Is there a way to ferment good tasting pickles in this amount of heat?

Unfortunately no. That temp range will guarantee poor results. No basement? Dark indoor closet where it is cooler? A friend's house? An insulated ice chest? The fridge is too cool at 40 or so degrees.

Per NCHFP:

Store where temperature is between 70ºF and 75ºF for about 3 to 4 weeks while fermenting. Temperatures of 55º to 65ºF are acceptable, but the fermentation will take 5 to 6 weeks. Avoid temperatures above 80ºF, or pickles will become too soft during fermentation.

You might want to read through all the info on Fermenting at NCHFP and see if it might suggest something.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Fermenting

In our minimially air conditioned house, running what I think are called "4-day half sours" is what seems to be working best. Coupled with a salt concentration just above 3 percent (1.5 T sea salt per quart of water), I get a good scum in 2 days, 2 days after the scum goes white I refrigerate the pickles in clean jars with fresh brine. I'm using 'Little Leaf' picklers and I think they are contributing to one good batch after another with all their little bumps. Also I line the crock with grape leaves and put in some heads of green dill seeds and a bulb of garlic nicely cleaned. These pickles are goooood!

Following directions in books to the letter won't work with fermented pickles. It's better to err on the side of "not quite sour" than to have white, slimy overfermented pickles. I've made plenty of those, too!

Dave's idea of a cooler or ice chest is a good one. It gives you a way to moderate the temperature. It also reduces exposure to the air-borne organisms that causes the scum.

Carol

Here is an experiment. I assume you have a cement basement. go buy a cheap styrofoam cooler and throw away the top. Put it on the cold basement floor upside down with a thermometer inside. give it a day and see what the temperature reads when the outside is warm and when it is cold in the morning.

the optimum temp is 68 to 70.

Put the fermentation jar or crock etc on the floor of the basement. you want good temperature contact with the floor. and then put the cooler over the top of the jar upside down so it keeps the jar cool. a minimum maximum therometer will give more info. but a regular thermometer is sufficient.

find a cool spot on the basement floor. It might be a corner. I expect you have a sunken basement below soil level. then it will pick up the cool deep temperature of the earth. You can throw all kinds of stuff over the cooler to insulate it better.

a good digital air conditioner has a 68 to 70 setting. build a big box well insulated and mount an airconditioner on it to keep the inside cool. If the box is small the cost of cooling will be small. Look around to buy a small wine bottle storage cooler.

here is the idea you need to research. I do not know the temperature settings on these wine coolers. Lots of companies make these in all kind of price range.

Here is a link that might be useful: possible wine cooler types

If they are not fully fermented, as in those refrigerator pickles, they put you at a risk for listeria.
There are no safe USDA methods for a half sour/refrigerated pickle.
They need to be fully fermented to be safe.

This is from National Center for Home Food Preservation:

Based on old recommendations, consumption of refrigerator dill pickles could typically occur anytime after 3 days of refrigerated storage
Since L. monocytogenes may still be viable well after this point, there is a food safety risk involved
Recommendations to prepare this product in the home should not be distributed

Thanks for all the great advice! There's no place in my house to control the temperature without adding to my electric bill. I don't have a basement either. I thought there might be a different process for warmer climates. I like the idea of the 4 day half sours, but I prefer a very sour pickle. I think the easiest thing for me to do is plant fall cucumbers. I can control the temperature a little easier when it's not hovering close to 100 degrees outside. Thanks again!

Yes, yes, I know of the 2004 study in which pickling cucumbers were inoculated with various bacteria including Listeria monocytogenes and then cultured at various salt concentrations. What an excellent reason to be scrupulously clean and cautious, and perhaps to think carefully before fermenting any foods if you donÂt know how they were grown or how long theyÂve been sitting in a box.

But hereÂs the thing. In Listeria, Listeriosis and Food Safety (Ryser and Marth, 2009), the detection of Listeria m bacteria in supermarket produce worldwide has been rare, and is more likely to occur in lettuce, mushrooms or sprouts compared to cucumbers. On the food safety side, Listeria outbreaks usually have to do with hot dogs or processed meats, and they are typically traced to sanitation issues.

Since I donÂt use fresh manure in my garden, this bacterium doesnÂt have a lot of opportunity to grow among my cucumbers. I pick the picklers within 3 days of blossom drop, immediately bring them indoors and scrub them lightly under cold running water. Then I pat them dry with clean, sundried towels and store them in rigid plastic containers in the fridge. They get scrubbed again before going into the crock, which has been scrubbed and scalded.

IÂm not willing to throw out a 2,000 year old foodway because a study showed that if you screw it up by intentionally loading pickles with bacteria that would not otherwise be there, they might make you sick. Instead, I take it as a critical lesson in cleanliness from garden to table.

Do whatever you want, since you are willing to take the risks. All I can do is provide you what is known to be safe. What you do with that is up to you.
Also, you have to be willing to deal with any legal matters if someone gets ill from doing what a person provides as information. That is why I always take that into consideration as well when posting information.

I'm making a batch in my bathtub in which I've put a few inches of cold water.