Ingredients

The following measurements refer to quart sizes so adjust if other sizes are used.

• Dill: This year we only had dried dill and wound up putting it in the bottom and the top after putting the cukes in. If you have fresh dill you can place whole stalks in the jar.
• 1 teas. (or more) of chopped garlic: You can get as heavy as you want with the garlic. Put it in sliced, whole, shredded, etc. Be sure to have 2 or 3 heads of garlic on hand! You'll use it all if you are a garlic lover. I have one of those funky garlic peelers where you roll the garlic in this rubber tube. That way the garlic is not crushed when you pickle it. Cutting the garlic lets more flavor into the brine. Leaving it whole gives you a pickled garlic clove.
• 1 teas. pickling spices: I had both mild and spicy that I bought as a premix. I also left this out on some jars to have just dill pickles. Also, I labeled each jar to know what it was. I wound up with Dill, Dill/Mild, Dill/Spicy, and Dill/Hot. The latter had 1/8-1/4 cayenne pepper added. I've never done hot pickles before, but my hubby wanted me to try it.
• 1 teas. sugar
• 1/8 teas. alum
• 1/2 hot red pepper: we had some dried peppers that weren't very hot. I just added a few pieces to some jars and left it out of other jars.

Fill jars with cucumbers. You can also add carrot sticks and/or green beans. You may want to peel really large cukes since the skins may be tough. You should definitely cut the medium and large cukes to be able to pack more in. Stuff those jars tight!

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