UPDATE - ICE CREAM PAIL PICKLES

The cucumbers are plentiful in the garden this year.  It helps that the DH waters them, they grow up on a kind of ladder cages and we planted enough to counter any plants that might not survive during the early stages of growing.  A small challenge that is encountered is the DOG.  He likes to pull cucumbers off the plants, chomp on them and leave half eaten cucumbers on the lawn.  So it does require some vigilance at times to ensure he is not sampling the cucumbers.

I decided to tweak the recipe that I posted a few years ago for ice cream pail pickles.  I made the same recipe with a few adjustments.  I put the sliced cucumbers in a large mixing bowl.  I used a mandoline to thinly slice them.  I heated up the sugar, vinegars, salt and spices in a medium size pot to a boil and then let simmer for 10 minutes to ensure that the sugar had dissolved.  I think dissolving the sugar is important and making a non heated mixture doesn't ensure that the sugar is really dissolved.  I then poured the liquid over the cucumbers sitting in the mixing bowl.  You may think you don't have enough liquid but the cucumbers have their own juices and the volume of liquid does increase.

Instead of putting the cucumbers and liquid into a large ice cream pail and then placing in the fridge, I decided to use large canning jars instead.  I ensured that the jars and lids were clean but I didn't sterilize the jars in the oven.  There was enough made to fill four large jars.  It is easier to store and use the pickles in a jar than a large ice cream pail.  In the past I would be transferring the pickles from the ice cream pail that is kept in a fridge in the basement to a canning jar for storage and use in the kitchen fridge.  Now I cut out one step and made serving the pickles easier.   It will be a few days before I sample the first jar.