DIY Bread-and-Butter Pickles Recipe

[Music] when was the last time you made pickles well if you're like most folks probably never supermarket pickles are convenient but homemade are so much better and they don't have to take weeks to make so dan is here to show us how to make classic bread and butter pickles that come together in only two days right that's right all right we're gonna be here for two days making these no but the hands-on stuff is actually is actually not that bad at all okay we're using two pounds of small kirby pickling cucumbers really good crunch to them the first thing we're going to look at is how you prep them and so we looked at a lot of resources the usda being a big one and the usda recommends to take off this blossom end because there's an enzyme in there that can soften the pickles over time so you want to get rid of that sometimes they don't have the stem on here so it's a little tricky to figure out which is which what we like to do is just take off both sides just to be sure and you don't need to take off a lot 16 of an inch is fine so then we're just going to cut these into quarter inch slices so a nice grip on there take your time it's a good time to practice your knife skills if they're a little thick or too thin it's not the end of the world and we prefer those small curvy cucumbers for a few reasons they're small so they fit into the jars larger cucumbers have bigger seeds those seeds can start to separate away from the flesh of the cucumber and eventually the cucumber itself can fall into pieces as they are being pickled finally fresh is best buy the freshest cucumbers that you can find the fresher they are the firmer their pectin is and firmer cucumbers mean crisper pickles all right so i just got those last few done there we can stop there if we want right we could just do cucumbers i don't want to you don't want to you never want to just stop there so we really like adding other ingredients that provide flavor but then also take up the flavor of the brine and then they're delicious on their own so we're going to start with an onion right here and i'm going to quarter this and then slice it really thin add this to my bowl okay so next up red bell pepper nice flavor good sweetness which works with the sweet brine we're gonna do but also that burst of color in there is nice so i'm just gonna take the top off and the bottom and then slice down the sides we want to leave those seeds and ribs behind and i like taking it off this way as opposed to kind of opening it up and trying to take off so you have all that there and then we're just going to do a little matchsticks on these guys all right so now time to add the salt so salt is really important obviously for flavor but it also is going to draw a lot of moisture out of these vegetables we're using something called canning and pickling salt which is really just pure salt so if you have a kosher salt that is also just pure salt that's fine as well you want to avoid ones that have anti-caking agents in them or iodine anything like that they can make your brine really cloudy instead of clear so you don't get to see those beautiful cucumbers and all that stuff in there so this is two tablespoons of canning and pickling salt and i'm just gonna use my hands just get in there mix it up so this needs to sit in the fridge for about three hours we'll get tons of moisture out and then we're gonna drain that away so if you wouldn't mind i'm gonna wash my hands up you can pop that in that low boy over there sounds good so now we're gonna talk about the jars that we're going to use for this so these are canning jars they're one pint each so we're gonna do four of them we also have our nice large pot over here and our rack in the bottom now the rack is important we're gonna put these jars in here and we don't want them to sit right on the bottom when this comes up to a boil they'll start to wiggle and they can crack so i'm going to fill this up with water and we just want to cover them okay so now we're going to move over to the stove sure you don't need me to get that well if i fall i'm going to need you to pick me up so we're going to bring this up to a simmer over medium-high heat and then we're going to turn it off put the cover on and leave it just to stay warm and you'll notice that we're not sterilizing the jars in this recipe a lot of them do but you only really need to do it if you're processing for less than 10 minutes that's usda guidelines we're going to process for longer than that so we're not worried about it so the canning water came up to a simmer turned off the heat and covered it and we're just gonna let those jars sit and stay nice and warm so now we're gonna turn our focus to the brine we're gonna start with three cups of apple cider vinegar a little more flavor than just regular white distilled and to that we're going to add two cups of granulated white sugar so it looks like a lot trust me there's a lot less than you saw in a lot of recipes we found a lot of recipes were syrupy sweet just way too much sugar we find that's also the case with a lot of store-bought pickles we also have a cup of water if it's straight vinegar it ends up just being too much okay and now for our spices now you can buy pickling blend we really like doing it ourselves we can pick and choose exactly what we want so we've got a tablespoon of yellow mustard seeds this is very classic for bread and butter pickles you also have three quarters of a teaspoon of turmeric now this obviously provides some flavor but it really is all about that color that's key half teaspoon of celery seeds which are really savory ton of flavor in there i love those for pickles and finally a quarter of a teaspoon of ground clove make sure you measure this accurately clove can be really really strong so you only want a quarter of a teaspoon in there so i'm gonna bring this up to a boil over medium high heat then we're gonna cover it put it off to the side heating it up helps to dissolve all that sugar really bloom those spices as well so these have sat for three hours in the fridge we're gonna drain them in this colander over here oh yeah see that that would make some watery pickles so i'm not going to rinse them off the salt that we added we want that to be in there because it's really important for seasoning so i'm just giving them a good shake get that water to drip out i have some paper towels i'm going to go in and just make sure i get any surface moisture off we're going to be really nice and dry and now it is assembly time okay which is the most fun part of pickling i think so we're going to come over here and we're going to grab our jars out now if you have really good pain tolerance you could do this with your hands or you can use the rack that we have in there but i really like using these okay and the spring-loaded ones are awesome they're like spring-loaded you know gardening shears a lot easier on your hands so they open and close and they grab right onto the top of the jar really easily they don't slip off i've seen people try this with tongs yes and it can be really bad i've tried them with tongs a few times yes and it's can catastrophes right well i didn't want to say that the person i saw do it with tongs was you but you just copped to it so you want to do that just drain it out bring it over here we're going to turn them upside down on the towel all right these are nice and dry so we'll flip them over you know i mentioned there's a lot of ways to make sure these are really crispy here's another one so we're actually using something called pickle crisps which is from ball it's just calcium chloride essentially and we're going to put an eighth of a teaspoon in each one we're measuring it into each jar so we know for certain that it has it in there if we were to put in our brine and then maybe not use all of it you don't know exactly how much ends up in there very smart so now it's time to fill them and i was hoping you would help me with it all right pickles here um you can use this funnel or do it without i'll do without i'll do the harder one you do this funnel and we're just going to pack all these vegetables in you don't have to do too firmly all right but you want to be nice and full and we're using these amazing tools we're using the arms exactly yup perfect yeah at this point we don't have to worry about well i mean i don't know what's been on your hands but we don't have to worry about it too much because we are going to go through the processing time we are using very clean hands though we are clean clean hands america yes like this funnel all right so we want to make sure we got a pretty even amount in all of them there so now it's time to add our brine to it so i'm going to just bring this back to a boil real briefly oh it smells so good smells good right it smells like pickles yes and this funnel also comes in a lot of handy when you're adding that brine in so i'm just gonna ladle this over the top what we're doing here is called a raw pack where we have the vegetables that are raw and we're adding hot brine on top a hot pack is when everything is heated together so we're gonna leave a half inch head space in each one if you have too much air in there you don't get a good proper seal and now what we're gonna do is actually run the skewer around in here to dislodge air bubbles so this is all about head space if we don't dislodge it now we think we have a certain level but then as it heats up those bubbles rise to the surface and it totally changes so there's a lot of air bubbles so this one is a little low now that we've gotten that air out of there so i'm going to add it up just to that first ridge on the jar that's a great indicator of about a half inch now these are nice and warm they're packed we're going to wipe the rims nice and clean the next thing are the lids now you want to use new lids every single time you can reuse the rings they're fine but we really count on the seal to hold so you need to use fresh ones every time and that goes right on top and then the rings go on this is where it's really important to pay attention how much force you're using to twist it on we call it fingertip tight really important that you allow enough space just enough space that air can escape during the canning process and that is actually what lowers the pressure inside here so that you form a vacuum and it pops in once you're done with it once you take it out of the hot water so we're going to go on just finger tip tight just like that before we put them in the canter we want to make sure the water is still nice and warm between 120 and 140 degrees so i'm going to use my trusty jar lifter again and we'll add them right back to the pot it's important to have about an inch of water on top of these we're going to bring this up to 185 degrees and we're going to process it for 30 minutes at that temperature that's the whole thing that's the whole thing all right sounds easy yep well how do we can cucumbers without making them mushy the cells inside a cucumber contain pectin which is what gives the pickle structure and keeps it firm and crispy now pectin breaks down above 185 degrees so the traditional canning method makes for mushy pickles instead a low temp hot water bath of a temperature between 180 to 185 degrees is perfect bridgette look what we made i love these they're so beautiful and two days that's it that's all it took two days folks make your own pickles so these have cooled for 24 hours the last step before we actually eat them is to check the seal so they're always going to look good when you have the ring on you got to get rid of the ring and you want to feel around and make sure that it's very tight we really want this to be indented here that means that we formed a successful vacuum pulled it in and it formed a really good seal with this rubber gasket so this is nice and tight we're good to go now i'm just going to use my fingers here to pop it open oh that's a good sound that is a good sound you definitely want to hear that and i'll serve you some pickles make sure you get some red pepper here as well that was crunchy huh and that brine it's not too sweet it's not too sweet that's the biggest thing it stands out right away because you're so used to bread and butter pickles being syrupy candy-like the only thing that would make these better is a giant giant sandwich of pulled pork i knew you're gonna say that i knew i was gonna let you down made the pickles forgot the meat and bread underneath it this almost makes me forget that pork okay how's that all right that's good yeah that's fine redemption so the next time you pick a peck of pickled peppers can them yourself start your bread and butter pickles by tossing sliced kirby cukes with onions peppers and salt to draw excess water the secret to keeping them crisp is a product called pickle crisp then pour a tart sweet but not too sweet brine over the vegetables process the jars and cool 24 hours later it's pickle time so from our test kitchen to your kitchen a quick and easy recipe for the best bread and butter pickles thanks for watching america's test kitchen what do you think well leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later i'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 631,642

Keywords: pickles, homemade pickles, how to make pickles, diy pickles, bread and butter pickles, bread and butter pickles recipe, how to make bread and butter pickles, pickles recipes, kirby cucumbers, pickling, dill, cucumber, diy recipes

Id: XDPsn5CRUtg

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2019