MiniMe said:
Thanks Jim,
I make bread & butter pickles, but have never used the same liquid for beets. Can your wife pm me or post the recipe for the liquid she makes for her pickles. Thanks again.
Hi,
Name is Jaye (wife of Butch), thought I would pass along the syrup recipe. As follows:
10 lbs of sugar
2 qts of cider vinegar
spice bag to include: 1 stick of cinnamon, 2 Tablespoons whole cloves, 2 Tablespoons celery seeds.
The spice bag can be one just for canning pickles (local hardware store) or cheese cloth folded to 2-3 layers and tied together with a rubber band.
Bring vinegar and sugar to a SLOW boil and throw in the spice bag in the pot. Once it is to a rolling boil, boil for 10 minutes. Let syrup cool (even over night if possible) and bring to boil again and boil for 10 minutes. This process is to let the spice bag marinate thoroughly.
At this point, have your jars filled with your beets and pour syrup over to cover. Quickly put on your lids and let seal. The syrup is hot enough that the jars will seal. I do not hot water bath because they are made of mostly vinegar. The old timers use to put them in crocks and never worried about going bad.
This syrup is from my grandmother pickle recipes that she used. If you want to know how to process the cucumbers, let me know. They call them million dollar pickles because of how long it takes to process the cucumbers (14 days).
One more note to the wise... when bringing your syrup to a boil, start with low heat to give time for the sugar to dissolve. If you boil to quickly, the vinegar causes a huge eruption and is the worse mess to clean up. If it does boil over, move your pot to another burner very quickly. Do not finish your boiling process on the same burner as the spilled syrup will bake onto your stove and pot. Just ask me how I know......!
Let us know if you try this and how it works.
Jaye
