What is the brand? If its Mrs Wages, you will find that it does contain a small amount of alum, which is added to assist in keeping the cukes a bit crisper. Vinegar and salt are notorious for breaking down cucmbers. Start with very fresh (picked the same day!) pickling cukes. Instead of adding any water, which tends to dilute the brine and raise procsssing times, I prefer to use full strength 5% vinegar. For the heat processing, I don't do a BWB for very long, maybe about 10 minutes tops. This is usually OK if the vinegar is not watered down by adding any water. For Mrs. Wages, I also make a half sour dill pickle using the regular dill pickle mix. I add plenty of dill weed, and time my cukes to the point where the dill is producing green swelled seed heads, which I add to the jars prior to filling with cukes. I cut off the end tips from BOTH ends of the cukes. Also, add a few garlic cloves cut into pieces. For the half sours, no vinegar is used, only water, and I taste the salt brine to see if its got enough salt. The brine flavor is a bit hard to get to, unless you have been able to do some taste testing and get to the 'mouth watering' stage of water and salt ratios. Another option is to weigh out 5 1/2 to 6 ounces of the pickle mix, to a gallon of water. No boiling necessary and you simply pour the dissolved salt brine into the packed jars. I use half gallons for these, and they sit on the counter about 3 days, to partially 'cure', then get placed in the fridge. At that time, I add a tablesppon or two of white vinegar. This helps to halt any further fermentation (lactic acid type) Mine keep quite crisp for almost a year in the fridge. By the next growing season, they are usually all gone. Ball brand pickle mixes tend to contain sugar, and I really don't know why, so I don'[t buy the dill ones. Mrs. Wages don't contain any sugar, but have a lot of dill flavor. Kosher and Polish dills, The Kosher packets contain cracked peppercorns, the Polish also contain some garlic.

For regular vinegar based pickles, as mentioned, a shorter process time (flling the packed jars with boiling brine) is helpful. If I were to make these with some kind of strict recipe, it would require hair nets, rubber gloves, high heat burners, a hose down of my whole kitchen, high efficiency filters for reducing airborne bacteria, and any other things to prevent any possible contamination of any kind. Keep in mind that with the vinegar at the full strength level, nothing hamful can survive that.

As a final note, Ball used to offer a product called Pickle Crisp. After only a couple of years they discontinued it. Instead, I buy food grade calcium chloride from Bulk Foods, which is the same exact ingredient as the Pickle Crisp, only in a slightly larger granule size. I add the PC just before filling each jar with boiling brine. Calcium Chloride is also used in commercial pickles and in whole canned tomatoes. The calcium chloide in a non food grade is used as an ice melter in winter. It helps to 'buffer' the acidic effects of vinegar.

Agree with Ken - VERY fresh cukes and calcium chloride equals crisp pickles.

Never heard of "Dill Quick" brand but as to what to use the mix for -just about any other veggies (besides cukes) you might like pickled. ;) Green beans, carrot sticks, relish,asparagus, green tomatoes, artichokes, mushrooms, peppers, onions, etc. Check out all the great recipes and instructions at NCHFP.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Pickled Vegetables

Suggest that instead of creating new threads for the same subject, that you add your comments to the one you prevsiouly created here. Its much better for searches if the info is bundled together in a main topic, as opposed to posting more subjects about the same thing. The amount used is slightly higher compared to the Ball brand. Thats due to the slightly larger granule size. It doesn't fizz like vinegar and baking soda, but you will 'hear' a little fizzing sound. Cold packing in vinegar brine with no Boiling Water Bath, will require refrigeration at all times. Originally they said to measure the amount on top of the packed jars of cukes, but I don't add it then. Instead, I add it when packing each jar with the dill and cukes, just like I do when adding salt and citric acid to jars that are to be filled with tomato sauce. The original PC was 3/4 teaspoon per pint, and 1 1/2 teaspoon per quart. The storage time for pickles will also depend on how fresh they were to begin with, as well as the type of pickling cukes. By their nature, pickling cukes usually have thinner ligher green skins and are quite crisp compared to those old mushy dark green excuses for a salad cucumber. My pickles, including sweet mixed, and bread & butters are always going to stay crisp a few months longer than ones that have no CC added.

I read in a previous post that pickles made using the Mrs Wages Quick Process Dill Pickle Recipe must be refrigerated since the packet calls for 11 cups of water and 5 cups of vinegar. It wasnt until AFTER I made 6 quarts and 6 pints of these delicious pickles that I read this thread, otherwise I would have used all vinegar. I did hot pack my pickles and processed them in a BWB for 10 minutes. So now that I have all of these lovely pickles on my counter do I have to store them in the fridge to keep them from spoiling? Thats gonna take up a lot of my fridge... and how long will they keep in there? I am hoping to safely store them in the pantry but will do whatever is neccessary, I only wish I had read the thread prior to making them. My next venture is a Mrs Wages Quick Process Sweet Pickle recipe it calls for 7 cups vinegar and 3 cups of water....so they should be safe for pantry correct?

Another duplicated post. Suggest that you do a REFRESH of the web pages as that will show new posts and any that you have just typed in. again, that amount of water and vinegar is not safe to heat process, so refrigeration would probably be required.

Can anyone tell me the ratio of a 6.5 oz. package of Mrs. Fields Dill pickle mix, for smaller batches. I don't have enough cucumbers at one time to make what the package calls for and that is approx. 50 cucumbers. Would like to make smaller batches, but unsure how much of the mix to use. Thank you for any information.

Lisa - since the package is not intended to use except all at one time there is no way to divide the package effectively other than to dump it all into a dry measuring cup, mix it well to make sure all the ingredients are evenly distributed, tap the cup so it will settle to level. Then determine the actual # of ounces (6.5 includes packaging weight). Then divide that number into halves, thirds, or quarters just as you would the listed ingredients in any recipe you were dividing and use the amount you need.

The only other alternative is to mix up the entire package and store the left-over brine in a sterilized jar in the fridge. But it can't be stored for long, perhaps a week to 10 days at most and then it will have to be reheated to boiling before using it for the next batch.

Dave

Thank You Dave! I appreciate your quick response! I do just so!