I know everyone else has already gotten excited about fermentation pickling and I am slow. But I’ve now got an abundance of cucumbers coming out of my garden, and it’s too many to just quick pickle.
So I started off looking for a recipe that wasn’t all about the dill (because it’s not my favorite flavor – it’s fine, but if there’s a choice I’d like to pick other things). I ended up on this blog – https://www.blessthismessplease.com/easy-fermented-pickles/ (site has medium intrusive advertising) which seemed like it prioritized good advice over a specific recipe. The one thing I’ve read other places that it did not mention was trimming the blossom end of the cucumber to reduce softening. Is that advice only relevant to vinegar pickles? I went ahead and trimmed the tips while washing them.
I got half gallon jars this year just for canning. They don’t fit anywhere in my shelves, so I’m going to have to fill them all up with pickling this Summer I guess. *goals*
My largest dutch oven is an oval, so ikt will fit the half gallon jar for boiling and sterilizing – I put a hand towel on the bottom to cushion the glass. I also boiled a glass weight and a burping kid that fits wide mouth canning jars at the same time.
After I pulled the jar, I decided to let it cool. Unlike water bath canning, there was no direction to heat up the brine at all, and I guess that might kill the bacteria we want. So if everything going into the jar will be room temperature or cooler then the jar should also be room temperature.
The instructions say to add something like bay leaves (ideally fresh) for the tannins (and flavor), so I did. Then I added a mix of coriander seeds (from last year’s garden), brown mustard seeds, and a few nigella sativa seeds. Oh! And two bay berries!
Then I stuffed about half a dozen cucumbers inside – the middle one poked up a bit and there was still a lot of headspace, so I cut up the last cucumber into chunks – so I’ll get to find out how both cut and whole cucumbers work.
Only then did I remember the garlic cloves I had peeled, so those got squeezed in wherever they would fit.
I used 1 sixteen ounce bottle of water with some salt added as would fit in the freshly opened bottle. That filled the jar about 3/4 of the way up. I did not measure the cucumbers or the salt. And I was a little worried it wasn’t quite salty enough, so I refilled the water bottle halfway with tap water I had already boiled (and let cool) with a slightly higher concentration of salt to top things off.
The instructions said to top with either a weight or a cabbage or grape leaf in order to keep the cucumbers submerged. So I figured why not both!
And then I put on the burping lid and have set it on the corner of my kitchen counter that’s not next to the stove or the dishwasher. It doesn’t really get dark there, so I threw a kitchen towel over it.
Now for waiting and seeing what happens!
Edit Monday 29 July 2025: I think it’s looking like a healthy start to this pickle
Edit Sunday 3 August 2025: I’ve opened the jar and used done of the brine to start my next batch of pickled peppers.
I tasted one of the cut sections of cucumber that I used to fill in the top, and it tastes like a pickle! Crisp and tangy! I also ate the cabbage leaf I had stuck in the top.
The liquid is definitely cloudy, which is what was foretold as the result of using iodized salt. Cloudy picking liquid is more disappointing than I thought it would be, so I guess I’ll be sticking with plain salts in the future.
There is no mold and there’s no yeast film at the top, either. Everything smells and tastes good.
I am also disappointed in these fermentation lids – they do have enough flexibility to bulge with fermentation gases, but the lids are not self burping as promised. I keep having to loosen the rings to let gas out.
I could probably move them to the refrigerator now, but I’m more excited about the experiment than about pickles, so I’m going to keep them going and see what happens.
I boiled the jar weight before putting it back into the jar.