Sour Cucumber Pickles

These old-fashioned sour pickles are a cold-cure recipe with no boiling, no canning, and no heat processing. Pack fresh cucumbers into a jar with sugar, salt, dry mustard, and a pinch of alum, fill with vinegar and water, and let time do the rest. Three months in a cool, dark spot transforms raw cucumbers into tangy, crunchy sour pickles.

The daily agitation during the first week is what distributes the brine evenly and kickstarts the curing process. A gentle shake or flip of the jar keeps the spices moving and prevents the cucumbers at the top from curing at a different rate than the ones at the bottom.

Alum is the old-school ingredient that keeps these pickles crisp. It firms the cell walls of the cucumber so they don’t go soft during the long cure. Just a tiny pinch does the job. Too much and the pickles taste metallic.

Kitchen Tips

• Use pickling cucumbers, not slicing cucumbers. Slicers have too much water and turn mushy
• Fill the jar with vinegar first (about two-thirds), then top off with water. This ratio gives the right sourness
• Use pickling salt, not table salt. The anti-caking agents in table salt cloud the brine
• Store in a truly cool, dark place. A basement or back of a pantry works well

Variations

• Add a few cloves of garlic and a sprig of dill to the jar for classic dill pickle flavor
• Toss in a dried red chili pepper for spicy sour pickles
• Use apple cider vinegar for a slightly sweeter, mellower sourness than white vinegar