Boiling brine is only used to fill the jars usually. Its not meant for the fermenataion process. If they are too big, it could have caused the problem you describe. Also, because a few cukes can be bitter when pickled (you can never tell by color, size, etc), the only way to really know is to taste one before its pickled or fermented. Gasses do build up inside a bigger cuke, especially if its got a hollow center with a seed cavity that is open at the middle. Another thing is to always cut off the tips at BOTH ends before you soak in brines. Doing so, ensures that all of the insides are going to get brined. Besides that, the tips (usually the stem end) can be very bitter to begin with. This is the main reason you cannot tell of the whole cuke is bitter, as some can be that way all the way out to the blossom end, while others may only be bitter very close to the stem. I have forgoten the name or chemical involved, but its whats in every cuke, no matter the type, its just tat a few will inherit this bitter tatse all the way through it. Suggest that you remove the biggest cukes, and let the rest stay in for the recommended amount of time. If there is debris in the brine, then you may waht to halt the fermentation and allow it to go to completion early.

Not hornworms I think, I know those on my tomato plants. The little bright green caterpillars that seem to love all plants in the family with cucumbers but especially cucumber plants. I find the really tiny caterpillars in and under new leaves. They eat leaves and then they will eat into the cucumber fruits as well. You might try bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), brand name products with it I think are Thuricide or Dipel dust. Pretty safe for people/pets/good bugs etc. Just bad for any caterpillar that eats some of it. They get a bad belly ach, quit eating and eventually die. Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx

reba, I'd feel safe with a USDA recipe from that recently. That full cup of oil is cut with THREE cups of strong acid. I think the magic Ellie works is simply that she worked on developing the recipes and had some recources to TEST them while doing so. The reason for caution about untested recipes isn't that they're known to cause illness, but that they haven't been demonstrated scientifcally to be 100% safe. The bar most home canners want for safety is a 100% guarantee that there won't be a food safety problem if they follow the recipes. (Botulism is such a horribly serious condition that few people want even the teeniest chance of contracting it---after all, home canning is associated with fun, health, and generous gifting.) It's comapratively easy to devise a safe recipe with nothing but fruit, sugar, and acid ingredients. Most combinations of those are going to test perfectly fine on the first try. But combinations involving low-acid ingredients, oil, and thickeners, while not necessarily always UNsafe, presumably often need more tries to find a combo that is both tasty and proven to be completely risk-free. There just aren't a lot of resources committed to developing and testing new canning recipes, presumably because the canning lobby is pretty small and not exactly wealthy and politically powerful. So other than the company that sells canning products, which puts out a few new recipes a year, and the occasional cash-strapped extension office, there aren't a lot of places testing recipes, TRYING to find safe ways of making stuff some of us want to make, like low-sugar or low-acid or fat-involving items. That's why I love Auntie Ellie. She had a cable show in Canada for a while; it was called PUT A LID ON IT (her book is a combination of two earlier books tied to the show and called PUT A LID ON IT 1 and 2), and many of the recipes apparently were created for the show. Presumably the advertising revenue is where the money came from for the testing, and there seems to have been some cooperation with Health Canada, as they are noted as having approved her method for making flavoured oils as a safe one. Clearly what we need is a new canning tv show! Ideally, a U.S. prime-time reality show---THINK of the $$ they would have for recipe development! Way more than some measly Canadian cable show. I foresee a new career for our Annie as celebrity host! ;-) Zabby

Sounds like tree sap if it's sweet smelling. If it were a bacterial ooze it would smell rather foul. Possible you may have some type of borer or other critter attacking the tree which caused a wound allowing sap to flow. Another possibility could be Oak Wilt (a vascular disease)...the fungus produces a sweet smelling sap that attracts sap-feeding beetles and other bugs, squirrels, etc. Then these beetles/creatures pass the infection on to healthy trees to feed on sap from un-infected wounds. The disease does spread in Nebraska. You can google for more info on Oak Wilt. But here is one article. Oak wilt is discussed under the last main heading. Vera Here is a link that might be useful: American Forests