I LOVE Mt. Olive Pickles! In fact, I have become quite obsessed with their little pickle packs for my lunchbox (they come in either dill or sweet and are the teeniest little cornichons). I even wrote the company to thank them for their fine product! Tee hee. I also eat their banana pepper rings by the gallon! ;-)

I don't know that I can help you much with nailing down a copycat recipe. But I do know this: if your hubby likes kosher dills, as do I, you are not going to want much (or any!) in the way of sugar in your recipe. Sugar makes it more like a bread-and-butter or a sweet pickle. And in general, when you see "kosher" dill, it simply means garlic added. I see that Mt. Olive also uses calcium chloride which most commercial picklers do. You might try to find Pickle Crisp to add to yours to retain some of the same crunchy texture.

What I can do is to share my favorite homemade dill pickle recipe with you. It's garlicky and a bit spicy, and I bet your husband would love it, as he and I seem to have similar taste in pickles!

Good luck--Gina

The Blessed Blesi Dill Pickles (Blesi is my friend's grandma's name--this is her heirloom recipe!)

20-25 (4-inch) cukes, blossom end removed, washed and (preferably) soaked overnight in the fridge for crispness

Brine (brought to a boil then kept hot while you pack the jars):
1 cup pickling salt
3 quarts (12 cups) water
1 quart (4 cups) cider vinegar

For each quart jar (packed tightly with cukes, as they will shrink in cooking) add:
1/8 teaspoon powdered/granulated alum
1 clove garlic (or two!)
1 small hot red pepper (or a serrano)
2 heads fresh dill (or 1 tablespoon dill seed)
1 grape leaf, washed and stemmed (place on top after covering the cukes with brine, leaving 1/4 to 1/2-inch headspace)

Once the jars are filled and capped (fingertip tighten only!), process 10 minutes for pints or quarts in a boiling water bath. Store in a cool, dark place, and don't eat them for at least a month to reach full flavor--if you can wait that long!

Here is a link that might be useful: Lindsey's Luscious Dill Pickles

Gina, the "GASP-buying pickles! Oh, the horror, the humanity!" on your blog really made me laugh.

I was thinking sugar because high fructose corn syrup was the 5 ingredient in their pickles.

Thank you for the recipe. I have some grape vines, but most of the leaves look like you shot them with buck shot due to the Japanese beetles. I think I could find enough useable ones though.

I have been looking for pickle crisp around here with no luck so far. If I can find it would I add it to the recipe or soak the cucumbers in water with some pickle crisp first?

Is there anything that can be used in place of the alum? I read somewhere on here that they don't recommend using it anymore.

I'll have to look for the Mt Olive banana pepper rings and give them a try. Neither of us has tried pepper rings. Now you've got me curious about them. If they are as good as their pickles I may have to find a recipe for them too. lol

Some Extension agencies say alum is OK, some don't. Basically their take on it is that Pickle Crisp (calcium chloride) can be used in its stead.

There's no reason to add alum to the jars anyway. Unless you like aluminum in your pickles. Alum works as a crisping agent only during fermentation not with quick pickles.

You can also skip the grape leaves. They do inhibit softening, but removing the blossom end achieves the same thing.

They are attractive in the jar, LOL, but maybe not buckshot ones!

Carol

Alum has no crisping properties. Its use is to enhance the'pucker' which is usually found in sour vinear pickles. Some of the pickle mixes contain alum, but in a very tiny amount.

Sorry, but alum is a firming agent. Like calcium chloride, aluminum salts combine with the pectin in cucumbers to make them resistant to softening.

From Clemson Extension:

"If you choose to use firming agents, alum may be safely used to firm fermented cucumbers, but does not work with quick process pickles."

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Clemson Pickle Basics

humm,

"Ingredients: Cucumbers, water, vinegar, salt, high fructose corn syrup, calcium chloride, 0.1% sodium benzoate (preservative), natural and artifical flavors, polsorbate 80, and fd&c yellow #5."

Corn syrup is the sweetner, can you use that in stead of sugar to sweeten up your other receipe?

ML

Thank you for the info Carol, especially the link. It answered a number of other questions I had.

Kinda disappointed that it didn't recommend using slicing cucumbers for pickles though. For some reason my slicing cucumbers are producing a lot better than the pickling ones.

I am growing some white pickling cucumber that I love the taste of. Do you think I can mix them with green ones. It would make a pretty jar, especially if I could scrounge enough grape leaves.

Penn State's agricultural service (food safety division) says slicing or burpless varieties aren't well-suited for pickling (mainly a quality rather than a safety issue) but that they can be used in bread and butter-type pickle recipes or in relishes so finding the right recipe can make use of at least some of the surplus.

If you want to mix some of the white cucumbers in with the green, you can. It's a pickling cucumber, so sure. Keep in mind that time will change the pickles, so they may be great initially but not hold up so well over time or the delicate flavor may be subsumed by the pickling brine. Only time will tell. In that case the benefit may be principally aesthetic, but there's nothing wrong with trying to make your pickles "pretty."

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Penn State Cucumbers for Pickling

Thanks again Carol for the info and link. I just might try adding a few to some of the jars to see. It might be nice for Christmas if they come out ok.

I might be crazy, but I think the grape leaves add another layer of flavor to the dill pickles as well as being pretty. But as others have said, they are not strictly necessary if you remove the blossom end. And certainly Pickle Crisp could be substituted for the alum.

Good luck--Gina

I wouldn't doubt at all that they add flavor. Cherry leaves are another possibility.

Carol

Gee, the more I learn the less I know. lol

To make a recipe safe by todays standard doesn't it have to have a ratio of 50/50 for the vinegar and water? I wanted to make some of my mother's pickles and I THINK that is what the lady at the extention said.

WOW! You're absolutely right! I just did some reading online, and it says that many of these old grandma-type recipes were developed back in the day when vinegar was much stronger, so they had to be diluted more. But to be safe, brines need to be half water and half (5%) vinegar these days. Mind you, I have been making these pickles for more than a decade using the above recipe with no problems, but I think it would be an excellent idea to amend and update it to two quarts each of water and vinegar.

Thanks so much for the information. I will change the recipe on my website as well. --Gina

Heinz vinegar ss sold in 55 gallon drums and its 20% acetic acid. Most all companies that use distilled vinegar in their products, are using a 20% as its much less cost to transport and can also be used above the standard 5%.

Making things for years with no problem might be OK for you, provided they have the right amounts of ingredients that are now in many canning safe recipes. Many old hand me down recipes called for sealing wax, or inverting jars, and many other things that can possibly go wrong. It only takes a single jar of something that has been made for a lot of year s to also contain a very bad toxin, like botulism. Unfortunately there is little public data provided about botulism, listeria, or even salmonella poisoning, that we can refer to, but it does exist.

Gina, we tried the banana pepper rings from Mt Olive and they were good. The store we go to had a mild and a hot one which do you like. We tried the mild.

That just might end up on the list of things I need to learn how to make.

Thanks for the tip!