How to make pickles? Fermenting your own pickles

Category: Fermentation, Pickles

Making your own pickles is much easier than you think. And the best part: real pickles are fermented vegetables, not pickled in vinegar but flavored by lactic acid bacteria. This gives them that complex, fresh, slightly sour taste that you never get from a supermarket jar. With fresh small cucumbers, salt, water, and a few flavorings, you can get started. Within a week, you’ll have your first batch of crispy, homemade pickles ready.

WHAT IS FERMENTATION?

Fermentation is the process where microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, or molds convert sugars in food into other substances like lactic acid, alcohol, or acetic acid. With pickles, it’s about lactic acid fermentation. In this process, lactic acid bacteria convert the sugars in the cucumber into lactic acid. This lowers the pH, prevents spoilage, and provides a fresh, complex taste. It is a natural preservation method that has been used for centuries.

Why Ferment Pickles?

Most pickles from the supermarket are acidified in vinegar. Tasty, but often a bit one-dimensional in flavor. Fermented pickles develop a richer aroma thanks to lactic acid bacteria and retain their crispy bite. Fermenting is:

  • Simple, no complicated techniques or expensive equipment needed
  • Healthy, full of probiotics and vitamins
  • Creative, because you can vary endlessly with herbs and spices

THE RIGHT CUCUMBERS, EQUIPMENT AND SAFETY

You don’t need special equipment. A glass preserving jar or a stone sauerkraut crock works perfectly. Even a simple canning jar will do, as long as you prevent oxygen from getting in. The choice of cucumber, and the amount of salt however, is key for a crispy result ánd safe result.

1. Choose the Right Cucumbers

For the tastiest and firmest pickles, use small, firm pickling cucumbers. You can often recognize them by their slightly bumpy skin and compact shape. They contain less water than regular cucumbers, which helps them stay crispier during fermentation. Use freshly harvested cucumbers and avoid soft or damaged ones.

2. Add the right amount of salt

With 2% salt (that’s 20 grams per kilo of vegetables), you give lactic acid bacteria a head start. Less than 2% is risky, as it gives yeasts and molds a chance. More salt also inhibits the good bacteria and it becomes very salty quickly. Salt also draws moisture from your vegetables, which is useful for things like white cabbage: it produces enough of its own brine to be fully submerged. However, this requires the cabbage to be heavily massaged, which we cannot do with our cucumbers, as we’ll squish them. Instead we add a brine (salty liquid).

HOW TO CALCULATE THE AMOUNT OF SALT

You basically have two options: estimate or calculate. The estimate-option is easy: make a 5% brine (so around 50 grams of salt per liter) and simply submerge your pickles in this brine. This will give you roughly the right salt-level. The calculate-option is more precise: (the cucumbers + the amount of water needed to submerge them) * 2%. So, if you have 500 grams of cucumbers and 500 grams of water = 1 kg. 2% of 1 kg = 20 grams. Then add 20 grams of salt.

2. Ensure an anaerobic environment

Lactic acid bacteria work best without oxygen (anaerobically). Most other unwanted microbes, like molds, need oxygen. So, the trick is to keep your cucumbers submerged in the salt brine at all times. Use a weight to keep them down and a jar with an airlock to let fermentation gasses escape without letting air in.

Rotpot fermentation starterkitkimchi

Real pickles have a complex, fresh, slightly sour taste that you never get from a supermarket jar. – Meneer Wateetons

Handy tools to ensure safe fermentation

Simple Fermented Pickle Recipe

Ingredients (for a 1 liter jar):

  • 500 g small pickling cucumbers
  • ½ onion, chopped
  • ¼ bell pepper, finely chopped
  • 3 g mustard seeds
  • 1 g crushed fennel seeds
  • 1 sprig of dill
  • 2 g black peppercorns
  • Enough water to cover

  • 2% sea- or rocksalt (20 g per kilo total of vegetables + water)

Supplies:

  • Jar with a wide opening (fermenting crock, weck jar)
  • Sharp knife
  • Fermentation weight

preparation

1. Wash the cucumbers and remove the blossom end to prevent them from getting soft.
2. Chop the onion and bell pepper.
3. Place cucumbers, onion, pepper, and all spices in your clean jar.
4. Weigh the jar with vegetables. Add water to cover everything. Weigh again. Calculate 2% of the total weight (vegetables + water) and add that amount of salt. Stir to dissolve.
5. Make sure all vegetables are completely submerged in the brine. Use a fermentation weight to keep everything down.
6. Seal the jar, preferably with an airlock.
7. Let it ferment for about one week at room temperature (18–21 °C / 64–70 °F).
8. Taste regularly. Once they are sour and crispy enough for your liking, move the jar to the refrigerator to stop the fermentation.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT FERMENTING PICKLES

For the tastiest and firmest pickles, use small, firm pickling cucumbers. You can often recognize them by their slightly bumpy skin and compact shape. They contain less water than regular cucumbers, which helps them stay crispier during fermentation.

Yes, you can use regular snack cucumbers if you can’t find real pickling cucumbers, but you should expect a slightly softer end result as they contain more water.

The blossom end of a cucumber contains enzymes that can cause the pickles to become soft or even hollow during fermentation. Removing it helps to ensure your final pickles are firm and crispy.

No, you don’t need any special equipment to start. A simple glass preserving jar (like a Weck jar) or even a sturdy canning jar will work fine. The most important things are a container that you can seal and a way to keep the cucumbers submerged in the brine (a small plate or a fermentation weight works well).

No, you don’t need a starter culture as the microbes you need are naturally present on the vegetables. However, it can be useful when you:

  • want very consistent results, for example in a restaurant or industry
  • want to ferment cooked vegetables (e.g. fermented ketchups)
  • want to ferment with less salt
  • want to get quick results
  • you prefer not to take any risks with regard to safety
  • you’re currently using sauerkraut juice or whey to start your vegetable fermentation. That is absolutely inferior to a vegetable starter, which introduces a wider range of lactic acid bacteria than, for example, sauerkraut juice.Check out our vegetable starter culture here.

If you see some mold forming on the very surface of the brine, it’s usually not a cause for panic, especially if it’s just a small amount of white mold (kahm yeast). As long as the vegetables themselves have remained submerged under the brine, they are protected by the anaerobic, acidic environment. Simply scoop off the moldy layer from the surface with a clean spoon. The rest of the ferment should be perfectly safe and delicious.

For vegetable fermentation, uniodized sea salt or rock salt is usually used out of tradition and for cosmetic reasons (table salt can make the brine cloudy). However, in principle, you can use any kind of salt you have at home: iodized salt, sea salt, rock salt, or even low-sodium salts. The iodine concentration in table salt is too low to significantly impact the good bacteria.

Want to learn more? Take our comprehensive vegetable fermentation course

Safely and creatively

In 30+ bite sized English spoken video lessons you will learn all about making fermented vegetables at home, without the need for special tools.

  • Learn to ferment all vegetables
  • Save money, by never having to buy fermented vegetables again
  • Incite your culinairy creativity
  • Promote your probiotics
  • Many free bonusses: including a FREE bonuscourse: the basics of fermentation.

by Fermentation fundamentals

This course is part of our Fermentation Fundamentals education program.

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