Slicers make mushy pickles. Honest.

Agree. Very poor quality in both texture and also give a diluted taste since they contain so much more water.

You'll find many discussions about this over on the Harvest forum here. It is the canning and pickling forum at GW. Harvest forum is direct linked for you near the top of this forum's front page.

Dave

However, if you pick them early/small, they can make pretty good gherkins. I've thrown away a couple of quarts of larger spears that I pickled last year, but the gherkins were all eaten... Just my 2 cents.

I have often made batches with slicing cucumbers that are young and firm. They are especially well suited to sweet pickle chunks, or thinly sliced as bread and butters. Do go to the trouble to soaking the cut cukes in cold salt water for at least 4 hours to help firm them up.

I completely disagree that slicing or burpless varieties make poor pickles. I think they make great pickles. In the middle east, they use the Armenian type to make pickles, and those work fine, too. When very young, there isn't much difference. The trick in doing larger ones is to match the use to the size -- while they might not make firm, crunchy dills, they are fine to make something like a copper pickle or a bread and butter.

As with all things, taste is subjective, and your mileage may vary.

Not sure what you mean by slicing cukes.....you can slice any kind, can't you? If you are talking Burpless, that is different. I use my Burpless for the refrigertor pickles all the time and they are excellent. Your other varites that are not burpless should make excellent pickles. I don't make other types of pickles any more but don't know why the burpless would not work.

I prefer picklers for all uses.

Jim

Straight 8's make an awesome "lime" pickle. Let them grow extra large, split in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Cut them into chunks and you are ready for the lime bath. It's a long process but well worth it. It's like putting a Pop Rock in your mouth.

I prefer picklers for "dill" and "bread and butter"

Ken

With the Armenian cukes, is it better to do a sliced pickle, whole or does it matter? They seem to be the only kind I can get to produce in AZ, but I've never planted enough for pickles. I may just try that, if fall cucumbers with hybrid varieties doesn't work.

I've never seen a difference between slicing and pickling type cucumbers. Pickling ones often don't get as large as I would like, then suddenly they are too large and fat and seedy. Slicing types get too big on me very fast. However, if I get them picked while small enough to fit in the quart jars, they make just as good a dill pickle as a pickling type.

I've also found them interchangeable for bread and butter pickles. These involve soaking the pickles in salt and ice water to help draw the moisture out, but it works the same whether you use slicers or picklers.