Pickle Testing Part 1

When I first learned to can a couple of months ago I thought, "Finally! My own homemade pickles." I thought I would begin churning out jars of pickles right away, but curiously, I did not. You see, I am quite finicky when it comes to pickles. I don't like them too sweet, but I do like a good quantity of garlic and  a spicy (but not mouth burning) kick to them. My current favorite commercial brand is Bubbies Pickles.

Because of this, looking at pickle recipes for home canning confused me. I didn't want to make a ton of

pickles only to find out that I didn't like them. So, I began my pickling experiments by Googling "small batch refrigerator pickles" figuring that I could probably later find a home canning recipe that was similar to one I might like.

I came up with Garlic Dill Refrigerator Pickles from theKitchn. These looked like they had the right combination of flavors, including hot pepper, garlic and peppercorns. I made a small batch, tucked them into an old Bubbies jar and stuck them in the refrigerator.

After a couple of days they mostly tasted of vinegar. It took a couple of weeks to bring out the other flavors, most strongly the garlic, though I could also taste the peppercorns. The hot pepper may as well not have been there, so next time I will add more. This was not quite recipe I'm looking for but I will continue to use it until I can find time to experiment with another one.