how to get a crisp homemade pickle
Ditch the prefab pickling spice and make your own. And try a 5 percent salt solution per pound of cucumbers (full recipe below). In addition to reverse-engineering Grandma Minnie's recipe, McClellan offers these tips for getting crisp pickles: 1. Trim the ends off the cucumbers before you pack them into jars. Depending on how well you've washed your cucumbers, there can also be an enzyme in the blossom end of a cucumber that can lead to softening, and nobody wants a soft pickle, she says. 2. Try certain leaves.