Pickles

So maybe the recollection of the Stage and the bagels got me jonesing for a new dill pickle. I KNEW there's no way I'm going to be able to find that, so I'm attempting to make my own.
Here's a "recipe" I sorta cribbed from a Doubleday everything cookbook, except I modified it, because theirs was for canning pickles. Seeing as it's April, there are no pickle cucumbers in season yet, so I just used a regular large cucumber from Seasons Market. The Closest Thing to Market Of Choice in Portland!! Here's the recipe

4 cups water
1 cup distilled white vinegar (Heinz)
1 & 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp granulated sugar (I used C &W organic granulated sugar. The stuff is milder tasting than their regular sugar made from the blood of Caribbean children)
~1/4 cup each of:
Whole allspice
Fennel seed
Whole peppercorns (Tellicherry!)

Here's what I did:

Heated water, vinegar, salt, sugar, and spices to 185 deg F or so, then added cucumbers with a shit ton of fresh dill, and let steep for 10 minutes.
Into a plastic container, I dumped the cucumbers and the brine along with:
a shit ton more of fresh dill
5-6 cloves peeled whole garlic.
Here's what it ended up looking like:

















And into the "plastique" for the big chill















Notice the extra shit ton of fresh dill added in addition to the dill that steeped with the cucumbers. Now comes the waiting game.