I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest pickle fan. I'm the girl that always adds "with no pickles" to the end of my sandwich orders. However, my fiance developed a fierce hankering for pickles earlier this week, and we decided to make our own instead of hitting up the grocery store. This article goes over what we did to make them.

What you'll need:

• 32 ounces of chlorine free water
• Two quart-sized mason jars
• Two to four Cucumbers
• One package of Dill
• One head of garlic
• One packet of black tea
• Canning & Pickling Salt
• One quart size plastic bag
• One funnel
• One medium sized mixing bowl

What to do:

Start by making up a brine solution for your pickles in a mixing bowl. Most brine recipes will advise you to make your brine almost entirely out of vinegar. However, in the research I did prior to starting this project, I discovered that the best pickles are those that are made without the addition of vinegar. Cucumbers take longer to pickle without vinegar, but they're supposed to taste much better.

Hoping that the lack of vinegar would change my opinion of pickles, I decided to make my brine without any. Instead, my solution had 32 ounces of water and 3 tablespoons of pickling salt.

After I made my brine, I washed and chopped up my cucumbers. I decided to experiment a little with shape, so I cut some of my cucumbers into long slices and others into smaller cubes and slices.

Next, I washed out my mason jar and placed the seasoning ingredients in it. I used four cloves of garlic, two heads of dill, and the contents of an English breakfast tea bag. Then I added in my cucumbers.

With all of my contents in the jar, I added in the brine. Though I initially tried to pour my brine directly from its bowl into the jar, I learned quickly that using a funnel is extremely helpful at this stage. You may end up with more brine than you can fit in your mason jar— I used mine in a second batch that I made later on.

Once the jar was full of liquid, I put a little bit of water in a plastic bag and laid the bag on the surface of the brine. This is to weigh the cucumbers down and ensure that they stay fully submerged for the duration of the pickling process. Be sure to do this over the sink in case of spillage.

The last step is to seal the jar and wait. As you wait for your pickles to be done, make sure to periodically open the jar to “burp” the contents and allow gasses to escape. It can take two weeks to two months for the pickles to be ready, so as of right now, I'm not sure how these turned out.

Check back soon for a follow-up post when this batch of pickles is ready.