I just follow the directions exactly as given and my pickles turn out perfectly every time.

Do not add salt the the cucumbers. Also, do not slice at first as they must be in the water for a few days. If you follow my directions in the recipe they should be marvelous, ha ha !!

I'll second that!!
Gotta make LOTS more this year. I was out (except for one jar I hid) by December.

Thank you for your replies.
Ok, this is the thing- I added no salt, so I'm ok on that. BUT, I did slice the bigger cucs. I also sliced the ones where the stem end was bare. Now what???

They may get water logged if you have cut them. You only cut off 1/16th of an inch on the blossom end, just to get rid of the enzymes.
Time will tell if cutting them has ruined them. You don't want to cut them until the recipe says, when they go into the syrup.

You could pull out the ones you cut, turn them into refrigerator pickles or eat them fresh and go ahead with the rest.

where is the recipe?I have cucumbers coming in faster than I can pick.Sure my grands will eat sweet pickles.
moonphase

Here you go moonphase.

These are really good and they stay crispy! I did mine in spears rather than chunks and it worked just fine.
Notice that you don't cut them until the 5th day when you put the syrup over them.

Sweet pickle chunks (as posted by Linda Lou)

Pour boiling water over 24 pickling cukes for 4 days. On 5th day, drain, add this syrup.Cut cukes in chunks.
8 cups sugar
4 cups cider vinegar 5% acidity
3 1/2 tsp. pickling and canning salt
2 Tbsp. pickling spices, tied in a bag.
Drain and heat syrup for 3 more days.(It is the same batch of syrup, just drain and reheat.I get lots of questions about that part.) On 4th day, pack pickles into jars, seal with lid. Process in water bath canner for 10 minutes.
I love these with tuna!

NOTE!!

You know, I just read through this and it doesn't say, but on the last day, you need to heat the syrup again, pack the pickles into jars, cover with syrup leaving about 1/2" headspace, put on 2-piece lids and process in BWB for 10 minutes.

Oh!.............and good luck having enough to can........after all the sampling that seems to go on, it makes a lot less!! Might want to do a double batch!!

hee hee hee

Deanna

Thank you. I'm going ahead and seeing if this batch will turn out ok.

Now I have cucumber questions... I have many pickle type plants, that I pick in multi sizes and then I have many dual purpose types that I let get a little bigger yet, and some japanese types that I let get full sized (this type seems to pickle good!?!). First of all... is it okay to use bigger cucs? Is it ok to combine a variey of sizes when soaking them?