Watch it with the jokes about dentures! :)

Yeah, just grind them up into relish is usually the best bet. Biggest likely source of the problem is that you are trying to use a slicing variety to make pickles with. Never turns out well. Use pickling varieties for MUCH better results.

Dave

The Yellow Submarine is billed as a pickling cuke, so I thought it would be fine. There were a few regular pickling cukes in the batch as well -- National Pickling -- I'm not sure they fared much better.

I'm sure they'll turn out better next time. I just want to salvage all the work I did this weekend, if possible.

Relish. Not much else to do with them.

Were they very, very fresh when you process?
Did you trim the blossom ends?

Deanna (who spent years making mushy pickles until I came here!)

Yep, make relish.

Here is a link that might be useful: Problems with pickles.

That is probably the problem, they sat too long.
You can just chop up, heat, and then reprocess. Why not just chop one jar as you open it up ?

Or if you have a grinder just run them through the grinder add back to the brine, reheat to boiling, re-jar and re-process using relish processing times as it will be more dense.

Dave

We like Dill Relish (as opposed to Sweet Pickle Relish) in sandwiches (like Tuna) or in deviled eggs. For awhile I couldn't find it in the grocery store, so I'd merely purchase a huge bottle of dill pickles, cut them up a bit, and chop them in my blender, then put them into my own jar and refrigerate. I'd do the same thing -- jar by jar -- with your dills. Oh, another thing I use Dill Relish for is Tartar Sauce (for fish). Mayonnaise and some Dill Relish and that's it. I think it's wonderful.

I seem to remember there being a German meat dish that has cut up dill pickles in it -- but I can't remember the name right now. Perhaps someone else does. I don't think the texture of yours would impact the recipe negatively.

Good luck.

Kathy in Washington -- whose first fruit in her orchard is ripening. Cherries, finally!

I think it is beef rouladen.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone.

Save the pickles. Leave them in the jars.

Make new pickles. When you get some really good pickles it will be much easier to dump these down the drain. Right now you are emotionally attached to these new pickles. In a year they will be old mushy pickles and you will have many jars of great crisp pickles to choose from.

Ha!

You make good points, and you're right about the emotional investment.

I know I'll have another 10 lbs of cukes by this Saturday, and Pickle Crisp will be available at my local hardware store on Friday, so the replacement batch might just be imminent.

Adding tannins in the form of a grape, tea, or oak leaf"s will work. I drop a tablespoon of loose tea, some people drop a tea bag in. Uears ago the oak barrell provided the tannins.

I've thought about making some oak discs to hold the veggies under the brine

I've never used the leaves but have read about their uses. Would like to point out that people do say that works when processing but obviously they won't help the pickles you have already done. I practically cried dumping some pickles I had done which were very mushy, probably for all the reasons yours were. I used to use alum (for crispness) but that may have fallen out of favor, not sure. The more experienced posters could probably direct you better on that. I plan to get some "pickle crisp" this year for the same purpose but haven't researched that and what the ingredients are. I don't know your experience level is and didn't want you to think you could add something now to make them crisper. Lori

Pickles that are too soft but tasty seems to me like a great addition to a soup. I know it sounds funny, but a bean soup or a potato or vegetable soup, can be zinged up nicely with some chopped up pickles (and even some of the juice) added in the last 5 minutes or so of cooking. Long ago I had learned that adding sauerkraut to a white bean soup made it something else entirely, and it was good. My Russian wife is the one that showed me how awesome it is to add pickles to soup, or even to make a soup where the pickles end up the main attraction. Mixed in with cooked vegetables, the fact the pickles are soft is just not that big a deal.

I thought I read somewhere in here that Pickle Crisp was discontinued. Hope I am wrong.

It was discontinued for a while but Ball brought it back. You'll find it where canning supplies are sold, Walmart, Ace etc. And Amazon.

Pickle Crisp is pure calcium chloride, is just the brand name.

Don't know if anyone said this or not but you could use those for tuna salad, potato salad, egg salad etc. since they're like that. We have to cut them up fine anyway for all these things.
I bought some pickle crisps but after doing some checking on it I will be returning it. Not liking the fact it could cause respiratory issues when my daughter already has asthma and I have problems already in that area.