Hi there! We’re new to canning and bought 2 books with safe tested recipes recommended here (Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving and The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving).
We made a batch of pickles from the Small-Batch book ( but didn’t have large fresh dill heads that it calls for so I thought maybe we could use 1tbsp of finely chopped dill weed per jar similar to the recipe in the Bernardin book (Grandma’s Dill Pickles) as well as add a tsp of mustard seed. I calculated and it seems that the recipes are pretty similar ratios –
The one we made has more vinegar to water vs the Bernardin. But Bernardin has more salt. We also weren’t able to use the full amount of cucumbers in the end because they were too big! Still obviously used the correct size/amount of jars though. Anyway, after reading an article someone posted on here about substitution and how you should not substitute dry herbs with fresh… I’m worried that using the tbsp of fresh dill will mess with the acidity. I’m also just quite nervous being a newbie haha.
Will this substitution be okay?
by rubypoot9
4 Comments
Hi u/rubypoot9,
For accessibility, please reply to this comment with transcriptions of the screenshots or alt text describing the images you’ve posted. We thank you for ensuring that the visually impaired can fully participate in our discussions!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Canning) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It will be fine as fine gets. Enjoy.
You didn’t swap fresh for dried if I’m understanding correctly, you just used chopped fresh dill in place of whole fresh dill heads. As long as you used similar amounts you should be totally fine here!
I grow my dill and it has been fresh doing canned pickles and fermented pickles without any problems for decades. I don’t where you read about not using them, but it was a troll article.