Grandma's Virginia Chunk Pickles

I'm not much into pickles. Not because I don't like them, but rather because I have been spoiled by them. My grandmother and great grandmother both spent their adult lives making a special kind of cucumber pickle called a Virginia Chunk. A Virginia Chunk is a sweet pickle, with a spicy-sour kick at the end that will knock your socks off! There's nothing quite like a home grilled cheeseburger with that sweet/spicy zest of a Virginia Chunk.

Now that my grandmother has retired from pickle making, the duty of preserving this particular family tradition has been passed on to me, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

Ingredients

3-4 lbs of pickling cucumbers
2 c. salt (regular iodized salt is fine)
4 gallons water (divided)
3 tbl alum (divided)
6 c. vinegar
8 c. sugar (divided)
1/3 c. (one jar) pickling spice
1 tbl celery seed

Make a brine of 2 c. salt and one gallon of water. Boil and pour over cucumbers that have been washed, and chunked (see note below) and placed in a large heatproof, non-reactive container (see below). Place a loose fitting lid on top of the container that will keep pickles submerged in the brine, but allow the aerobic processes of pickling to reach the open air (more notes below!). Let stand one week. In hot weather, skim daily. Otherwise skim as needed.

Drain cucumbers. For each of the next three mornings, make a boiling hot solution of one gallon water and one tablespoon powdered alum. Pour over cucumbers. On the fourth morning, drain cukes from alum solution and rinse well. Make a solution of 6 c. vinegar, 5 c. sugar, 1/3 c. pickling spice, and 1 tbl celery seed. Heat to boiling and pour over cucumbers.

On the fifth morning, drain liquid off of cukes into a large pan and add 2 c. sugar. Heat to boiling and pour over pickles.

On the sixth morning, drain pickles into a saucepan and add 1 c. sugar. Heat to boiling. Pack pickles into hot canning jars. Pour hot pickle juice over pickles. Process jars.

A Few Notes About Making Virginia Chunk Pickles

Pickling Cucumbers

A pickling cucumber is much smaller than a slicing or English cucumber. It is usually 3-4 inches in length and, at least around here, doesn't appear in regular supermarkets very often. Maybe for a week or so at the very height of the season. To get pickling cukes, I have resorted to growing my own. When I need more, I can usually find them at my local Asian megamarket, believe it or not. Sometimes I have seen them at farmers markets. In any case, using a pickling cucumber will give you a much better quality product than a slicing or English cuke.

Timing

Removing stems before pickling is essential.

This pickle takes just under two weeks (one week and six days) to make from start to end. However most days require less than ten minutes of work. The major efforts occur, predictably, on the first and last days of the process. On the first day, cucumbers must be thoroughly washed and chunked, including the removal of any remaining stems, which contain an enzyme that can soften pickles. If the pickles were purchased, any sealing wax must also be scrubbed from the skin.

The last day of pickling is the most intensive, including canning. When starting your pickles, make sure that you will have time to can two weeks later. Although there is some leeway in the timing of each step, you don't want to delay any step for more than a day.

Chunking

What is a chunked pickle? There are several different forms for cucumber pickles, whole dills, spears, hamburger slices, etc. A chunk is one of the least well known forms. A chunk is a cucumber cut horizontally into 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch, well... chunks! I have often been tempted to try to slice these into hamburger slices or even spears, but haven't had the guts to try it yet. Mostly because if it didn't work, I wouldn't have any of these pickles, and that, my friends, would be a tragedy! So I stick with the chunk form and slice them a bit thinner when I am ready to put them on my hamburger. But if any of you is brave enough to try another form, do let me know how it turns out!

Pickle Crocks and Pickling Containers

One of the great lamentations of my life is that I do not own a true, honest to goodness pickle crock. I sometimes lay awake at night dreaming of that perfect pickle crock - a ceramic vessel, roughly 1-2 gallons of capacity, with a wide mouth. And on those nights when I'm *really* dreaming, I dream of an accompanying pickle crock lid - one that doesn't appear to fit the crock at all, unless it's full of pickles and pickle brine, and then it sits, casually, on top of the pickles, submerging the cucumbers in the brine, but allowing air to get at them and facilitate the pickling process.

As it is, however, pickling crocks, due in large part to their extreme priciness, remain a dream and I am forced to use other containers for my pickle making enterprises. In years past, I have used a new plastic wastebasket for a container, as they are usually roughly the correct size. The trick with these is using one that you trust to be able to handle the heat of the boiling brines, without disintegrating the plastic. A container made of food grade plastic should suffice. Glass (Pyrex) or ceramic containers are preferred, simply because they can handle the heat and will not react with the acids involved in pickling. Whatever the container, it must have some kind of loose fitting lid that will submerge the pickles and keep them in the brine, but still allow oxygen to get to the fluid, as this kind of pickling is an aerobic process. I usually use a plate to submerge the pickles, but any lid used must of course be non-reactive.

Pickling Spice and Alum

The first time my grandmother told me about these ingredients, I silently mused, "Where on earth am I going to get those?" I'm glad I resisted asking her because I would have felt stupid when she told me. They are, oddly enough, at the grocery store. In with the spices. Really. Right there. Salt. Pepper. Cinnamon. Paprika. Pickling Spices. Labeled just like that. And alum isn't too far away. And, conveniently, the McCormick bottle of pickling spices is roughly 1/3 c.

Who knew? Evidently, my grandmother.

 

Canning

I'm not going to say too much about canning, because there are several great canning tutorials out there. I will say, however that I usually get about 6-8 pints of pickles from this recipe. Also, if there is any liquid leftover after packing pickles - can the liquid and keep it, just in case you need it in future years. Likewise, I keep a jar of liquid leftover from the year's consumed pickles in the refrigerator and add it to the boiling pickling juice on the last day, right before packing the pickles, just to ensure I have enough fluid in which to pack my pickles. If however, you end up with too little fluid, just keep the leftover pickles in the refrigerator and use them first. Heck -  they taste so good, sometimes I just put them on a plate and have them for dinner!

Happy Pickling!