Many are vining types. We use National Pickling, County Fair (both vining) and Pickle Bush (bush variety). Homemade Pickles (variety name) is a semi-bush type.

Dave

Dave, Do you jar your own pickles? Have any great recipes? I'm looking for something like you get at a great deli in NYC.

You have to experiment with recipes to find what you want. I have what I consider great pickling recipes, but I have never been to NYC so couldn't compare ;)

I like em garlicy sour like they've been in that jar 20 years...:)

I made some pickles this year with Spacemaster cucumbers. They seemed to work well for me. They're definitely more compact vines, but got a little bigger than I expected and produced lots of good cukes. I've got one much larger one on the vine right now, and I'm waiting for it to ripen so I can save the seeds for next year.

Dave, Do you jar your own pickles? Have any great recipes? I'm looking for something like you get at a great deli in NYC.

Sure bigdaddy. Come on over to the Harvest Forum as pickling is the hot topic right no - well one of them. ;)

We have a Clausen-type and several other fermented dill recipes as well as some quick process and refrigerator recipes.

Wife and I did final processing on 6 quarts of fermented dills just yesterday.

Dave

I grew Boston Pickling cukes from Pinetree Seeds this year. They are a vining type and extremely productive. I have only two plants, and have been buried in cukes for almost two months straight now.

Since I am not set up for canning, I just put a jar of brine in the fridge and throw pickles in there as I get them (chips, spears and small whole cukes). I use salt, vinegar, sugar, pickling spice, garlic, onion and a few serrano peppers for heat. They are delicious, but probably not like NYC deli dill. ;)

What make a good crunchy, tasty pickle are two things:
1- herbs/spices
2- storing in cool place to age.

If you have herbs, use the following to flavor up: Tarragon, basil, lemon balm, lemon grass, mints, dills, shiso.

Use the following spices:
Coriander, pepper corns, fennel/dill seeds, bayleaves, turmeric

brine/solution:
-24 cups water
-- 1 cup vinegar
- 12 TBLS salt
--1/4 cup lemone/lime juice(fresh squized if you can)
Direction:
--Put all the spices at the bottom of can/bottle.
--Pack cukes with fresh herbs, add few sliced small green tomatoes (good sour taste)
- bring water/salt to boil, lower heat
--Add vinegar, simmer for 10 minutes at low heat.
--Pour hot/boiling brine/vinegat over packed cukes(save some).
--let it air cool.add lemmone/lime juice(after cools down). Tighten the lid. keep it at room temp
-- Check daily, to purge gases, add more brine, if needed.
-- When fermentation is over, close the lid.
--Put it in cool place(cool basment, refrigerator...)

Lets all keep in mind that many of older recipes for making pickles are no longer considered safe. The level of risk has increased substantially since Grandma's day now that we know about listeria and the fact that it continues to grow even when refrigerated. ;)

It is vital to keep the brine at the safe level of salt and vinegar acidity. For example: if you keep adding cukes to it you dilute the brine with the water in those added cukes.

Fermenting pickles has some very well defined guidelines since the 1998 revision (further revised in 2006) and, for your safety sake, should be followed.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Pickle Fermenting Guidelines and Recipes

I did 3 jars of Kosher Dills yesterday. =) I used the store bought Kosher Dill pickling mix. Simply boil it in the proper amount of vinegar & water, pack cuke spears or slices into sanitized jars, pour hot mixture over cukes & seal like normal (I usually boil some water & keep lids and seals in the very hot water in a bowl on counter until a few minutes later when I seal the jars).

Here's what they look like. They sealed fine with this method too. Uusually, if they're gonna pop, they do so within the first 24-48 hours. If so, they're still edible, you just have to keep them in the fridge & you can't keep them for as long as the preserved (no pop) jars.

{{gwi:100356}}

Thanx Dave and Cyrus. Printed out some good info.