It is cucumber season here at the Robbinsdale Schlenks, and this year I’ve been making refrigerator pickles with the early crop. I have however eaten them — some homemade, some store bought — and I find them pretty irresistible. The crunch and brightness they have compared to even the best water bath processed pickles is undeniably better. A lot of the commercial offerings have a pretty pronounced calcium chloride flavor that I don’t enjoy. It’s added to extend the length of time that the cucumbers remain crisp, which isn’t necessary in most homemade situations, and definitely not for me given the rate at which I’m consuming them. 😋
Having never made them, I checked cookbooks and online recipes and decided to start with a really simple brine – just vinegar, water, salt, sugar, peppercorns, and mustard seeds. The resulting pickles were good, but not great. They were a little too vinegar forward and lacked depth. I tweaked the recipe over a few more batches and landed on something I really like.
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