Fermented Pickles Recipe: How to Make Fermented Pickles

We grow cucumbers in our Zone 5 garden, but if I’m being fair, they aren’t one of our most reliable crops. We usually get some, but not enough at once for a good batch of pickles. For this batch of fermented pickles, I picked up fresh pickling cucumbers from a local farm stand.

Fermented pickles are surprisingly simple. Cucumbers are submerged in a saltwater brine and left at room temperature while naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria do the work.

After 7 days of fermenting, ours were ready to move into the fridge.

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What Are Fermented Pickles?

Lacto-fermented pickles aren’t pickled with vinegar. Instead, cucumbers sit below a salty brine where lactic acid bacteria naturally ferment them. As fermentation progresses, the brine becomes acidic and the cucumbers develop that distinctive sour pickle flavour.

We also use the same method to create our Fermented Cayenne Pepper Hot Sauce.

Ingredients for Fermented Pickles

The basic ingredients needed to make fermented pickles are fresh cucumbers, water and pickling salt. However, you can add garlic, dill and other seasonings for extra flavour. Below are the ingredients we use when making our fermented pickles.

• Fresh cucumbers
• Water
• Pickling Salt
• Garlic
• Fresh dill
• Peppercorns (optional)
• Pickle Crisp (optional) Calcium chloride helps the cucumbers retain their firm, crunchy texture during fermentation.

We grow dill in our garden every year and let some of it go to seed so we can save our dill seeds for planting again next year.

For best results, use pickling or canning salt when fermenting pickles. It dissolves easily and contains no anti-caking agents or other additives that can interfere with the quality of the brine.

How to Make Fermented Pickles

Before we do anything with our ingredients, the jars you’ll be using need to be washed with hot water and soap. They do not need to be sanitized; they just need to be clean.

1. Prepare the cucumbers

Start by washing crisp fresh cucumbers in cold water to remove any dirt that may still be present.

Cut off the blossom end of the cucumber. This is the opposite side from where the stem was attached and is normally lighter in colour. Cutting off the blossom end helps to prevent the finished pickles from being soft and mushy.

We like to prepare our cucumbers two ways. For two of our jars we left them as whole pickles, and two of them we cut into round slices for easy snacking. You can also cut them lengthwise for using them on sandwiches or burgers.

2: Add the Garlic, Dill and Seasonings

Add any ingredients you are using before you add the cucumbers, including the pickle crisp. During fermentation you want to keep everything under the brine level in the jar. Adding your smaller ingredients first helps prevent them from floating to the surface.

We use our homegrown garlic when we have it available. If you want to grow your own, here’s our complete guide on how to grow garlic in Zone 5.

3: Pack the Cucumbers Into the Jar

Pack the cucumbers into the jar as tightly as you can without crushing them. Tightly packed cucumbers are less likely to float above the brine during fermentation.

4. Make the pickle brine

This is straightforward. We use a 3% salt brine, which we make by weighing the ingredients. For every 1 kg (1,000 g) of water, add 30 g of pickling salt.

For this batch, we made four 1L jars of pickles and mixed 2 kg of water with 60 g of pickling salt. This gave us more than enough brine to fill all four jars, with a little left over.

5. Pour in the Brine and Keep Everything Submerged

Add enough brine to the jars to fully submerge the cucumbers. Use a fermentation weight to help keep everything under the brine level.

Leave about an inch of headspace at the top of the jar.

6. Add the Fermentation Lid

Add a fermentation lid to the jars. We use these Fermentation airlocks made for wide mouth mason jars.

If you don’t have fermenting lids there are other options you can use. You can very loosely put a regular lid on, use a coffee filter and a rubber band, or use some cheese cloth or a clean cotton tea towel to cover the top.

The fermentation lid allows gases produced during fermentation to escape while limiting outside air and keeping insects and debris out of the jar.

7. Ferment the Pickles

When you’ve added your lids put your jars in a room temperature area out of direct sunlight. We like to use a shelf in our pantry.

Check for signs of fermentation after a few days. You should see lots of bubbles, and the brine should start to get a little cloudy.

Start tasting the pickles as they ferment to find out how tangy you like them. We tasted ours after 3, 5 and 7 days. To me after 3 days the pickles taste more like salty cucumbers than pickles at that point. And after 5 days, they are close, but still not tangy enough for us.

For this batch, we finished fermentation after 7 days. At this point the cucumber flavour is gone, the pickles are still nice and crunchy, and have a nice tangy flavour to them.

The longer the cucumbers ferment, the more sour they will become and their texture may gradually soften. Start tasting them after a few days and move them to the refrigerator once they reach the flavour and texture you prefer.

8. Refrigerate

Once the pickles have reached the flavour and texture you like, move them to the refrigerator. The cold temperature will dramatically slow fermentation and help preserve their flavour and texture.

How Long Do Fermented Pickles Take?

Fermented pickles can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on the temperature of your home, the size of your cucumbers and how sour you like your pickles.

Warmer temperatures will generally speed up fermentation, while cooler temperatures will slow it down. Whole cucumbers can also take longer to develop that tangy pickle flavour than sliced cucumbers.

For our batch, we started tasting the pickles after 3 days. At that point they were salty and crunchy, but still tasted more like cucumbers than pickles. By day 5 they were noticeably more tangy, but we preferred the flavour after 7 days of fermentation.

Don’t worry too much about reaching an exact number of days. Start tasting your pickles after a few days and refrigerate them once you’re happy with the flavour and texture.

How Do You Know When Fermented Pickles Are Done?

There isn’t one specific point when fermented pickles are “done.” They’re ready when they have developed the sour, tangy flavour and texture you prefer.

As the cucumbers ferment, you’ll notice several changes. The brine will often become cloudy, bubbles may appear in the jar and the cucumbers will gradually change from bright green to a more muted olive-green colour. These are all normal signs of fermentation.

Taste is ultimately the best way to decide when your pickles are ready. Use a clean utensil to remove a pickle and taste it every few days. We were looking for a pickle that was tangy throughout but still firm and crunchy.

For us, that happened at 7 days. Once they reached the flavour and texture we wanted, we moved the jars to the refrigerator to dramatically slow the fermentation process.

Don’t use cloudiness alone to decide whether your pickles are finished. Cloudy brine is a normal part of lacto-fermentation and can develop well before the pickles have reached the flavour you want.

Are Fermented Pickles Probiotic?

Yes, fermented pickles can be a source of probiotics. During lacto-fermentation, naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria break down sugars in the cucumbers and produce lactic acid. This is what gives fermented pickles their distinctive sour flavour.

Because these pickles aren’t canned or pasteurized after fermenting, they can contain live microorganisms from the fermentation process.

This is one of the big differences between fermented pickles and traditional vinegar pickles. Adding vinegar makes a cucumber sour, but it doesn’t create the same fermentation process.

How to Keep Fermented Pickles Crunchy

Nobody wants to wait a week for their pickles to ferment only to end up with a jar of mushy cucumbers. There are a few things we do to help keep our fermented pickles crunchy.

First, start with the freshest, firmest cucumbers you can find. A soft cucumber isn’t going to become crunchy again during fermentation.

We also cut the blossom end off each cucumber before putting it into the jar. The blossom end contains enzymes that can contribute to the cucumbers softening as they ferment.

Finally, we add ¼ teaspoon of Pickle Crisp to each 1 L jar. Pickle Crisp is calcium chloride, which helps the cucumbers retain their firm texture. It isn’t required for fermentation, but we used it for this batch and our pickles were still nice and crunchy after 7 days.

Once the pickles have the tangy flavour you’re looking for, move them into the refrigerator. Leaving them to continue fermenting at room temperature will make them increasingly sour and can eventually result in softer pickles.

How to Store Fermented Pickles

Once your fermented pickles have reached the flavour and texture you like, store them in the refrigerator. The cold temperature dramatically slows down fermentation and helps the pickles maintain their flavour and crunch.

Keep the pickles covered by the brine while they’re stored and always use a clean utensil when removing pickles from the jar.

Fermented pickles aren’t shelf-stable like properly canned pickles, so they need to remain refrigerated. Over time they may continue to slowly become more sour and their texture can gradually soften, so keep an eye on them and enjoy them while they’re still at their best.

Fermenting is just one of the ways we preserve what we grow throughout the season. You can find more ideas in our harvesting and preserving guides, including ways to dry, freeze and store your garden harvest.