Homemade Fermented Pickle Recipe
Fermented pickles rely on good old-fashioned salt and beneficial bacteria to make things happen. The best part about a fermented pickle recipe? It’s easy to make as little (or as much) as you need, and they are packed-full of probiotic benefit.
Ingredients
- Small pickling cucumbers* (see notes)
- 1–2 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon mustard seed
- 10 peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- 1–2 heads of fresh dill (or 1 tablespoon dill seed, if you prefer)
- Sea salt and water to make 2% brine solution (instructions below)
Instructions
- How to Make 2% Brine:
Dissolve 1 tablespoon fine sea salt in 4 cups non-chlorinated water. If you don’t use all of the brine for this recipe, it will keep indefinitely in the fridge. I always use sea salt for my brines, but kosher salt or canning salt will work too. Just avoid iodized salts. The finer the salt, the less stirring you must to do to dissolve. - Start with very clean jars.
- Add the garlic, mustard seed, peppercorns, bay leaf, and dill to each jar.
- Wash your cucumbers thoroughly and discard any that are mushy or soft. Remove the blossom end from each cucumber, and pack them into the jars. I prefer to leave my cucumbers whole, as it seems to give a crunchier end result.
- Cover the cucumbers completely with the 2% brine solution.
- Add a weight to the jar to keep the cukes from floating to the top. (I use the handy glass weights from Fermentools, but you can get creative with whatever you have on hand.)
- Add the air lock assembly (or regular lid if that’s what you’re using), and set aside to ferment at room temperature for 5-7 days. Keep in mind, the warmer your kitchen, the faster the fermenting process.
- After the initial fermenting process is over, remove the airlock, cover with a regular lid, and store at 32-50 degrees for up to six months. (I’m keeping mine in my fridge.) The pickles will continue to slowly ferment and improve in flavor during the storage process. After about six months, they will start to slowly degrade, but will absolutely still be edible.
Notes
–> It might be tempting to try to use the larger, slicing cucumbers to make pickles, but don’t. They are mostly water and will give you a mushy, limp result. Your local farmer’s market should have loads of pickling cucumbers if you can’t grow them yourself, and you’ll be glad you went to the extra trouble to find them. Here are my best tips for keeping your pickles super crunchy.
–> What to expect from fermented pickles:
- Cloudy brine, often getting cloudier as time progresses.
- Fizziness! Fizzy pickles are totally normal and just a sign things are working as they should.
- Liquid leaking out of the jar. Again, this is a normal process of fermentation. However, you can sometimes avoid it by making sure you don’t add too much brine to your jars.
- Lots of bubbles = happy pickles
- Pleasant sour taste. Fermented pickles have a slightly different tang than vinegar pickles. However, my kiddos are still gobbling them up.
–> If your ferments ever end up with a disgusting or putrid smell, that’s a good indication to toss them.
