6/16 & 17/2021 – We tried this canning process as it is so different maybe it will work. It makes since that 10 minutes in a boiling water bath would cook the cucumbers at least to some extent and they would not be as crisp. So, this warm water bath is worth a try as it is included in the government’s healthy canning recommendations. We made no changes other than in how the spices were included. In general, we did not like them as the flavor was off and not crispy. This was based on trying some on 8/23/2022 so they are older.

Followed the advice from SimplyCanning.com’s website here, here, and here. Much of what is below was extracted from there and she deserves all the credit.

• Recommend canning this dill pickle recipe in pints. Quarts must be processed longer, so they tend to get mushy. 
• On day one, wash your cucumbers and thinly slice off the blossom end. (The blossoms have an enzyme that will make your cucumber pickles soft.) The sooner you do this after picking, the better.

Ingredients

• Called for 8 pounds of 3-4 inch pickling cucumbers but we had 7 pounds of 1″-3″ diameter cukes picked this morning and so cut them into spears and the right length to fill wide mouth pint jars. There were rather large pieces from each end not used in order for the spears to fit in the jars. Note that when we were done the spears filled 7 wide-mount pint jars and luckily that was exactly what the large SS stock pot would hold.
• Brine:
  • 2 gallons water
  • 1¼ cups canning or pickling salt
  • 1½ quarts vinegar (5% acidity)
• Pickling Brine:
  • 2 quarts water plus ½ cup of pickling salt [she called for the salt in the directions although not in her ingredient list] and ¼ cup sugar.
  • 2 Tbsp. whole mixed pickling spice. Below makes ½ cup.
    • 3 Tbsp. mustard seed 
    • 1.5 Tbsp. whole allspice 
    • 3 tsp. coriander seed 
    • 3 whole cloves 
    • 1.5 tsp. ground ginger 
    • 1.5 tsp. red pepper flakes 
    • 1.5 bay leaves, crumbled 
    • 1.5 cinnamon sticks, crushed roughly  
• To add to the filled jars:
  • whole mustard seed 2 tsp per pint jar
  • dill seed 1½ tsp. per pint jar. The alternate was fresh dill (1 to 1½ heads per pint jar).

Directions

Day 1

1. Add 3/4 cup salt dissolved in 2 gallons water. Intended to soak cucumbers in the brine for 12 hours but ended up being about 18 hours as we cleaned the carport slab and west patio before it got too hot outside.
2. Prepared Pickling Spices – See above.

Day 2

1. Combined vinegar, 1/2 cup salt, sugar, and 2 quarts of water. Placed pickling spices in a cheesecloth bag and it was taking far too long to season the large pot of vinegar brine so we dumped the spice out of the bag. Heated to boiling.
2. Drain the brined cucumbers and fill seven wide mouth pint jars while the pickling brine was heating.
3. Add:
   1. 2 tsp. mustard seed per pint
   2. 1½ tsp. dill seed per pint
4. Fill jars with hot pickling brine, clean the rim, and attach the lid and ring. The jars were well packed with cukes and so we had at least 60% of the pickling brine to throw out.
5. The warm water bath pot was boiling at one point and we removed the lid and let it cool to 160 based on readings from the ChefWorks digital thermometer with a probe submerged in the pot.
6. Added the seven pint jars that filled the large SS pot and turned up the fire watching the ChefWorks to not let it overshoot 185°. Once it reached 180 we started the 30 minute timer. Tweaking the dial kept the water temperature between 181 and 184 for 30 minutes. For the final 15 minutes, the dial was at the 30% point in the Simmer range. This sealing method comes from the following.
   1. The following treatment results in a better product texture but must be carefully managed to avoid possible spoilage. Place jars in a canner filled halfway with warm (120º to 140º F) water. Then, add hot water to a level 1 inch above jars. Heat the water enough to maintain 180º to 185º F water temperature for 30 minutes. Check with a candy or jelly thermometer to be certain that the water temperature is at least 180ºF during the entire 30 minutes. Temperatures higher than 185ºF may cause unnecessary softening of pickles. Caution: Use only when recipe indicates. The directions in this item are from NCHFP here. [NCHFP said they extracted it from the “Complete Guide to Home Canning,” Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 539, USDA (Revised 2009).]
7. At the end of 30 minutes, we removed the jars from the bath and let them cool. All the lids “popped”.