How to make crunchy half-sour pickles with a shortcut refrigerator ferment

If you know deli lingo, you know that half-sour pickles are crunchy, bright-green pickles, not the duller green of more familiar long-soured pickles. Half sours have a distinct snap and much gentler flavor.

This recipe from our cookbook is our first refrigerator ferment: There鈥檚 no vinegar, but we鈥檙e using a shortcut method, not standard fermentation, giving the jar a little bump toward true fermentation at room temperature before squirreling it away in the fridge for up to three weeks (do not freeze).

This way, we don鈥檛 push the limits of what cold canning can accomplish with pickles. In any event, sterilize the jar and don鈥檛 be tempted to make substitutions. Though, for a completely non-traditional take, you can swap out the thyme sprigs for other leafy herbs: tarragon, rosemary, dill, cilantro or parsley.

Use only distilled water for best results (since the chlorine in tap water or chemicals in well water can halt fermentation.)

Half-Sour Pickles

Makes: 7-9 pickles

Ingredients

1 medium garlic clove, peeled and thinly sliced

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

2 dried bay leaves

1戮 pounds (800 g, or 7 to 9) medium Kirby or pickling cucumbers, each fairly thin and about 5 inches (13 cm) long

Distilled water for rinsing the cucumbers

2 fresh thyme sprigs

4 cups (960 ml) distilled water

录 cup (48 g) kosher salt

Directions

Put the garlic, coriander, mustard seeds, black peppercorns and bay leaves in one clean 2-quart (1.9-liter) jar or other container. Rinse the cucumbers with distilled water, gently scrubbing them with a new sponge or a wad of paper towels (without nicking the skins). Stuff the cucumbers and thyme sprigs into the jar.

Whisk the 4 cups (960 ml) distilled water and salt in a bowl until the salt dissolves. Pour this brine over the cucumbers and aromatics, leaving about 陆 inch (1 cm) head space. If the brine does not cover everything, make more in that same ratio by volume to fill the container. (Make sure no cucumber sticks out of the brine.) Cover or seal; set aside at room temperature for 12鈥�16 hours.

Refrigerate to steep until the cucumbers are crisp and starting to get sour, 5鈥�6 days, before enjoying. (The longer the pickles sit in the brine, the saltier and more sour they鈥檒l get.)

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Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough are the authors of 鈥淐old Canning鈥� and many other cookbooks, including the bestselling 鈥淚nstant Pot Bible鈥� series. They live in rural Connecticut.

Excerpted from 鈥淐old Canning鈥� by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. Copyright (copyright) 2025 by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. Used with permission of Voracious, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.