I'm looking for a bare-bones dill pickle brine recipe (for safe canning, and long-term storage—not for refrigerator pickles). When I look online, I see all these really fancy recipes that try to jazz things up, but I don't see any basic recipes. How do you make basic dill pickle brine? I know I need to use water, vinegar, salt and dill, but I don't know the proportions. I would prefer not to use alum, if at all possible.
The brine will be for use with cucumbers, peppers, squash, okra and other things.
Best Answer
Essentially, food pathogens cannot grow below 4.0 pH and vinegar is significantly more acidic that that. If you go here and scroll down a bit, there is a good, succinct explanation. They use brines of 38 and 44 percent vinegar "for taste and safety". With this basic information, it would be easy to create brines that are safe and suite your taste. You really don't need salt, sugar, spices or herbs for safety for vinegar pickles (though you do need salt for lacto-fermented pickles). The acidity alone will do it. Of course, you probably want your pickles to taste good, so those other ingredients will be necessary. I should also add, that the site I linked to adds a cook step. This makes the pickles safe immediately after cooking. Without a cook step, the pickles will become safe over time, as the vinegar permeates the product, but may not be safe immediately. It seems that the addition of a low temperature cook step is an interesting innovation that improves safety and the ability to maintain a crunchy product.