Best Ever Blue Ribbon Dill Pickle Recipe
These deli style dill pickles are crisp and truly the best homemade pickles you can make.
Ingredients
- 15 lbs pickling cucumbers, small
- 7 heads dill flowers
- 7-14 cloves fresh garlic
Brine
- 8 1/2 cups water
- 2 1/4 cups white vinegar, 5% acidity
- 1/2 cups pickling salt
Instructions
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Wash jars with hot, soapy water. Rinse and fill with hot water. Set aside. Fill canning kettle 1/2 full with hottest tap water. Set on burner over high heat and cover with lid. This will help raise the temperature of the water faster. Allow it to come to a boil. Add your clean jars to your canning kettle to allow them to sterilize while you prepare the cucumbers and brine.
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In a medium saucepan, place lids and rings in the pan. Cover with water and bring to a simmer on the stove. In a large saucepan, bring water, vinegar and salt to a boil. Turn off the heat and set aside.
Filling the Jars:
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Working with one jar at a time, dump the water out of the jar. Place a layer of dill at the bottom of each jar, along with one clove of garlic. Then TIGHTLY load the cucumber slices into the jars. Add a few small spriglets of dill on top of the cucumbers with another garlic clove. Pour brine over cucumbers, leaving 1/2" head space. Wipe down your rims before covering with simmered lids and rings. Continue until all of the jars are filled. Tighten only to finger tight, don't over tighten.
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By now, your large canning pot of water should be boiling. Using your jar rack if you have one, place jars into the canner with the water covering the top of the jars. The water will probably stop boiling…that's OK. Keep the heat on high (you may want to put the cover back on the pot) and as soon as you add the jars, immediately start counting for fifteen minutes (the water will probably just start to boil by the end of the 15 minutes). Immediately removed the jars from the water. Cover the jars with a dish towel and allow to cool. Check for a seal when cool.
Recipe Video
Last summer, I made this pickle recipe and throughout the winter, we have been enjoying them. By far, these have turned out the best over many others that I have tried. These have a strong dill flavor to them and if you process them correctly, they will come out crisp, just like what you get at the store.
UPDATE: Summer 2025
It has been over 10 years since I first made this recipe and it is the ONLY dill pickle recipe that I will make with my home-grown cucumbers. I have added a few details as I’ve learned more “tricks” to making these even more successfully!
- Remove 1/4″ of the BLOSSOM end of the cucumber to remove an enzyme that causes your pickles to be soft.
- Use smaller rather than bigger cucumbers when choosing your cucumbers to pickle.
- Slicing cucumbers tend to lead towards softer cucumbers. Choose a pickling cucumber if you can. I prefer Boston Pickling cucumbers when I’m growing my own cucumbers.