# How do they do it?



## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

So when you buy a jar of pickle slices from the grocery store the jar is full pickles.
When I can them, I pack them as tight as I can but when I pull them out of the water bath it looks like I left an inch or 2 empty - I just don't get it, they always turn out this way for me, every time I can them.
(I canned pickles over the holiday weekend)


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

48 views and nobody can tell me how to fill the jar full?
Or do your jars of pickles do the same thing?


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## oneokie (Aug 14, 2009)

Just a guess, but I would say the pickle companies slice, then soak in the brine/ pickling solution before filling the jars.


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## Tobster (Feb 24, 2009)

mnn2501 said:


> 48 views and nobody can tell me how to fill the jar full?
> Or do your jars of pickles do the same thing?


I believe you have stumped the band.


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## hillbillygal (Jan 16, 2008)

Mine float too.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

You're not packing the jars tightly enough. I know, I know, you think you are filling them full, but you can add more.

I find slices (chips) and spears easier to pack tight than whole pickles. With chips, add some to jar, push down, add more, push down, repeat until full. For spears, lay the jar on it's side and stack them in. Look at the individual spears and figure out if you need a long fat one, short skinny one, et al. For whole pickles it's even trickier. I'm using the variety Boston Pickler cucumber this year and I'm liking them. They're a bit slimmer than other varieties I've used. And again it is a matter of individually arranging them in the jars, then adding (stuffing) smaller ones in at the top.

When DH gets home, I'll get some pictures of canned chips, spears and whole pickles just so you know it can be done.


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

"Once you have filled the jar start counting backwards". What grandma meant was fill the jar full, then add 5 more, then add 4 more, then add 3 more....get the drift? Personally, I just fill it full and don't worry about them floating later.


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## judylou (Jun 19, 2009)

> when I pull them out of the water bath it looks like I left an inch or 2 empty


I think you stumped the band because 99% of the time home canned pickles float. It is just their nature and most just accept it. Over time, as they absorb the liquid they sink. 

Commercial pickles are canned in high pressure autoclaves which forces the liquid into the pickles at a much higher pressure. So they don't float. But we can't do that at home.


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## ya-ni-sa_song (Nov 23, 2009)

The only reason I am responding to this is because I watched a show last night on commercially canned pickles (I think it was on Discovery ?). They showed how the canneries overfill the jars with pickle slices and the workers pushed them in with a tamper. Hope that helps


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Here is a picture from 2009 canning. Some float, some don't. The last jar of pickles I pack up for that day's canning always floats.











And some dill chips and B&B pickles from this year


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## Just Cliff (Nov 27, 2008)

I live in NC. Home of Mt Olive Pickle company. Before I moved to my current location I lived about 7 miles from the pickle factories and have seen them in operation. 
They do soak their pickles for a while before canning. What I was surprised about was the force at which those women cramed those pickles in the jars! 
The slices..They used a tool to cram them in. it looked like the end of a small baseball bat. I thought it would damage them but, have never opened a jar of damaged pickle slices. Probably one of the main things is experience. These women put pickles in a jars all day long day in and out during the season and have been doing it for years. They probably stuff more jars in 15 minutes than most of us do in an entire year.
Just my 2 cents.


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## Shawn (Apr 2, 2008)

I watched a guy on Food Tech last night at the Mt Olive plant and watched the ladies packing them down. Every jar is hand packed to ensure it is full The large vats where neat to see how they soak and then brine them outside in the large vats.


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## mollymae (Feb 10, 2010)

Hi MullersLane, we grow Boston Picklers as well. They are by far the best pickling cucumber that we have grown yet. They stay crisp. We also can with 2 grape leaves in each jar. They do float sometimes. Molly


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Here is the wooden device I tamp down my sliced and wedged cucumbers in the jar with. I've had it forever and don't have a clue where I got it. The only thing I use it for is smooshing things into canning jars!!


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## Randy Rooster (Dec 14, 2004)

mollymae said:


> Hi MullersLane, we grow Boston Picklers as well. They are by far the best pickling cucumber that we have grown yet. They stay crisp. We also can with 2 grape leaves in each jar. They do float sometimes. Molly


My grandmother always put grape leaves in her dill pickles - what are the grape leaves for?


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

Grape leaves are supposed to help keep them crisp.


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

MullersLaneFarm said:


> Here is a picture from 2009 canning. Some float, some don't. The last jar of pickles I pack up for that day's canning always floats.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Y'all eat a _*LOT*_ of pickles!!


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

LOL! And for every jar you see, there is another one behind it.

It's not just us eating the pickles ... I have a niece and father of s-i-l that love pickles. Every year for Christmas, they each get a case of pickles and I get a case of empty jars from the year before! Plus, we have two kids on their own that are pickle eaters, so they each get pickles too. That's 48 quarts right there ...


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