Blue Ribbon Amish Dill Pickles

Ingredients

Pickling cucumbers
Fresh dill heads
Garlic cloves

2 cups vinegar
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups water
2 tsp. pickling salt

Preparations

Scrub and slice your pickling cucumbers.

Put one clove of garlic in the bottom of each jar, followed by a layer of pickles, a head of fresh dill, more pickles, and a garlic clove on top. Fill up to the neck of the jar. Pack the pickles tightly because they will shrink down as they cook.

Brine

Combine vinegar, sugar, water and pickling salt and bring to a boil. Remove from heat as soon as it starts to boil and pour over the pickles in the jars.

Wipe the rims of the jars and place a lid and a ring over the mouths and hand-tighten until a slight resistance is felt. Do not over-tighten!

Place the jars in the canner rack and slowly lower into the water bath. Make sure the jars are covered by 1-2 inches of water.

Process in a water bath canner for 15 minutes. For more crunchy pickles, lower processing time to 10-12 minutes for quarts. Bare minimum, is 10 minutes, for quarts, by code! (Don’t overcook because you want these pickles to stay nice and crunchy!)

This recipe yields delicious, sweet-dill pickles. If you like less sweetness, cut the sugar back by one cup. (The original recipe is by no means a straight sweet pickle, but definitely a sweeter dill.) We love them both ways!

Refrigerate any jars that don’t seal after they have been out for a while. They will be okay but will not be shelf-stable.

Enjoy!

Yield: 4 Quarts

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