Ty’s relatives came down for a visit! Peggy brought her huge pressure cooker canner, and showed me the things that a recipe doesn’t say explicitly. Some may call this wisdom.

This all starts with the large amount ofextra cucumbers we’re getting in. We’ve been saving up. When I went back to Nebraska to visit my family, my mother gave me a bunch of jars, and here’s the secret of the jars: Classico Spaghetti Sauce. I checked it out at the store yesterday, every other jar uses a proprietary lid, but the Classico Sauce uses a regular mason jar/ball lid. Save your jars and give them to a friend or relative!

I also asked my mother for her pickle recipe. She didn’t send me her recipe but found this dill pickle recipe on the internet and said it was close. (She did the same thing with her salsa recipe, but they were no where near the same recipe!)

Before Peggy showed up, I sterilized the jars in the dishwasher, and began cutting up pickles into 4-inch spears and put them in a cold water bath.

Once the spears were ready, Peggy and I went to work stuffing the jars and making the brine.

Peggy showed me how to cover everything with brine, and make sure no cucumber, dill, or garlic stuck up into the air space. She showed me how to clean the ring area, and she let me put the lids and rings on. What I had read on the internet said not to screw them on super tight at that point but she said that she did.

Then we put the jars in the hot water bath. The recipe said to put the jars in the hot water bath for 15 minutes, but here is what that really means:

1. Start with a cool pot and put your jars in. Put a towel in the bottom if you don’t have a rack to keep the jars off of the direct heat.
2. Add water to the pot 1/3 of the way up the jar.
3. Bring to a boil.
4. It’s boiling? Start your 15 minute timer, and turn the heat down to simmer.
5. Remove jars with one of those jar remover tong things. Twist rings tighter when they are cool enough to touch.
6. If you have another batch, go to step 3 and repeat.

So a 15 minute hot water bath is really more like 20-25 minutes, and even more if you are just starting.

Peggy also showed me how to check the lids for a seal and how to turn over the jars for a seal. In the end we put up 19 quarts!

Note the Classico label still on the jar! They are really hard to remove. The last piece of advice Peggy left me with are plastic caps. If you want to return your jars and rings to your favorite jam/pickle maker in good condition, you’ll buy yourself a good plastic lid (or ask them for one!). This keeps the rings from rusting and becoming unusable. Peggy says that sometimes after the lids have set, she’ll remove the ring and put the plastic lid on a jar that she gives someone else if they have returned her jars in the past.