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Publication #FCS8244

Pickled or Non-Fermented Foods: 14-Day Sweet Pickles1

United States Department of Agriculture, Extension Service2
14-Day Sweet Pickles
Can be canned whole, in strips, or in slices
4 lbs of 2- to 5-inch pickling cucumbers
(If packed whole, use cucumbers of uniform size)
3/4 cup canning or pickling salt
(Separated--1/4 cup on each of the 1st, 3rd, and 5th days)
2 tsp celery seed
2 tbsp mixed pickling spices
5-1/2 cups sugar
4 cups vinegar (5 percent)

Yield: About 5 to 9 pints

Procedure: Wash cucumbers. Cut 1/16-inch slice off blossom end and discard, but leave 1/4-inch of stem attached. Place whole cucumbers in suitable 1-gallon container. Add 1/4 cup canning or pickling salt to 2 quarts water and bring to a boil. Pour over cucumbers. Add suitable cover and weight. Place clean towel over container and keep the temperature at about 70 degrees F.

On the third and fifth days, drain salt water and discard. Rinse cucumbers and rescald cover and weight. Return cucumbers to container. Add 1/4 cup salt to 2 quarts fresh water and boil. Pour over cucumbers. Replace cover and weight, and re-cover with clean towel. On the seventh day, drain salt water and discard. Rinse cucumbers and rescald containers, cover, and weight. Slice or strip cucumbers, if desired, and return to container. Place celery seed and pickling spices in small cheesecloth bag. Combine 2 cups sugar and 4 cups vinegar in a saucepan. Add spice bag, bring to a boil and pour pickling solution over cucumbers. Add cover and weight, and re-cover with clean towel.

On each of the next six days, drain syrup and spice bag and save. Add 1/2 cup sugar each day and bring to a boil in a saucepan. Remove cucumbers and rinse. Scald container, cover, and weight daily. Return cucumbers to container, add boiled syrup, cover, weight, and re-cover with towel.

On the 14th day, drain syrup into saucepan. Fill sterile pint jars, for more information see "Jars and Lids," (FCS 8255), or clean quart jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Add 1/2 cup sugar to syrup and bring to boil. Remove spice bag. Pour hot syrup over cucumbers, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process according to the recommendations in Table 1.

Tables

Table 1. 
Table 1. Recommended process time for 14-day Sweet Pickles in a boiling-water canner.
Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack Jar Size 0 - 1,000 ft 1,001 - 6,000 ft Above 6,000 ft
Raw Pints 5 min 10 15
Quarts 10 15 20

*After the process is complete, turn off the heat and remove the canner lid. Wait five minutes before removing jars.

Footnotes

1.

This document is Fact Sheet FCS 8244, one of a series of the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. Publication date: May 2003. Revised: July 2005. Reviewed: August 2008. This document was extracted from the Complete Guide to Home Canning, Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 539, USDA. It was originally published on CD-ROM as part of HE 8152, Guide 6: Preparing and Canning Fermented Foods and Pickled Vegetables. Please visit the EDIS Web site at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu

2.

Reviewed for use in Florida by Amy Simonne, assistant professor, Food Safety and Quality, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville FL 32611.

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. For more information on obtaining other extension publications, contact your county Cooperative Extension service.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A. & M. University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Millie Ferrer-Chancy, Interim Dean.