Deli-Style Pickles
Ingredients for each gallon jar
8-10 cucumbers for pickling (medium size)
1 large handful fresh dill with flower heads (or add 1/4 teaspoon dill seed if flower heads are missing
4-6 large cloves of garlic, flattened
Water
1/2 cup coarse kosher salt or pickling salt
4 tsp. pickling spice (Blue Ribbon, or other)
1-2 large bay leaves
Preparation
Pack each jar with cucumbers, sprinkling salt between each layer.
Add pickling spice, salt, dill (dill heads) and bay leaves.
Fill jar with water but leave two inches of room for brine to form. You may prepare this in large crocks (something non-reactive) and then transfer to glass jars when finished. Weigh cucumbers down to keep submerged and cover.
After 2-3 days, remove scum (if any has formed) and adjust spices. Let ferment 3 more days and check for doneness by cutting off a slice of one cucumber.
Once they are fermented to the right stage (to taste), transfer to a glass jar and refrigerate. Ferment longer (12-20 days) for pungent sour pickles. (They will still ferment in the fridge but not quickly).
Hints and tips
It's important to always spear the pickles with a clean fork so as not to contaminate the brine and spoil the pickles; for the same reason, never use your fingers.
For kosher or garlic dill pickles: no vinegar! That's the key to real deli-style kosher dills. Use fresh crisp cucumbers for best results. Water, coarse kosher salt or pickling salt, garlic, pickling spices and dill combine with cucumbers to produce a brine. The brine is formed when the salt draws acid from the pickles and combines with the other ingredients. 3-5 days gives you half sours, 12-20 days gives full sours. Refrigeration stops the fermentation process. You can taste them while they are fermenting and adjust the spices. There is really no way to hurry them up. Double the recipe as required. Just fill each jar you have until you run out of ingredients.
Some recipes call for boiling the water (about 1 litre / 4 cups) with the salt and pickling spice, then refrigerating until icy cold: an extra step that works but is not necessary. Do NOT use warm water on the cucumbers in any case.
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