I make at least twelve quarts of these Kosher-Style Dill Pickles every year – slices for sandwiches, and spears for noshing. Kosher-Style Dill Pickles two ways!
Kosher-Style Dill Pickles
Servings: 3 quarts
Ingredients
PICKLES
- 4 pounds medium cucumbers
BRINE
- 2 T sugar
- 1/4 cup canning salt
- 3 cups vinegar (half white vinegar and half apple cider vinegar)
- 4 cups water
ADDITIONAL FLAVOR, PER QUART JAR
- 1 t dried dill (and/or a dill seed head)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 hot red pepper
- 1/2 t mustard seed
OTHER
- 1/4 t Pickle Fresh
Instructions
- Sterilize your jars – Fill your water bath, and add the empty jars. Boil for 10 minutes to sterilize the jars. Add your tongs, ladle, and strainer to the boiling water to sterilize as well.
- Prep the cucumbers – Wash each cucumber, trim the ends, slice or cut into spears to fit your jar(s).
- Assemble the flavor elements and Pickle Fresh – Set out 3 ramekins or small bowls. Add the dill, bay leaf, garlic, pepper, mustard seed, and Pickle Fresh to to each of the bowls. Set aside.
- Make the brine – Combine the water, vinegars, salt and sugar in a medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat to dissolve the salt and sugar into the brine.
- Pack the jars – Pour the flavor elements into the bottom of each jar, then pack the cucumbers into the jars. Ladle the brine into jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.
- Process – Process 15 minutes in a boiling water bath, measured from when the water returns to a boil after adding the jars. Let rest for 5 minutes off the heat before removing the jars from the water.