I'm in the same boat. I have 4 cukes about 6" long in the fridge right now. They look good after a few days. The others have to fatten up a little then I'm making a Dill pickle cuke, zucchini and cauliflower mix. I figure 6 or 7 pints will last me for 2 years. :) We're not big pickle eaters.

Generally people say you lose quality (crispness) in the pickles if you hold the cucumbers even for a short time (any more than a few hours). Unless one has a lot of cucumber plants, it might be necessary to buy cucumbers from a farmer's market to get enough of them in a short time frame to make the best pickles.

If you save them for a few days, you might try making relish, which doesn't need the crispness as much. Personally I would eat them fresh. I love picking all the "ready" cucumbers in the morning and snacking on them at work, salting the cut end after each bite.

Of course this is all up to you and they will not go bad for a few days if you want to try pickles. My first ever batch of pickles was one quart with four pickles, and it was not worth the trouble.

Melissa

Sorry, they MUST be pickled now, or can be enjoyed in a salad. If they are true picklers they are usually 4-5 inches with ligher green thin skins that slice well in salads. If picked larger than that, the seeds start to get bigger and tough inside. Refrigeration will slow spoilage, but for firmness and cripsness it cannot help to do much of anything if its stored for more than 24 hours. Cuke plants, as well as most squash LOVE plenty of water at a point of almost growing in soaking wet soil, once they start to produce. Its early yet, so you can expect a just a few to be at maturity now. Depending on the amount of plants, you can get many more in a single picking in a few weeks. I have about 15 plants and none have begun to flower yet. But because of this, I also have nearby lettuce for nice salads. Another way to treat the limited cukes is to make a batch of half sour salt brine pickles. Add fresh dill and garlic (cut up) to a large jar, put in the first cukes with BOTH end tips cut off, and then fill the jar with the tasted brine. This can be stored in the fridge right away, and when a few more cukes arrive, they get the same cutting of the ends, and placed in the jar. Once the jar is full (and the excess brine has flowed out) they simply get placed back in the fridge about a week, then get a tablespoon of white vinegar added, capped, shaken to mix in the brine, and placed back in the fridge again for a few more days. By then, you should have another BIGGER batch of cukes and can do what you like with them. The 'store in fridge' ones can last you a whole year! My last one pickle from last years fresh pickles was eaten last night with a tuna fish sandwich, yum! Still quite crisp too!

Ken, I was hoping you'd have an "add-a-cuke" technique for just this sort of thing. Thanks, as always, for sharing your experience. =)

And thanks to the poster for asking a question that I'm sure I'll face if my cukes ever start to bloom. :)

Growin' mighty slow here in the mitten state.

My cuke plants are just 2 feet tall still. Nearby watermelon plants are only slightly larger since transplanting May 28. Weather has been quite cool for peas though. We need some heat now. Will be harvesting more lettuce in a few days too. Plan to put in more seeds as they are almost now full grown. Lettuce grows fast here..

We're (finally) supposed to have a full week of 80+ weather with rain tomorrow. That should give things a nice push. It's hazy and muuuuuuuuggy today. The air is so think that it makes you wish you had gills. Funny thing, my buttercup squash vines, barely a foot long, are throwing male blooms already. I'm used to growing butternut so was surprised that these started blooming when still so small.

You can pickle small amounts quickly.
For a couple of years, I kept a 1/2 gallon of pre-mixed brine in the fridge.

Pick whatever cukes are ripe that day, bring 'em in, clean 'em, place in jar with garlic, peppercorns, dill (or spices you prefer), heat a little brine to boiling and pour over the cukes. Place a 2 part lid on the jar and put in the fridge.

I've done as few as 2-3 cukes at a time. Later, you can combine the jars/brine to make FULL jars.
THESE MUST BE KEPT REFRIGERATED.........!!!!!!

I have decided this is just too much labor and now buy enough cukes to make my dills all at once.

I may try some relish out of english cukes this year.

Has anyone tried this? It seems like the thinner skin and mild flavor would be great for a dill relish.

Deanna

English cukes are too soft and even a relish may give you mush. They are more suspectable to spoilage once picked, so thats wya you usually see them packages in shrinkwrap plastic. My buttercup also produce a LOT of male blossoms at first, and the squash LOVES a lot or water as it will produce much better. Watch for the downey mildew and powdery mildew, as wll as cucumber beetles and squash vine borers I just put out some striped cucumber beetle scent lures and sticky traps to see what I catch in 24 hours.. If they show up on the yellow sticky traps, I start spraying with Neem.

Thanks Ken. Good to know they may be to mushy. Guess I'll just eat 'em!! (grin)

Deanna

"and then fill the jar with the tasted brine. "
Is this just salt and water ? '

How much salt per qt of water to make a brine?

"and then fill the jar with the tasted brine. "
Is this just salt and water ? '

For the HALF SOURS, I use my grandmothers tasting method, which is to add salt to water until it seems almost sweet and mouth watering to you. Too little its salty, too much, its bitter. Alton Brown might have the right numbers for a gallon of brine as follows:
5 1/2 ounces of PICKLING SALT (weight) to ONE GALLON of water.
This is quite a lot of brine for a single gallon jar of cukes. You can half that, but still taste to see how it feels in the tongue and taste buds. As mentioned, instead of the salt, I will use some of a Ball or Mrs. Wages dill pickle mix (the ones WITHOUT sugar!), and then adjust the salt from there. I use these to get a much bolder dill taste, they also have a little tumeric, which is nearly tasteless and only gives a bright yellow color. I packed a half gallon jar with two whole (except thick stems) big dill plants and all the leaves and seed heads, a few cut up cloves of garlic and then packed in the cukes and then pour in the brine. They sit out just 2-3 days (if its a full jar), then into the fridge with a tablespoon of white vinegar. You can start to eat them the second day after making, but the longer they are in the fridge after the inital partial fermenting, they get really mellow. If you find that its a bit too salty, you can dilute a little before putting in the fridge, or if find its not salty enough (cukes LOVE salt!) then add a bit more carefully. Mix it in, and allow them to sit another 8 hours before tasting again. I leave a sample cuke at the top, cut in half, and just take a couple of thin slices of it to taste sample if I am not exactly sure about the flavor. If it needs adjusting it can easily show up in the first thin slice of that cut in half cuke at the top of the jar. Be sure brine is covering all the cukes and nothing is floating on top, if possible. The tasted brine, can be either a dill pickle mix type brine, or just plain salt and water. Cukes are 'blah' without dill, so use plenty of fresh if possible. Dried dill seeds have 1/4 or less, the flavor of fresh. Thats what makes these so tasty.

I'm going to try and grow Dill next summer. After you put the pickles in the gallon jar do you add HOT brine to them or room temperature brine? What do you cover the top with, if anything?

The dill can go in first, as well as the garlic pieces. You can find fresh dill weed in stores. The fresh seed heads no. If you do plant dill and get very early cukes now, try planting some of the dill seeds in mid October. They should sit there nicely under a small amount of soil, and be one of the first to sprout next spring. NO HEAT! A hot salt brine will 'murder' the necessary enzymes needed to create the sour flavor. What you get in the end is an acidic half sour pickle that tastes like it was done in 50% vinegar brine, when in fact its more like .05%. If they float, you can figure out a way to jam a big cuke at the top, or a small dish to push down. With a nice big tall jar its easy to deal with even of that dish falls in under. Just simply pour out all the contents, fish it out and pour the stuff back in again. Another way is to use only a small pint jar where a sizable cuke is placed in there. It may only hold 3-4 or even 5 if they are skinny. If they get packed in tight at the dry cold stage, they will hold their position better. I prefer regular mouth canning jars as the mouth is much narrower and allows you to jam a couple into the top sideways. Fresh pickling cukes are suprisingly tough, so you can jam them in quite hard. Once in a while I have crushed a bit of one, but if that happens no problem. Got room forjust a half a cuke, jam it in, or cut lengthwise.

One final note- Not sure about your water quality? Here, ours is quite soft and clean. No calcium or high menerals. also, they use Ozone to kill bacteria instead of chlorine. If your water quality is good, use it, if it tastes bad or metallic, rusty, or any other odd thing, suggest bottled water. Cheap stuff, no mineral water, no fancy shmancy brand name either. These are easy to deal with. Do not use distilled!

Original email:

Ken!!

Thanks for all that info. I am going to give this a try today. One question, should I use kosher or pickling salt? I have both. I know you mentioned about adding 1/4 tsp to the cup to taste but wasn't sure, as I see most recipes that I have reviewed seem to use pickling salt from the start.

Also, do I have to use a jar? I know that sounds silly but I have food grade plastic buckets and they have lids. Also, while the pickles are fermenting for 2 days or so, is the lid off? Do you ice your pickles before packing and have you ever packed them cut into spears?

Thanks again and I will look for your post soon.

Rebecca

My reply:

Hi,

As mentioned, I bought a small plastic pail with lid at the supermarket in the Produce section, that was pre filled with pickling cukes (who knows how long they sat there), the spice and salt. Use Pickling as its 100% pure and is the correct granule size for the correct amount of weight (not volume) for most pickling recipes. Because I have many big 3 pound empty tubs of "I Can't Believe it Not Butter" spread, I sometimes use these for the pickling vessel. A few years ago, I decided using the Ball half gallon jars. One I have, is VERY old and has a regular mouth opening, its not made anymore, for many years now. They are much taller and narrower compared to a wide open pail. My grandmother had a really really old gallon sized glass pickle relish jar. After the metal lid finally rusted out from many years of reuse every summer, she would place waxed paper on the opening and hold it in place with a rubber band. Because he had really severe rheumatoid arthritis, and lost her thumb joints to it, she always needed a bit of help getting that rubber band slid on. Made a little wire holder to stretch the band easier and then place over the jars' waxed paper and 'snap' it was fixed. Some people have 'iced' cukes to try and get crispness back to old ones sitting in the fridge several days. Quite honestly, I don't believe the icing helps much, but you can try. Because these are served cold, they are quite crisp right out of the brine. You will see quite a change in green color, from that bright green of fresh to a bit deeper yellowish green once they are starting to ferment a day or so. Take a look at a jar of refrigerated Claussen pickles some time. That color change the easiest way to know which cuke is the oldest one in the brine, the longest. After 3 days of maturing, they all start that color change, and the dill also darkens. The brine will be clear to slightly cloudy, and will get cloudy after several months, but that's normal. Make sure you wash the cukes well beforehand. Rub off those tiny pointed spines in the cukes' surface, under cold water. You can cut into spears if you like, but I usually cut to spears at serving time. They can soften a bit faster if cut into spears prior to filling the container with brine, and by 6 months have a bit more soft translucent appearance. I know mine are still crisp, even when I cut the pickles into spears 6 months later and I still see some small white areas that have not got the full dose of brine inside.

Ken,
I have 6 of those old regular mouth 1/2 gallon jars.
My daughter works in the food lab at Oregon State Univ. and her boss was going to throw them out!!!

Luckily, I trained her right.....she KNEW better!!!
She saved them for me.

Good kid!

I've been wondering just what I wanted to use them for...now I know. Pickles and Kraut!!

Deanna

OH yeah, lucky you!! They will last a lifetime!. They don't recommend regular canning with the half gallon jars, but for storage in the fridge they are easier to manage than a bigger gallon. I use the plastic covers over a metal lid when I store the pickles in the fridge. The single jar I have has actually been packed (my special room temp vacuum process) with pickled pepproncini, from two years ago, and its in my celler, just waiting for a big feast of mildly hot green pickled pepperoncini eaters.

Ken... I've figured out which Ball Dill Pickle mixes don't have sugar but need some help on Mrs Wages. Do you use the Quick Process or the Refrigerator mix for your half sours?

Quick process or refrigerator are nearly the same terminology. Your basicaly make a 'quick process' pickle that is refrigerated The use of part of either, or both mixes is just fine. As mentioned, they just give a much bolder dill flavor that I like to be the dominent taste. Ignore any instructions on the boxes, as they can get even more confusing. Keep in mind that your using these mixes as opposed to the pickling salt, which if used as well, would give way too much salt to the brine. The measurment mentioned originally may not be correct, as it refers to salt and water only. Just try and taste test to get to that 'sweet spot' I wrote about.

Today, while watering outside, I finally got a whiff of all my dill thats out there. One dill seed head is bigger than a dinner plate in diameter. First time in a long time I was able to enjoy that smell from a distance. I see tiny cukes now with the blosoms still attached. It will be very soon when they are mature. My garden lettuce needs picking now. Pulled up all the weeds 'choking' my poor onions. Soaked the soil there too, as well as adding a lot of onion fertilizer. The onions are the Copra type, seen in most stores as the regular yellow onion. I lost about 70% of them due to all the weeds and their removal. But out of 500 sets, I still have decent amount left. I just hope they start to get bigger soon. With this, you can cut several cloves of garlic into bigger pieces and pack several cloves in the jars as well as the fresh dill weed, and possible whole dill seed heads. Once the jars is filled with cukes, dill, and tasted brine, just leave it on a kitchen counter loosly covered. The next day, fish out a cut up piece of cuke and tatse it. You should get a decent crunch and a light dill flavor. If you want it to get more taste, let it rest 2 days, and taste test again. Once you have reached the right flavor and such, you can either stop the partial fermentation, or let it continue a bit longer if you like. Just keep in mind that the dash of vinegar is added at the point in time when these get placed in the fridge with a cover on the jar. The dash of vinegar tends to halt any further fermenting. Love these, and I hope to be doing at least 2 half gallon jars soon.

After that Harpin spray I did a few days ago, my peppers and tomato plants are now loaded with flowers. The sparrows are around there too, looking for some nice juicy bugs. Their favorite is the cabbage loopers in the broccli. Have not seen a single one yet! The two cucumber beetle sticky traps and attached scent lures have at east 20 of the beetles stuck to each side of the stickys since they were recently put out. I may have to replace the sticky traps in a few more weeks.