size, so this can vary.
You don’t have to only pickle cucumbers
If you can’t get ahold of pickling cucumbers, make pickled green beans. They’re great for Bloody Marys and charcuterie boards. I also love pickled beets and carrots and kohlrabi.
Cukes in an ice bat
Credit: Amanda Blum
Whatever you pickle, you must keep your vegetables really cold for 12 hours before pickling. This can be your fridge or a cooler or sink with ice water. This will also help clean your veggies.
Choose jars based on pickle sizes
Now, you need to think about shapes and sizes. For this, you have two factors: how you like to eat pickles and the jars you have available. For instance, I love a spear, so I always use wide mouth pints. I also prep some in low, wide mouth half pints, the perfect amount for a grill night. If you make pickled asparagus (and you should) you want to find the tall, narrow pint and half jars, which are also great for green beans and long carrots. If your family can kill an entire quart of pickles in a few days, then by all means, choose a wide mouth quart.
Prep the jars
All your jars should be washed well by this time—run them through the dishwasher on a high heat cycle. (Make sure your hands are clean, as well.) Now, the magic comes in. There are two ways to maintain crispness in your pickles—tannins and Pickle Crisp (calcium chloride)—and we’re going to use both. To obtain tannins, you need unsprayed oak leaves or grape leaves. I tear a grape leaf in half, and fold half of it into the bottom of every single jar. For small jars, half a leaf is fine. Into each pint jar, add ⅛ teaspoon calcium chloride, and ¼ teaspoon for a quart. For a half pint, add a dash. Put the other half of the leaves aside.
Prep your vegetables
You must slice off the very end bit of both ends of the cucumber—that’s the blossom stem, and it has to go. It will soften the cucumber if you leave it on. Slice the rest into the shape and length you need to fit into the jars, ensuring you’re leaving at least an inch of space at the top. For spears, slice lengthwise in half and then each half, again. For slices, make sure each slice is at least ½ inch thick—less than that and they don’t hold up over time.
For green beans, it helps to grab a bunch and then chop one end all at once, turn the stack over so the ends are aligned again and chop the other end, then place in the jar.
Pack the jars
There’s an art to getting the maximum amount of vegetable into the jar. I turn the jar on its side, and start laying the vegetables in, adding more to the empty space. The goal is to fill as much of the space as humanly possible; you want mostly vegetable with a little brine, not the other way around. Stuff as much as you can in there.
When you’re done filling the jar, you want to ensure that you’ve got an extra inch of space at the top. If you don’t, use a knife sideways to slice off the extra. Into each jar, add the following:
Half pint
Pint
Quart
-
4 garlic cloves, crushed
-
1 hefty handful of dill
-
1.5 tablespoon mustard seed
-
1 tablespoon caraway seed
-
1 tablespoon peppercorn
-
1 sliver fresh hot pepper (optional)
Be careful with hot pepper: You think you’re not adding much, but even the smallest amount packs a hell of a punch in a brine. It’s heartbreaking to realize you can’t eat a bunch of pickles you’ve made because they’re too hot.
Remember, we want to stuff the entire jar full except for the top inch, and if you haven’t done that, you can do so with leftovers. If you made spears, fill with slices; if you made green beans, use the cut offs to fill the space, same for carrots and asparagus. Finally, on the top, fold the other half of the grape leaf. That leaf will help hold the other ingredients under the brine.
Making the brine
If it’s pickle season, you should have brine around. If you make too much, the leftover is shelf-stable and will get used, so don’t sweat it. It is almost impossible to figure out precisely how much you’ll need, because your vegetables displace how much liquid you need, and you’re using different sized jars and vegetables.
This brine is half vinegar and half saltwater. You can play with the kinds of vinegar and how concentrated that brine is, but I use 3% brine, which means for every gallon of water, you add one ounce of canning salt. It must be canning salt, not table salt, which has additives in it. I have had success using tap water, but many books recommend using filtered water, and if you have terrible water in your area, it’s something to consider.
One gallon of brine
Place all the ingredients in a pot on the stove, and turn on medium high heat and stir. Once the salt is dissolved, you can turn the stove off. If you look at your jar, you’ll see a raised glass ring on the outside, about an inch from the top of the jar. That’s your guide. Using a clean ladle and a canning funnel, add enough brine to bring the liquid to the band on each jar.
Processing the jars
Top each jar with a new, clean lid fresh out of the box and a canning ring. You only need to tighten the ring until there’s no more resistance. Instead of pressure canning or using a stovetop water bath, you’re going to use a sous vide method of processing, since this will ensure a consistent, controlled temperature. Set up your immersion circulator, cover the jars with hot (but not boiling) water, ensuring they are under at least an inch of water. It helps to cover the top of the container with plastic wrap to keep the heat in. Then turn the circulator to 180 degrees F. Once it hits temperature, hold it at 180 for 30 minutes, and then turn the circulator off and remove the jars, placing them on a towel to cool on their own.
The next morning, remove the rings from all the jars. Jars should never be stored with those rings, and they’re reusable, so just put them away for the next time you need them. Check the seal on your jars; if any jar didn’t seal, those pickles need to go in the fridge and be eaten in the next week. Put the jars away on a shelf out of the sun, in a room that doesn’t fluctuate much in temperature; don’t stack any jars unless there is cardboard between them. These pickles are best if you wait a few weeks before trying them.
