Updated October 2026

How to Make Pickles: Refrigerator, Canned and Fermented

Use 5% vinegar, keep the recipe's proportions, and process shelf-stable jars for the USDA-tested time.

A pickle is safe when it is acidic enough to stop botulism, and the recipe decides that. For jars stored in the pantry, use a tested recipe from USDA, the National Center for Home Food Preservation or your state extension service, use vinegar labeled 5% acidity, and do not change the vinegar, water or vegetable amounts. Refrigerator pickles are the easy way in, and the calculator below sizes a brine for them.

Refrigerator pickle brine calculator

Enter your jar size in fluid ounces. The brine is half vinegar, half water, with salt and sugar, and fills about 60% of the jar.

Canned pickles: USDA times

Pickled beets add 5 minutes at 1,001 to 3,000 ft and 10 at 3,001 to 6,000 ft. The brines differ on purpose: dilled beans use equal parts vinegar and water, quick dills use 1½ quarts of vinegar to 2 quarts of water, and beets use twice as much vinegar as water. Each was tested with its vegetable, so never move a brine between recipes or dilute one to make it milder. Add sugar instead.

For cucumber pickles where the recipe allows it, low-temperature pasteurization gives a crisper result: hold the jars in water at 180 to 185°F for 30 minutes, checking with a thermometer the whole time.

Salt and firming agents

Canning or pickling salt is best. Iodized table salt is safe but anti-caking agents cloud the brine, and flake salt measures unevenly. Alum is unnecessary. Food-grade pickling lime does firm cucumbers, but you must drain, rinse and resoak them in fresh water for 1 hour, three times, to remove the excess.

Fermented dill pickles

Per gallon of crock: 4 pounds of 4-inch pickling cucumbers, 1/2 cup salt, 1/4 cup 5% vinegar, 8 cups water, plus dill and spices. Keep the cucumbers under the brine with a weighted plate. Ferment at 70 to 75°F for 3 to 4 weeks (55 to 65°F takes 5 to 6 weeks); above 80°F they soften. Skim scum several times a week. Refrigerated, they keep 4 to 6 months, or can them for 10 minutes (pints) or 15 minutes (quarts) at low elevation.

Crisp pickles start in the garden

Pick cucumbers at 1½ inches for gherkins and about 4 inches for dills, and brine them within 24 hours. Cut 1/16 inch off the blossom end. In most of the country cucumbers peak from July into August; in Florida and the Gulf South you can grow a spring and a fall crop. See our cucumber growing guide.

Storage

Refrigerator pickles keep a few weeks. Canned pickles keep about a year in a cool, dark pantry. Discard any jar with a bulging lid, soft or slimy pickles, an off odor or mold.

Sources we checked (October 2026): USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning (2015) through the National Center for Home Food Preservation: General Information on Pickling, Salts Used in Pickling, Selection of Fresh Cucumbers, Quick Fresh-Pack Dill Pickles, Dilled Beans, Pickled Beets, Dill Pickles (fermented), Low-Temperature Pasteurization Treatment.

Common questions