By guest writer Tracy Falbe

Pickles from the grocery store will not compare to the wonderful pickles you can make yourself and preserve with home canning. Most of my life I detested pickles, but when I learned how to can food, I tried a cucumber pickle recipe…and loved it. You’ll find the recipe below after I explain how pickling works.

The preservation process known as pickling has been around a lot longer than factory-made canning jars. Although pickled foods can last for weeks, even months, you can put them up for a whole year when you combine pickling with home canning. Two more appealing aspects of pickling are it is easy to do and it greatly expands the types of foods you can safely preserve in a boiling water bath canner.

In my previous article that introduced home canning “Good eatin’ from the old timers’ pantry” I explained how the acidity of foods determines which canning method can be safely used. High acid foods can be canned successfully in the boiling water bath and low acid foods require processing in a pressure canner. However, low acid food, which includes most vegetables like cucumbers, corn, okra, beans, peas, zucchini, and peppers, can be pickled and then safely preserved with the simple boiling water bath. With pickling, the acidity of the food is increased by storing it in a pickling solution made with vinegar, which significantly boosts the acidity of the food product. The pickling solution can be enhanced with sugar and spices and thereby create a delicious canned food. Pickling your own foods and canning them really illustrates the high quality food you can obtain with home canning.

Cucumber pickles are a very affordable food to preserve with home canning. Cucumbers generally do not cost much, and, in the summer, home gardeners will happily give you a bag of the prolific vegetables for free. And if you would like to grow some cucumbers, you do not need much space. Four or five plants will bury you in cucumbers. Other vegetables that are great when pickled are beets, zucchini, and okra.

Important to know about pickling:

When making any pickled product, use 5 percent vinegar. This will be specified on the jug’s label. Sometimes you will see 4 percent, but do not use that vinegar for pickling because it is too weak. Also you will need to use pickling salt, which does not have iodine added. The iodine will make the canned goods cloudy. Pickling salt is readily available and it will be labeled as pickling or canning salt.

Sweet bread and butter cucumber pickles canning recipe

10 medium cucumbers

3 medium onions

1/4 cup pickling salt

1 cup 5 percent vinegar

1/2 teaspoon celery seed

1 cup water

1/2 teaspoon mustard seed

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

Slice the cucumbers thinly and slice the onions too. Place the sliced cucumbers and onions into a large bowl. Pour the pickling salt over them and cover with water. Place a large plate on top of the vegetables to push them down into the brine. Allow the cucumbers and onions to stand for at least 2 hours or overnight. I usually prepare the vegetables in the evening and can them in the morning. This is technically known as a short brine method because the vegetables are only soaking for less than a day.

The next step is to drain the cucumbers and onions from the brine. In a stock pot, add the water, vinegar, celery seed, mustard seed, sugar, and turmeric. Bring everything to a boil and add the cucumbers and onions. Boil gently for 10 to 12 minutes until vegetables are tender. As water cooks out of the cucumbers the solution in the pot should increase.

Pack the pickles into sterilized canning jars and cover with the spicy vinegar solution. Leave 1/2 inch of space at the top, wipe clean the jar rims and apply the lids and bands. Process the pint jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove the jars and let them set undisturbed for 24 hours. You will likely hear the jar lids pop within the first few minutes, but don’t touch. The next day, check to make sure the lids have sealed, wipe the jars and lids clean, and store in a cupboard or pantry for up to one year. Label your jars with the date you made them so you will know when they expire.

I have found that depending on how much moisture cooks out of the cucumbers, I sometimes need to boil some extra water to get enough solution in the jars to reach within 1/2 inch of the top. Just add a little boiling water as needed.

If you are entirely new to home canning you can get the directions for sterilizing the jars and processing with a boiling water bath off the box of canning jars and also at my website Canning Local http://canning.falbepublishing.com

By Guest Writer Tracy Falbe
http://canning.falbepublishing.com

Home preservation of food, primarily with home canning, is enjoying a resurgence. People are awakening to the importance of their local food supplies and thinking more about the quality of food on supermarket shelves that can, quite honestly, be from anywhere.

When the growing season is going gangbusters in your area, you can affordably save the bounty of gardens and farms and enjoy the food for up to a year. Instead of buying one little basket of strawberries at the roadside stand, get the whole flat and make jam. For about the same price as buying jam at a store, you will get a superior product that tastes wonderful.

Convincing people of the benefits of home canning is usually not difficult, but the process of preserving food does intimidate people. They worry they won’t do it right and food poison their families. But I can assure you that, as long as you follow the directions, your preserved food will be safe and delicious.

There are two primary methods for canning: A boiling water bath and the pressure canner. All beginners should start with the boiling water bath method. If you never work your way up to using a pressure canner, that’s fine. You can put up many kinds of fruits, jams, relishes, and preserves with just the boiling water method.

What is the difference between the boiling water bath and pressure canning methods?

The difference is the temperature achieved by each process. A boiling water bath can heat food in jars up to the boiling point, 212 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature is sufficient to safely preserve many foods. With the pressure canner, the food in jars can be heated to 240 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. A pressure canner is simply an oversized pressure cooker that can hold canning jars. By containing the steam from boiling water and pressurizing it, temperatures beyond the boiling point can be reached.

How do I know which canning method to use?

The type of food you wish to preserve determines which canning method you use. Foods that are high acid can all be preserved with a boiling water bath. This is because the acidic chemical composition of the food makes it a poor environment for the bacterium Clostridium botulinum to grow. This bacterium is the source of the deadly botulism toxin. With the concern about botulism mostly absent from high acid foods, the temperatures achieved within a boiling water bath are sufficient to destroy other bacteria and mold spores that may be present.

High acid foods are fruits like apples, peaches, berries of all kinds, cherries, pears, apricots, plums, and so forth.

For foods with a low acid or nonacid chemical composition, the Clostridium botulinum bacterium and its toxins can grow and even thrive. Therefore, you must preserve such foods in the higher temperatures of a pressure canner that can destroy botulism toxins.

Low acid foods are fish, poultry, meat, and most vegetables like potatoes, carrots, corn, peas, peppers, cucumbers and so forth.

Although vegetables are low acid and must be preserved in a pressure canner, you can preserve them in a boiling water bath by pickling the food. Pickling involves using a vinegar solution that boosts the acidity of the food. This is why cucumbers and other vegetables can be pickled and canned with a boiling water bath. Pickled products are perfectly safe when processed in a boiling water bath.

What about canning tomatoes?

Tomatoes are a borderline fruit that possess some acidity but are not quite a high acid food. Tomatoes can be canned safely in a boiling water bath with a little vinegar added. I have successfully canned tomatoes in a boiling water bath, and they were fine. However, the pressure canner does a superior job with tomatoes. The vinegar step can be skipped, and the preserved tomatoes come out with better color and nutrition when processed in the pressure canner.

If you are interested in canning, I recommend starting with the boiling water bath. The big kettle and rack can be purchased for roughly $20 at almost any discount store or grocery. Making jam is a great beginner project. The little boxes of powdered fruit pectin available everywhere the canning jars are sold contain many recipes for jams and jellies along with canning directions.

I am a self taught home canner, and I warn you that it is an addictive hobby. The food you preserve will taste so much better than canned goods from the store. My online canning resource is Canning Local found at http://canning.falbepublishing.com