Yes, these are called 'half sours' and are my most favorite of all due to the fresh crispness. I make a big half gallon jar of salt brine, and sometimes even use a dill pickle mix from Ball or Mrs. Wages. After mixing with just water, I taste the brine to see if its too salty or not salty enough, as I don't actually measure anything. In any event, if its too salty, you will notice this by its bitter, overly salty taste. If its not salty enough, it lacks 'character', and seems to taste a bit bland. I add enough of salt or the pickle mix so that when I taste this brine at room temperature, its almost sweet tasting (my grandmother taught me that). You usually find its just right once your taste buds get confused and seem to make your mouth water, and swing between salty and sweet. The cukes get both end tips removed. I also have fresh dill seed heads and weed that I pack into the bottom of the jar, along with a few cut up cloves of garlic. In go the trimmed cucumbers and the jar sits on the counter for 1-2 days covered. Then, I pour in about a tablespoon of white vinegar, shake the jar to mix a bit, and place the jar in the fridge. These cukes can stay firm for well over 6 months without spoiling. I have even had a few last almost a year. I now have two half gallon jars of them in my fridge and use them in cold pasta salads, as a side for a nice tuna fish sandwich, or even cut into wedges for hot dogs. They DO NOT get processed by any heat method, nor do they get any other preservatives added. These are similar to the Claussen half sour type that you see in the refrigerated section of your local supearmarket. My grandfather loved these so much that when my grandmother made a batch in a big gallon jar, they only lasted a few days and never made it to the fridge!

Helen, here's an older thread on the Forum. If you look at the first recipe, I think it might be what you want. You can either prepare a gallon and add cucumbers as they come along or do just a quart.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Fridge Pickles

Yes, I forgot to mention that its not good to reuse the pickling brine. You can still add a few new cukes to the batch for about a week, but try to push them to the bottom. Leave the jar out a whole day so that it will get the new cukes going. I only replace about 1/4 to 1/3 of my cukes in the same brine, then toss the whole jar of old brine once its empty of pickles.

I do mine a little different.
They are not half sours or refrigerator pickles per se.
I use the Heinz recipe posted by Linda Lou (will post it if you want).
I make up the brine (salt, vinegar, water) and plop in a bunch of peeled garlic.
I keep this in the fridge.
Then, each evening, when I pick from the garden, I make a pint (or less) of pickles:

Wash, trim cukes.
Place in clean jar with a head of dill, 4 peppercorns and a clove of garlic from the brine bottle in the fridge.
Boil a small amount of the brine and pour over cukes.
Pop the lid on and store in the fridge.

Mine are never processed.....(Yes, I have an extra fridge for pickles 'n' stuff).
I am still eating the ones from last summer...crispy, crunchy, dilliness!

Some one else may be able to comment on whether or not you could store up a few pints in the fridge, then bring to room temp, then process in BWB.
Seems like you'd have to heat them so slowly to prevent thermal shock, etc. that they would be overprocessed, but I'm not sure.

Sometimes, if I only have 2 or 3 cukes, I process as above, then the next day or so, I put the next "few" in a jar with just plain brine (no dill, garlic, pepper). After cooling in the fridge, I move the plain ones into the jar with the dilled ones to make a complete jar.
It wastes a little bit of brine (sometimes I dump it back in the main jar if it only had a couple of cukes in it), but I don't lose the freshness on the cukes that way.
Hope that makes sense!
Deanna

Mine get no heat of any kind either as a brine or anywhere else. The salt brine half sours keeps for many months in the fridge and I have never seen any foam or mold in the surface when they get refrigerated. If I had only a few cukes at a time, they would be saved in the fridge in a big plastic bag in the vegetable crisper. I don't seem to have much or a problem with them wilting, unless I leave them there for a week or more. The plastic bag does sweat, but the cukes stay nice and crisp. This is how I was able to make two batches of pickles last night. One was the refrigerated cukes I used to make a sweet mixed pickle (regular vinegar, spices, and boiling brine), as well as some fresh picked cukes that were made into mustard pickles. Both mixes had the same cauliflower, red peppers, and small onions along with the cukes. I found that if I use more than about 3 peppercorns, the pickles take on a little too much of that pepper heat and flavor. Not bad, however, but I prefer the dill and garlic to dominate, so I only add maybe 2 peppercorns to a whole half gallon jar of cukes.

They're heinous ! They are salty garlic monstrosities.

I guess I will be "ADJUSTING" the brine.

For the love of pickles, please someone tell me if these can be saved!

If I pick out the garlic will that help. They have been in the jar about 24 hours. Can I add more water?

Heavens.

Just for clarification, what brine did you make and what kind of salt did you use? We need to know the original recipe; then we'll have a sense of what caused the problem.

Carol

Hi Readinglady,

I have calmed down. And the garlic taste is ALMOST out of my mouth.

Thank you for your very reasonable question. I cannot believe I am about to type this. (I LOL as I do.)

I tried to taste test the brine like Ken suggested....Bwaaaaaaahhahahaha.

I thought, How cool God is, that there would be that just right amount of salt that wouldn't be too salty and wouldn't be bitter. HE is cool, and it is an amazing thing about the just right brine; but I am a fool for thinking I could "get it" on my first try.

So, I "think" I had about 7/8 of a cup of salt to a gallon jar of water and about 10 tiny cloves of garlic. Oh, and two heads of dill and a little dill weed.

I took the garlic out and haven't added any plain water. I don't know. I thought maybe the vinegar he advises to add would do... something.

It was only about 12 cucumbers. Sorry I panicked. I just like it when stuff turns out.

Helen

Oops - I forgot to tell you I used pickling salt.

If you found that the brine was a bit too salty, pour out a little, like maybe half a cup, and then add water only, and mix it, the taste again. Also, keep in mind that even though you may find it a bit too salty, but NOT bitter with salt, the cukes will pickle OK as they also contain lots of water, which will dilute the salt a little. In reading your report above, am I assuming that you found that the garlic was just too much for you? When I make the brine, and adjust the water/salt ratio, i don't add any garlic or spices yet. They tend to mask the taste that your looking for. Tonight, I made yet another big batch of pickled pepperoncini. I pour about half agallon of white vinegar in a big pot, sprinkle in about half to 3/4 cup of pickling salt, and taste. If I can still taste the acidic vinegar, I add a bit more salt, if its too salty, I add more vinegar. Kind of like the salt and water taste test. Don't get too frustrated by this, that brine tasting method does take some time to master. Imagine what I have to go through to make curing brines for Canadian bacon and Pastrami... Now thats a challenge!

I can't even imagine doing a meat product! I'm not quite frustrated, I'm ... I don't really know. What you read in my initial post was the just-tasted-the-shockingly-awful-pickle reaction. In my follow up I just thought it was so funny.

Yes, I mixed up the salt and water first. I honestly didn't know where to start (1 tablespoon salt? 2 cups?) so I looked around and found that a few recipes had one cup per gallon. I started with about 2/3 cup and went from there.

I thought maybe I had gotten somewhere around that mysterious balance so I added the dill, garlic and cucumbers, weighed them down and covered the jar.

Since my first post I took out every clove of garlic I could get at, and just a few minutes ago I poured off some brine (4 cups, maybe) and replaced it with water, stirred and re-covered.

It is really early here (my four year old woke up with a tummy ache and I remembered I hadn't "loaded" the coffee maker for my beloved. So here I am in the kitchen on the computer at 4:59 am.)

At 9 A.M. it will be about 36 hours on the counter. I think I'll go back and read about what you did with the cup or so of vinegar and maybe get them in the fridge then.

Unless more time on the counter with the less salty brine would mellow them out?

Carol... in the link you provided there is a recipe posted by Ronda B that she got from her grandmother. That recipe is not processed and she does not say anything about refrigeration. Is that a safe recipe? It seems like most recipes I see that are not processed need to be refrigerated. Am I missing something?

Helen, Ken has a lot of pickling experience. For a beginning pickler it might be better to start with a brine of proven proportions so that you get a sense of how it should taste. Also, as Ken mentioned, with time juices leach into the brine, and the brine "softens" if that makes sense. So you judge at the front end with a good feel for what it will be at the close of the process.

breasley, I looked at that recipe and kind of ignored it simply for the reason you mentioned. That's why I only recommended the first recipe on the thread.

There are some pickle recipes that can be left out, but the brine proportions have to be within a very specific range and I didn't look at the recipe closely enough to be able to give an answer right now. I'll try to take a closer look later or some other Forum member may come on with a response in the interim.

For myself, if pickles aren't being processed, refrigeration is always preferable. I guess that is the answer, isn't it? LOL.

But then I don't have a cellar or basement and temps fluctuate too much in my house that I'd want to leave pickles out even if it were "safe."

Carol

Ken... I'm curious as to why you snip the ends off your cukes.

Its a must to snip off both ends. The stem end has a very bitter point that can settle into the cucumber. The blossom end has some nasty bacteria that you don't want in pickles. Cutting only a 1/16 to 1/8 inch off each end is recommended in every recipe, except for Linda Lou's sweet pickles. As to leaving these on the counter, I wouldn't do that after about 4-5 days as it can spoil, or at least get a scum on top. Secondly, due to the salt brine and its reaction on the cukes, they can get a bit too salty very fast, especaily if the brine is a bit strong on salt. As to the vinegar, thats only a couple of tablespoons that get mixed in prior to refrigeration. Without it, the cukes continue to absorb more salt in the brine. The small amount of vinegar helps to stop the fermenting action so they are not going to go soft as quick. Why was all that garlic removed? Here, I usually add maybe 4 or 5 whole cloves cut up, as well as a few dill seed heads and plenty of the dill weed. Luckliy, my newly planted dill is now at the leaf stage, and my older dill is mostly at the seed forming stage, so I have enough of both. I like using the dill seed heads when the seeds are swelled and still green.

I also remove both ends, though quite a number of recipes specify only the blossom end, which contains enjzymes which contribute to spoilage. Some sources just say to scrub the blossom end off but I find cutting is just as easy and more definite.

As Ken said, bacteria do reside at the stem end and if you leave the stem on you have to be especially thorough in scrubbing to make sure it's absolutely clean. I'd rather just trim both ends.

Carol