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 “Cold Canning” is our first refrigerator ferment: There’s no vinegar, but we’re 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’t push the limits of what cold canning can accomplish with pickles. In any event, sterilize the jar and don’t 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.)

Makes: 7-9 pickles

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

800 g, or 7 to 9) 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

¼ cup (48 g) salt

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 ½ 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 12–16 hours.

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

Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough are the authors of “Cold Canning” and many other cookbooks, including the bestselling “Instant Pot Bible” series. They live in rural Connecticut.

Excerpted from “Cold Canning” 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.

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