NATURALLY FERMENTED PICKLES 

 Last Updated: October 8, 2018     62 Comments     This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

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Pickles? Fermented Pickles? Dill Pickles? Sour Pickles?

Call them what you want, but that big, sour, juicy dill pickle sitting alongside your hamburger was introduced to America during the late 1800s and early 1900s with the arrival of a heavy influx of eastern European Jews in New York City.

These immigrants brought with them traditions from the old country. Dill pickles were one.

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They took fresh cucumbers and piled them in large wooden barrels along with dill, garlic, spices, kosher salt and clean water and left them to ferment for a few weeks to several months. These naturally fermented pickles were then sold on pushcarts in the immigrant tenement district of New York City. Over time, Jewish-owned shops started selling pickles straight out of the barrel as what we know today as the pickle.

Kosher Dill Pickles. Half-Sours. Full-Sours. Cornichons. Polish Pickles.

Fermented pickles are not limited to cucumbers but can be made with cauliflower, radishes, onions, green beans, asparagus and a seemingly endless variety of other fruits and vegetables. That’s for another day.

Today is for cucumber pickles.

I have successfully fermented a few jars of cucumber pickles, but since no one in the house ate them, I stopped making them. But now, I make a few batches each July when pickling cucumbers arrive at my farmer’s market. I’ve scoured the internet and have read deep into my trusty books and put together this blog post to address a common request from my readers:

“DO YOU HAVE A RECIPE FOR PICKLES?”

This post will include just that along with techniques and tips all in one place for you to successfully ferment cucumber pickles. Plus, the recipe I developed passed my pickle-eating friend’s taste test.

She said they tasted unbelievably good.
Surprised. Astonished.
So scrumptious.
No vinegar?
And, they were ready in just 3 days?
I was even pleasantly surprised at the taste. I might grow to like them.

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So, when you first see cucumbers in the store or at your local farmer’s market you will know it is time to ferment pickles and you will have the resources to do so.

But first…

CUCUMBER PICKLE FERMENTER BEWARE!

The easiest style of fermenting is pickles or “brine pickling.” Cucumber pickles fall into this category, but so do pickled beets, pickled asparagus, pickled carrots or pickled beans or any vegetable still whole or cut into larger pieces floating in salty brine.

These vegetables do not produce their own brine, so you mix salt with water to make a brine which is then poured over the vegetables. And, as with sauerkraut, fermenting pickles is an anaerobic – without air – process. The vegetables need to be kept submerged in the brine.

These various vegetable pickles are easier to make than sauerkraut. The difference between brine pickling and sauerkraut (dry salting)?

Brine pickling is done by pouring a salty brine or whole or roughly chopped vegetables.

Sauerkraut is made with thinly sliced cabbage that is directly salted to produce its own brine. This salty, briny mixture is then packed into a jar, submerged and left to ferment as detailed here:

How to Make Sauerkraut in a Jar in 7 Simple Steps

Most pickles are easier to make than sauerkraut however, pickles made from cucumbers can be finicky. They do not always turn our crisp and sour and you won’t always know why.

Here’s what Amanda Feifer, author of Ferment Your Vegetables (one of my three favorite fermentation books) has to say about fermenting pickles in her post We can Phickle That – Tricky Pickle Edition:

“But I want you to approach cuke pickles with a tad more caution and not feel crappy if they don’t turn out perfectly the first time.  And a personal por favor: don’t start fermenting with cucumbers. They are not always an easy win and if you start with them as opposed to SO many other fantastic veggies, you may get it in your subconscious that fermenting vegetables is hard or complicated or finicky. It isn’t, I promise.”

“My advice: Start with beets or radishes or turnips or cabbage and be amazed at the simplicity of the process. THEN, move on to cucumbers, where you might need to play around to find your perfect amount of salt between needing a big rinse and being stuck with mushy pickles.”

ALL ABOUT PICKLES

In this section, you learn about the difference between canned pickles and fermented pickles, styles of pickles and the health benefits of naturally fermented pickles.

CANNED PICKLES VS. FERMENTED PICKLES

There is a world of difference between cucumbers that you’ve added hot vinegar to and boiled in a hot water bath – or grabbed off the grocery store shelf – and the kinds of pickles I’m about to teach you how to make.

In a nutshell, not all fermented foods are pickled and not all pickles are fermented.Alex Lewin, author of Real Food Fermentation

Foods that are pickled – canned – have been preserved in an acidic medium, most often vinegar. The vinegar guarantees a sour flavor and acts as a preservative. Using vinegar prevents natural fermentation from occurring and results in foods that offer no probiotic benefits. During the canning process, you thoroughly sterilize everything effectively killing dangerous bacteria – C. botulinum – but also friendly lactic-acid bacteria, and other helpful microbes.

Foods that you ferment in your own kitchen using just salt and water create their own preservative – lactic-acid – as a by-product of the fermentation process. During fermentation, the starches and sugars in the food are converted into lactic acid by the bacteria lactobacilli. The lactic acid production is what gives fermented foods their unique sour smell and flavor along with making them super nutritious and incredibly beneficial for digestion.

And here’s a quick look at 2 pickle jar labels: commercially processed pickles and naturally fermented pickles.

Commercially Processed	Naturally Fermented
Fresh Cucumbers	Cucumbers
Water	Filtered Water
Vinegar	Unrefined Sea Salt
Salt	Garlic
Calcium Chloride	Black Pepper
Polysorbate 80	Chili Pepper
Natural Flavors	Fennel Seed
Yellow #5	Bay Leaf
	Dill
	Cinnamon

So don’t be fooled by the unhealthy versions of pickles, both home canned and store bought. Unlike the pickles introduced to America in the late 1800s by Jewish immigrants, these modern foods have been processed by high heat and pressure destroying all nutrients and any health benefits.

For more on canned vs. fermented, here’s this article from Amanda at Phickle:

What’s the Difference Between Canned Pickles and Fermented Pickles?

STYLES OF PICKLES

The type of pickles you make is determined by the amount of salt you prepare your brine with, the spices added and how long they are fermented.

STANDARD SOUR PICKLES (FULL-SOURS, KOSHER DILL)

A Full-Sour Pickle is one that has fully fermented and has lost its crispness and bright green color.

HALF-SOUR PICKLES

A Half-Sour Pickle ferments in brine for a shorter time period and is still crisp and bright green.

FRENCH-STYLE CORNICHONS

Cornichons are about the size of your pinky finger, about an inch and half in length and less than a quarter inch in diameter. The French call them cornichons and they are sold under the same name in the US, but the English call them gherkins. Tarragon is a key ingredient in Cornichon pickles.

POLISH PICKLES

A Polish Pickle contains more spices and garlic than a traditional dill pickle. A Polish Pickle tends to be peppery and is often flavored with mustard seeds.

I just came across this post on Polish Pickles from Stone Creek Trading (the company that imports the Polish Boleslawiec crock I recommend) sharing a recent visit to Poland:

Polish market stands overflowing with a wide variety of pickling cucumbers. A Polish pickle fermenting vessel. Pickles available right out of the “barrel” at the local supermarket.