I wish I had seen this thread earlier. I asked a similar question here at GW my first year gardening and (I think it was Linda Lou, but can't remember for certain now) that suggested that I keep my cucumbers in an ice-water bath in the fridge for up to a week. (My personal record is 2 week hee hee). Since cucumbers are about 80% water no matter how you store them they will shrivel up if you don't store them IN water. BEGIN AT THE SINK. I start by placing my cake cooling rack across the sink as a "wire-shelf" because not only will you have spillage, in this case you actually WANT spillage. Using a large Tupperware (or similar) container with a tight fitting (sealable) lid, place your cucumbers in the bowl and cover with ice. Fill just to overflowing with water. When you put the lid on, instead of "burping" air you will want to "burp" a little water out to ensure there is no air at all and store in the coldest part of your refrigerator. Add ice daily (or as needed, I have had ice last a couple of days) until your ready to pickle. This is now standard storage practice for pickling cukes in my house every year until I have enough ready to can. :) Best Wishes Amino-X

Penn State's agricultural service (food safety division) says slicing or burpless varieties aren't well-suited for pickling (mainly a quality rather than a safety issue) but that they can be used in bread and butter-type pickle recipes or in relishes so finding the right recipe can make use of at least some of the surplus. If you want to mix some of the white cucumbers in with the green, you can. It's a pickling cucumber, so sure. Keep in mind that time will change the pickles, so they may be great initially but not hold up so well over time or the delicate flavor may be subsumed by the pickling brine. Only time will tell. In that case the benefit may be principally aesthetic, but there's nothing wrong with trying to make your pickles "pretty." Carol Here is a link that might be useful: Penn State Cucumbers for Pickling

The USDA standards are established principally for the home food preserver. Many recipes are not USDA-approved but are still tested and safe. Lots of labs have that capacity. For example, Oregon State has a small entrepreneurship program which supports new purveyors of small-yield bottled food products and offers lab facilities for the testing to assure products are safe for sale. However, they would still have to be safe when processed and meet FDA plus any state regulations. Basically it comes down to the credentials of the person(s) who wrote the book and what they have done to assure food safety according to the criteria Dave indicated. One of the problems I have with many recipes/books is that the author(s) may have credentials but not necessarily credentials appropriate to home food processing. So Rick Fields, for example, does sell commercial pickles and relishes. However, he has available to him processing equipment not available to the average home preserver. Without his assurance of specific testing and safety in the home environment who knows how suitable the recipe is? I might add that in the home environment developers of canning recipes need to be sure they fall within a certain margin of error because there's more individual variation when you have many cooks using different product. In a commercial environment there's much more consistency. So Beverly Alfeld, for example, in her pickling book never goes above 4.3 pH, even though the limit for higher-acid BWB is 4.6 pH. She believes that leeway is important. Basically, I operate with a do not assume stance. My default position with any doubtful recipe is it isn't safe without very specific assurances, not merely the generic statement emailed by Williams-Sonoma. Carol

Is the above mentioned recipe the one posted on May 25? My mom and dad have fond memories of their grandmothers making pickles on the farm in an old 5 lb.crock. We recently got one for Mom and she would love to make them. Could you please post the recipe? Thanks!