hope you've found it by now, but you might try Gardenweb's Cooking Forum on "the other side" of the site; At the top of this page, move your cursor to "Forums" on the dark green line, & click "Home Forums" on the drop-down menu. Best luck!

Pickle Crisp has no salt, nor does it affect or increase the taste of salt. It could be that the salt type you used was incorrect. Pickling salt is what is usually called for in most recipes, and if another type is used, its volume can change. For instance, if a recipe called for Kosher salt, and you used pickling salt, the volume (a cup) would actually be very different and would be much more if the finer grained pickling salt were used. When making pickle brines its always important to TASTE a brine, before committing it to a canned pickle. Simply following a recipe isn't going to give as much success or reliabilty unless there is tasting of the item as well. Brines do tend to be salty at first, only because they are made for replacing some of the excess water found in the cucumbers or other vegetables. If you have just made these pickles and are tasting them right after they are canned, you may want to give them a couple of weeks to equalize the flavor, so it can penetrate into the cukes. On many occaisons, I make a 7 quart batch of pickles and will use a pickle mix. When mixing the brine, I taste it, and if I find that its too salty, I will dilute it with vinegar or water. But that step isn't necessary, if you add the salt, or mix in small amounts, first, let it dissolve, taste, and adjust if necessary. Even commercially made pickles have people tasting a brine before its put into jars. Hopefully, after a few weeks, yours may become more palatable.

Subject was discussed numerous time. If you want odd flavors in your salt brines, then use table salt, which has silicon dioxide and other moisture preventers.. Obviously its not a suitable substitute for canning salt. Even for that Kosher salt is mostly pure, but measures very differently due to its granule size being much larger. Pickling salt is available from many sources fairly cheap.

I would prefer more vinegar - double it. Granted the ratio of water to vinegar is a little better than the 50/50 minimum allowed but it doesn't take into account all the water in the cukes themselves plus the onions. I would also cook the seasoned brine first rather than just using it raw. That way the brine has less of a chance of turning cloudy on you and they would keep longer in the fridge - couple of weeks. Dave