I don't like pickles, but Shelly does, so this year I've made two types of refrigerator pickles for her. The first ones are dills, for which I simply followed this online recipe. Shelly proclaimed them the Best Ever, which is also what the web page calls them.
Next, I went for bread and butter pickles. I wanted to put cooled (rather than hot) brine over the cucumbers, as that preserves crunchiness better. Some of what I was using were slicing (not pickling) cucumbers, which are more prone to going soft.
I mostly followed this recipe, but wanted to salt the cucumbers first, rather than just having salty brine.
About pound of cucumbers
1T kosher salt
3/4 c white vinegar
1 c cider vinegar
3/4 c granulated sugar (maybe cut this by 2 T)
1/4 c water
1 t celery seed
1/2 t brown mustard seed
1/2 t white mustard seed
1/2 t ground turmeric
1/2 onion, sliced
Slice cucumbers about 1/4 inch thick. It should be enough to nicely fill a quart jar.
Put the slices in a large bowl and sprinkle with the salt. Mix it up well with your hands, then stuff them into the jar, and put the jar in the fridge for an hour or so. (A jar is easier to fit in the fridge than a big bowl is, but you could do that if you wanted.)
Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. Turn off the heat and add the onion to the pan. That will lightly cook the onion. Let the brine cool for the remainder of the pickles' hour in salt. Should be about 40 more minutes.
Take the cucumbers out of the fridge and rinse off the salt, and put them back in the big bowl. Fill the jar by alternately adding some brine to the jar, then stuffing cucumbers into the jar. If you have a weight to put on top of the cucumbers to hold them down in the brine, that's good.
Cap the jar and refrigerate for at least a day.
