I’ve been pickling this weekend.

It was inarguably silly, but I decided to start with with dill pickles. I knew better: when I bought the first batch of cucumbers the farmer who had grown them told me that I should start pickling with dill pickles. “They’re harder to make than other pickles because you have to heat them.”

I’m going to admit that I never even considered following that man’s advice. I love dill pickles and so does Nick. I’ll also admit that I arrogantly assumed that they couldn’t really be that hard. Thus far this year I’ve attempted two types of jam, two types of preserves, one fruit butter, and numerous variations on pasta sauce and I have been successful at all (with the exception of one very ill-conceived batch of pasta sauce with far too many vegetable thrown in.) So, it was with large amounts of hubris that I went to work on my pickles.

I suppose it could have gone worse, but it was not the perfect first attempt that I had dreamed of. There were certainly no banners proclaiming “World’s Best Pickles,” anywhere. I started off on he wrong foot right away; Marion Cunningham says in The Fannie Farmer Cookbook: Anniversary that the cucumbers have to soak in ice water for eight hours before you can pickle them. Since I was starting this Friday at 5:00 this mean that my first pickling attempt started at midnight. Starting an unfamiliar process at midnight does not put your head in the best place.

Marion’s recipe calls for 50 cucumbers and 3 quarts of pickling liquid, but does not specify the number of jars that you will be filling. I had purchased several flats of 1-quart, wide mouth jars for this operation and after examining both the jars and the cucumbers I figured that I would be able to fit about four pickles into each jar. I halved the number of cucumbers in a moment of conservative inspiration. I thought that if everything worked out well I could do the other 25 pickles later, and if, for some inconceivable reason, things didn’t come out quite perfectly I could tweak the recipe without having ruined all 50 cucumbers. 25 pickles at 4 pickles per jar meant that I would be using about 7 jars.

Despite halving the number of cucumbers I decided to make the full amount of pickling liquid. For one thing, three quarts just didn’t sound like that much when split between 7 jars. For another, when you’re buying vinegar by the gallon and salt by the pound it’s not exactly expensive to throw out a quart of two of leftover pickling liquid. And finally, if my economic soul just couldn’t stand to pour the extra down the drain I could always save it; I had the feeling that boiled water with salt and vinegar in it was not something that would “go bad” any time soon.

At twenty till midnight I started boiling my pickling liquid (1 part cider vinegar to 2 parts water with 3/4 cup of salt thrown in) and sterilizing my jars. While the jars were in the oven I peeled the garlic and trimmed the dill. Then, after twenty minutes I pulled the jars out of the oven, divvied up the flavorings (garlic, mustard seed, and dill) between the jars and began to insert my cucumbers. Enter problem number 1: no matter how I stuffed I could not get four pickles in a jar, I could only fit three. I now had to sterilize another two jars while my pickling liquid boiled away. Twenty minutes later my jars were done and I could put the rest of the cucumbers into jars. I then began to pour the pickling liquid over each batch. Enter problem number 2: despite having halved the number of cucumbers I was still short on pickling liquid! I had only managed to fill 3 jars when I ran out. Now I had to boil up 6 more quarts of liquid while my cukes sat on the stove top half finished, warming.

End result? Wrinkly, un-crisp pickles.

I decided that I needed to learn a little more about the science of pickle making before I tried again. Marion is a wonderful lady, but her recipes are things that you memorize by rote. They give you no hints when it comes to why you’re doing the things that you’re doing and so although I knew that I had gone horribly wrong somewhere in the process I didn’t know which wrong step had been the kicker. For an understanding of the theory I was going to have to turn to Alton Brown and Harold McGee.  Unfortunately, the one Alton Brown book I possess, I’m Just Here for the Food, was mum when it came to pickle making and it didn’t look like his over books were going to be very useful either. McGee was a little better, but still didn’t give me what I needed. On Food and Cooking is still my most valued kitchen reference, but for this mystery I was going to have to turn to the internet.

Fortunately, the University of Minnesota has a great web reference on preserving foods (yet another reason their grad school is in my top four.) From them I learned several things. One is that the acidity level in the vinegar is very important. I don’t know if you’ve noticed while snaking on cucumber slices, but they don’t exactly pack an acid punch. And as we learned in out canning lessons, acid levels are very important in preventing botulism. Apparently vinegars used to be much stonger back in the day than they tend to be today. As a result, the recipe for pickles that your grandmother used to use may not work for you. The University of Minnesota suggests not using a vinegar with less than 5% acidity. Apparently heat is also important. I had begun suspecting after reading several more recipes and noticing that all of them had in common an insistence to keep the cucumbers in ice water and make the pickling solution boiling hot and my not managing either might have had something to do with my sadly winkled and soggy pickles. Based on the fact that the University of Minnesota offers an alternate processing plan that can improve the texture of the pickles that calls for a cooler processing temperature I began to wonder if the final temperature of the pickles might effect the texture as well.

Armed with this knowledge I was prepared to try again. I made two batches this time. Both batches I chilled for 8 hours in a sink full of ice water which I kept replenishing with ice to make sure that they were constantly cold. I got my jars nice and hot and only pulled them out of the oven once my pickling liquid was at a rolling boil. Oh, and I also increased the amount of vinegar in my pickling liquid to three parts vinegar to four parts water.

Half the jars I sealed and then let stand to cool to room temperature. The other half I sealed and them placed directly in the fridge, knowing full well that I was risking cracking the jars.

My results were interesting. The pickles that cooled slowly wrinkled up just like the ones I had tried the first time. The pickles that I had put into the fridge only wrinkled slightly, but remained crisp when bitten. More research will follow, as will (I promise!) the perfect pickles recipe.