I adapted my altered cold packed sweet pickle recipe (https://lisamays.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/sweet-pickles-revamped-a-more-user-friendly-recipe/) for my nephew who fell in love with Wickles. They are a deliciously hot sweet pickle made just south of here in Alabama. After a bit of tinkering to get the heat where he liked it, we settled on this recipe. These hot pickles have been a great hit with everyone who has tried them. Don’t let all the steps scare you. It’s a fairly easy recipe and very much worth the effort. Please read the entire recipe through before beginning.
Recipe~
WARNING: Ghost peppers are the hottest peppers known the mankind with a scoville rating of around 1 million. It’s 400 times hotter than tabasco sauce. Treating ghost peppers lightly can result in injury. Wear gloves and do not get pepper or its juice anywhere near your face. Treat it like it’s radioactive. Treat it like it’s a scorpion. Treat it like it’s a radioactive scorpion. Be safe.
We have worked this recipe every time in an 5 gallon butter churn crock. It’s size is ideal.
1/2 bushel fresh pickling cucumbers (approximately 4 inches long), cut into 1/4-inch slices
Water
3 cups pickling salt
1- 1.9 oz container alum
2 gallons cider vinegar
1- 1.5 oz container pickling spices
2 fresh heads of dill seeds
6 jalapenos, split lengthwise
25 cayenne peppers, split lengthwise
1 ghost pepper, split lenthwise and placed in cheesecloth wrap
2 heads garlic, sliced
15-20 lb. sugar
DAY 1:
Place sliced cucumbers in a large non-reactive container (stainless steel or porcelain) and cover with boiling water. There will be a foam on the cucumbers for this first application of boiling water, but you will not have any foam after that.
Let cool then cover lightly with a towel. Do not put it on while the pickles are still hot or warm. This will cook the pickles and we don’t want that. Replace towel after each day.
Let sit until Day 2.
The cucumbers do not have to be refrigerated during the process. You want the ingredients to be at room temperature and the liquid you pour over them to be at the boiling point when you are processing.
DAY 2:
Drain off water (do not rinse the pickles) and cover with fresh boiling water and pickling salt mixture.
(Pickling salt mixture = 1 1/2 cups pickling salt to 1 gallon boiling water).
DAY 3:
Drain off water/salt mixture.
Do not rinse the pickles after the salt step. Just drain the water mixture off and proceed to the next step.
Cover with fresh boiling water and alum mixture.
(Alum mixture = 2 1/2 tablespoons alum to 1 gallon boiling water).
DAY 4:
Drain off alum water and discard.
Do not rinse the pickles after the alum step. Just drain the water mixture off and proceed to the next step.
Boil together enough cider vinegar to cover the cucumber slices. Add jalapenos, cayennes, dill, garlic and ghost pepper to crock.
(1 gallon cider vinegar and 3 tablespoons pickling spices wrapped in cheese cloth or loose spices).
Pour prepared cider vinegar/pickling spices over the cucumber slices.
DAY 5, 6 and 7:
Let the cucumbers sit in the vinegar solution, covering the top with the towel to keep them clean. Stir once each day.
DAY 8:
NOTE: At this point, I usually pull out and throw away all of the hot peppers before sugaring the pickle slices, but they can be left in during this step then pulled out before canning. Leaving them in longer will add more heat, but I would strongly recommend pulling the ghost pepper before sugaring.
Take cucumbers out of cider vinegar; drain off cider vinegar and throw away spice bag if you used one. I like the spices in my pickles. Some folks don’t. Drain pickles throughly. Remove all of the jalapenos, cayennes, and the ghost pepper and discard them. Coat pickles well with sugar. I am bit picky and pour my pickles into large bowls and stir them well, coating each pickle before returning it to the crock, but if your crock is large enough, pour the sugar directly onto the drained pickles a little at a time and stir well, making sure to coat them all. After refilling the crock( if you removed the pickles) pour enough sugar to cover the top of the pickles entirely. The sugar will pull the vinegar/spice solution out of the pickles and make the syrup.
DAY 9-12~
Take a break. Sit a spell. Put your feet up and let the sugar do all the work. Just stir once each day, adding sugar to cover pickles if needed. I have left the pickles in the crock for as long as 5 days before canning them. At this stage they are finished and a day or so longer doesn’t really matter.
Last Day~
Prepare sterlized pint jars, add pickles (I also decorate my jars with fresh red, yellow, and green cayenne peppers), pour syrup over pickles to cover. Seal with cap and rings. The jars will be preserved, but not sealed. Store in a cool, dry place. They are best if they sit for a couple weeks before eating, but they can be eaten immediately. These pickles will last a very long time preserved this way, but ours never seem to make it long before they disappear. If you decorated your jars with colorful cayennes don’t be surprised when the colors fade over time. These pickles are best served chilled.
Howling at the Moon 