Using the fermentation process to make pickles

Just like in our sauerkraut fermentation, we are going to take advantage of wild lactic acid bacteria (LAB) but, this time, to ferment some cucumbers! Again, it’s very easy: one just needs to add salt and water to vegetables, then wait!

The importance of salt

While vegetables will still ferment without salt and the lactic acid that the LAB produce inhibit other bacteria, adding salt gives the fermentation a helping hand to ensure only the bacteria we want are doing the fermenting. The lactic acid bacteria are happy to live in a bit of a salty environment, but “bad” bacteria are not. 2% is often the brine concentration quoted as the minimum to avoid unwanted bacteria growth. In the case of cabbage fermentation, salt also helps pull water out of the vegetable.

Determining the amount of salt needed

If you‘ve fermented before you will know that there are a few different ways that people like to calculate the amount of salt to use in their fermentation. Some methods use the mass of the vegetable to calculate the amount of salt, some use the mass of the water, some use the mass of the vegetable and water and some use the mass of the vegetable, water and salt.

Often, the actual salt concentration of the brine isn‘t 2%, 3% or whatever number you used to calculate how much salt to use in the fermentation. Read here for more details about salt and brine in fermentation.

An easy brine calculation

The method of including the mass of the vegetable and water is a safe way to ensure that your brine will not become more diluted than you want.

To keep it simple, calculate 2% of the mass or volume of the water (if added) plus the vegetable.

Ingredients

• Fresh cucumber
• Dill
• Mustard seeds
• Salt
• Water

Method

1. Weigh the container that will hold the fermenting cucumbers. A glass container is preferable.


2. Cut the cucumbers up into sticks or circular slices and put them into the container.


3. Fill the container with water so that the cucumbers are covered. Weigh the filled container.


4. Subtract the original container mass from the new filled container mass. This is the mass of the water and vegetables to use in the salt calculation. Multiply this mass by 0.02 to get the amount of salt needed.


5. Pour the water out into another vessel, add the salt into the water and mix.


6. Add some mustard seeds and sprigs of fresh dill in with the cucumbers. It is assumed these don‘t weigh much in comparison with the water and cucumbers. If you decide to add a lot of extra vegetables, spices or herbs put them in before and weigh them with the cucumbers and water.




7. Pour the brine (salt and water) back into the container with the cucumbers. Ensure that the cucumbers, mustard seeds and dill are all completely submerged in the brine. One can get creative here and use objects from the kitchen to weigh down the vegetables if you don‘t have a specialised fermenting weight.


A clean jar of water can be used as a weight to keep the cucumbers submerged in the brine.

8. If the container used for fermenting is filled quite high, it is a good idea to place a dish underneath it. This will catch any water that overflows due to extra water getting pulled out of the cucumbers.


9. If the container has a lid, loosely screw it on so that gas can still escape. If the container has no lid cover loosely with something else like cling-wrap.


I didn‘t have a lidded jar, so I used a jug covered by a kitchen “shower cap“.

10. Now, wait! You can wait one week or four weeks, or however long you can manage to wait before eating your tasty pickles!


The pickles after two weeks.