Trying to achieve crunchier pickles

We are excited that this past week we had a bushel of cucumbers left over after market so that we can make pickles for our winter stash. (Last year we sold all cucumbers we grew and are just finishing up pickles made a couple years ago.) We grow slicing cucumbers rather than pickling because people just LOVE slicing cucumbers on their salads and sandwiches and we think perhaps it is the slicing cucumber cultivar we preserve which turns soft when pickled; however, my husband scored a recipe from a home canning site called “Low Temperature Pasteurization” for use in making crunchier pickles so that is what we are trying:

Batch: 09-01

Recipe:

Brine Solution: 6 cups vinegar, 8 cups water, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 – 1/2 cups salt and 4 tablespoons of pickling spice in cheesecloth. We brought our brine solution to a boil.

Each Jar of Cucumber: A run of spears, which took 12 lbs of cucumbers for 7 quarts, then to each jar we added one clove our fresh garlic, 2 teaspoons of dill seed and 1 teaspoon of mustard seed. Fill each jar with brine solution.

Process: Hot Water Bath. Once the temperature reaches 180 degrees process for 30 minutes.