I made a batch of pickles based on a recipe from NPR and they were great!
While my youngest daughter who helped probably would have liked them better without the bit of heat from the red pepper, everyone else who tried them really liked it. They stayed a nice green color while on the counter (about 1.5 weeks, but lost it a few days after I put them in the fridge, but were still crisp. Make a lot and take a taste every couple of days and you can figure out exactly how much fermentation you like. I actually like them at all the different stages along the way, so it is a lot of fun and I’d probably just eat them all before they’d even get to the fridge if I wasn’t saving them to bring to a family reunion.
I actually cut up some other cukes and through them in the remaining liquid in the fridge and thought they were pretty good as “1/4 sour” pickles about a week later, although most would probably like them more pickled. The “recycled” pickles stayed green in the fridge, so I think it is mostly the amount of time they’re in the jar that turns them.
My mother used to make a big crock (different recipe, but a similar process), but I don’t have that recipe at hand. She used grape leaves on top of the pickles to keep them beneath the surface, but I didn’t have any and used horseradish leaves on top instead. Both seem to add something (tannin?) to the water that help keep them crisp. Good luck and let us know your results.
