Homemade Fermented Pickles

Preparing pickles for fermenting.

The best quality fermented pickles are made a low salt brine without vinegar. Such fermented cucumbers are usually made at home and this is how they were always made in Europe and by early settlers who came from Germany and Eastern European countries. Sometimes pickles spoiled and had to be discarded which was not something that commercial producers liked. To cut down on those losses and to extend the life of the product vinegar was added to brine. This made production easier and safer but it adversely affected the taste of the product.

Removing cucumber ends.

What follows is the traditional method of making fermented pickles.

Wash cucumbers of visible dirt but don't brush them off. There are some lactic acid bacteria present on the surface and they are needed to start fermentation. In the past, commercial producers did not wash cucumbers at all, but threw them into huge fermenting tanks. Remove all remnants of cucumber blossoms as molds and tissue softening enzymes are known to reside in those areas. You can cut about 1/16" (1.5 mm) off the ends of cucumbers, but scraping them off with a tip of a fingernail works fine.

Place cucumbers in salt brine. Make sure all cucumbers are immersed in brine. Place sealed plastic Ziplock bag filled with brine (4-1/2 tablespoons salt and 3 quarts water) on top of cucumbers. If the bag spills its content this will not affect fermentation.

Cucumber ziplock bag.

Cucumber spices.

Check pickles on a daily basis and remove any visible slime. Wash the bag and reinsert it in a fermenting crock. Let it ferment. An absence of gas bubbles signifies the end of fermentation.

First traces of slime.

The slime should be discarded.

The bag (plate) can be removed and the slime wiped off. Then the clean bag is reinserted again. This takes care of the slime. What is harder to control are the tissue softening enzymes which were produced by the yeasts. Those enzymes will continue working and the pickle will be softer. Very salty brines decrease yeast production, adding vinegar is another effective measure. Pasteurization is the most effective preventive measure as it will kill most microorganisms.

Available from Amazon

The Practical Guide to Making Salami is a companion book to The Art of Making Fermented Sausages, published in 2008. Since then, more information has become available; safety standards have been updated and tightened, new cultures have appeared, and getting supplies and newer equipment online has become more accessible. The most relevant theory has been transferred from The Art of Making Fermented Sausages. Still, The Practical Guide to Making Salami includes plenty of new materials such as fermented spreadable sausages, acidified sausages, or combining acidulants with natural fermentation. The recipes section has been expanded and includes 264 selected recipes from different countries so the reader can immediately produce sausages.