I rated these 4 stars because I made some modifications. I added 1 tbsp of mustard seed, 1 tsp of celery seed, and 1 tsp of turmeric (to make them bread and butter pickles). Also, not mentioned in the recipe but very important, if your brine doesn't cover your cucumbers, don't add extra water. The cucumbers will release water into the brine and then it will cover them.
If this is your first time making pickles, here are a few notes so you can avoid the mistakes I made:
1. Don't use white onion, it's too strong. Use sweet or vidalia onions.
2. Slice the onion and green pepper into strips, don't dice them. If you dice them the flavour is too strong.
3. Cucumber sliced thinly (1/8-1/4 inch) will pickle in 1-2 days, and will stay crisp for 3-5 days. Cucumber sliced thickly (3/8-1/2 inch) will pickle in 3-4 days, and will stay crisp for a week or more. So if you want pickles now and later, do a jar of each.
4. If you use this brine to pickle other things (I did cauliflower, green peppers and asparagus) you need to use more brine on those vegetables than you did on the cucumber. I added water to the brine thinking that when I made cucumber pickles, they released water which added the extra liquid to the brine. That didn't work. You need to cover the almost completely, then finish with water, to make a strong enough brine for other vegetables. Steaming the vegetables first might help too, I haven't tried that yet.
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I rated these 4 stars because I made some modifications. I added 1 tbsp of mustard seed, 1...