Looking for a great homemade fermented pickle recipe? Look no more! This recipe makes lacto-fermented dill and garlic pickles that last ages and are so full of flavor.
New to fermenting? I’ll be your guide. Naturally fermenting pickles in brine is an old tradition that I’m happy to show you how to do - it’s a very simple and easy process.
How to Ferment Pickles
Fermenting cucumbers in a brine to make homemade pickles is my favorite way to use up excess cucumbers from the garden or the farmer’s market. It’s a quick and simple way to store and save up your cucumbers to eat them the rest of the year and they are very healthy too.
I got into fermenting a few years ago as a means to preserve a very productive garden. It made sense to save some of the abundance for the winter. There’s not a great way to save cabbage and I don’t really like canned homemade pickles (too soft in texture for me), so I started experimenting with fermenting. Later I learned of all the fermented vegetable health benefits and now I’m very intentional about fermenting lots of vegetables to have throughout the year.
This recipe is not for canning or bottling cucumbers. This recipe makes lacto-fermented pickles that sit in a brine for a few weeks and then can be kept in a cellar or the fridge for many months. The pickles are full of live and active cultures, stay nice and crisp (since they aren’t heated), and taste better than the refrigerated pickles at the grocery store.
What is fermenting or lacto-fermentation?
Simply put, vegetables are placed in a brine and kept submerged there for a few weeks. While they are there, the natural bacteria, especially Lactobacillus work their magic and turn the cucumbers into pickles. After a few weeks the pickles can be stored in the fridge or cellar for months.
You can read a much more in depth explanation of fermenting here.
Is fermenting (pickles/vegetables) healthy?
Yes! As I’ve started researching gut health for my own life, the more I have come to love the health benefits of fermented foods.
Fermenting foods is a centuries old tradition across all cultures. It wasn’t until the advent of refrigeration in the 1950’s that we started moving away from this preservation method. Now that we are a few decades away from fermenting, science is showing us why fermented foods should be added back into our diets.
Eating fermented foods, like homemade pickles, adds beneficial bacteria to your gut.
Fermented food health benefits include:
- They aid digestion
- Increase nutrient availability
- Improve brain function
- Improve blood sugar control
- Reduce inflammation
This is a short list of the health benefits of fermented foods. You can find sources and a more detailed list here.
Supplies for fermenting pickles at home:
- Clean glass jar, such as a ½ gallon canning jar: This recipe calls for a half gallon canning jar. You can also make it in 2 wide-mouth quart canning jars.
- Sea salt without anything added. Your goal is to make an environment for good bacteria to live, so making sure your salt doesn’t have additives is important.
- Unchlorinated water: Again, the reasoning is to make an environment for good bacteria to thrive, chlorine and heavily treated tap water make it hard for the things you want to live. Feel free to buy distilled water if you need.
- Cucumbers: there are so many kinds and you’ll get different results with each kind. You can use garden cucumbers, mini english cucumbers (like the kind they sell in a bag all together), or Kirby cucumbers. Don’t worry too much about what type of cucumber you are using, though I do like to use organic or homegrown when possible (again, the less it’s treated, the happier your beneficial bacteria will be). Look for cucumbers that are similar in size and about 4 inches long and about as fat as a quarter. I love to make whole cucumbers. I think they have the best texture in the end pickle, so pick some that are a good eating size for you.
- Seasoning and spices: I love dill and garlic pickles, but you can play around with seasonings a lot.
- Tannin containing leaves: this includes bay leaves (fresh is best), grape leaves, oak leaves and more. Adding a few of these to your pickling process helps to make the end pickles crisp. It’s an extra ingredient compared to many recipes you might find, but it’s my little trick to making amazing pickles at home.
What kind of cap or lid do I need for my jar to ferment food?
You can get as complicated as you like for this. The goal for the lid or fermenting tool is to help hold everything in the jar under the brine (air isn’t good for this process, it’ll lead to mold, so everything needs to stay fully under the brine).
There are many, many products that are lids or tools for fermenting. I have one Kraut Source lid and absolutely love it (I’d like to get another 1 or 2 so I can have more than one jar going!). It’s easy to use and easy to clean and it works great. It fits on any wide mouth glass canning jar.
You can also use a rock that is clean and fits inside the top of your jar. If you are using a rock you’ll also want a piece of fabric and a way to secure the fabric (a rubber band or a screw on canning lid without the flat, both work great). The purpose of the rock is to hold everything in the jar down into the brine and the cover will keep out bugs and dust. The rock has to be submerged below the brine too or it will mold. Because the cloth cover is light, the gas it creates will be able to easily escape. That being said, the cloth can also let too much brine evaporate, so you just have to keep an eye on it.
I also just got some of these glass weights from a friend and they work like a rock, but aren't a rock!
I think you should use what you have on hand. If you decide fermenting is really something you love, invest in some lids. If this is your first time, go find a rock. There's lots of different things you can try or invest in and I think they generally work the same, so do what fits your budget.
Trouble Shooting Fermented Pickles:
- Mold: if the contents of your jar are fully submerged in the brine you shouldn’t have any mold. If some of the contents are poking out, those will mold. If it grows furry mold on something that isn't fully submerged, you'll need to toss the whole batch.
- Film that could be mold on the top: Be aware that you can grow kahm yeast. It looks like a cloudy film on the surface of your brine and is a normal thing. Use a clean spoon to remove the film each day. It won't be fuzzy. Be aware that even if your cucumbers sink to the bottom of the jar in the beginning they might float a bit at the end, so use a weight (rock) or a lid even if it doesn’t look like you need it on the first day.
- Cloudy Brine: This is very normal and will normally happen within the first 3 days or so of the fermenting process. No issue there, in fact, plan on it happening, that's how you know your pickles are live and active.
How do I know when my pickles are done?
Taste! When they taste like a pickle, they are done. Normal fermentation times are 7-21 days. I know I like most things that are fermented about 14 days, so I let things sit for 10-14 days and then starter checking them daily by tasting until the desired sourness is achieved. You won’t over ferment something, and fermenting for less time just makes them less cellar stable and they probably have a few less active cultures. So if you ferment your pickles less than a few weeks, keep them in the fridge for longer storage.
Conditions of your home will impact fermenting time (what you fermented, how it was grown (which will impact the natural yeast and bacteria on the vegetable) as well as the temperature of your home. A warm kitchen will ferment cucumbers faster than a very hot or chilly kitchen. The bacteria have ideal environments in which they thrive and outside of those ideals, it just takes them longer to do their thing. If you are fermenting year-round, you’ll find this to be the case too as seasons/weather/temperatures fluctuate.
How to store fermented pickles:
Once the pickles are to your liking, you can remove the rock or lid and place a traditional lid on the jar (I like these one piece screw on lids a lot, or just use a canning flat and screw on lid). Pickles can be stored in cold storage or a root cellar or kept in the fridge. I just got a second fridge from a yard sale for my basement to keep my ferments in since I don’t have cold storage in my home. I’m so excited.
If you are storing your pickles out of the fridge just be sure to “burp” the jars (unscrew the lids to release built up gas) every few weeks or so.
More preserving and pickle recipes:
- How To Pickle Peppers (Hot Water Bath Canning Method)
- Grandma's Quick Pickled Cucumbers: Refrigerator Pickles
- Quick and Easy Refrigerator Pickled Banana Peppers
Easy Fermented Pickles
- Total Time: 15 min
- Yield: ½ gallon of pickles 1x
Description
Looking for a great homemade fermented pickle recipe? Look no more! This recipe makes lacto-fermented dill and garlic pickles that last ages and are so full of flavor and gut friendly bacteria.
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons sea salt
- 6 cups chlorine-free water*
- 5 or 6 grape, oak, horseradish, or bay leaves (see notes)
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 2 large heads of fresh or dried dill (or 1 heaping tablespoon dill seeds)
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional
- Enough small cucumbers to fill a half-gallon jar (about a pound)
- Round stone to use as a weight that fits in the jar or a fermenting lid kit
- ½ gallon glass canning jar or 2 wide mouth quart glass canning jars (instructions below are for using a ½ gallon jar, if you use 2 quart jars then split the ingredients equally between the two jars)
Instructions
- Make a brine by adding the sea salt to the water and stirring to combine. Stir until the salt dissolves into the water.
- Add 2 of the leaves to the bottom of the clean glass jar.
- Add half of the garlic, half of the dill, half of the peppercorns, half of the mustard seeds, and half the red pepper flakes (if using), to the bottom of the jar.
- Add half of the cucumbers to the jar. I like to pack them in nicely but not so tightly that they are going to bruise each other.
- Add 2 leaves on top of the cucumbers.
- Add the second half of the garlic, dill, peppercorns, mustard seeds, and red pepper flakes (if using) to the ½ gallon jar.
- Add the remaining half of the cucumbers to the ½ gallon jar.
- Fill the jar with brine so that it covers the cucumbers and comes about an inch from the top of the jar.
- Add the last leaf to the top of the jar and press it down and around the cucumbers so that it helps to cover them in the brine.
- Wash your stone well and place it on top of the leaf. The purpose is to help weigh down the cucumbers and leaf so that all of the cucumbers, leaf, and rock are kept under the brine. You can also use a brining cap for your jar. I have a Kraut Source lid and love it. If you use a rock make sure that it is fully submersed or it will grow mold.
- If you are using a stone, cover the top of the jar with a cloth and screw or tie something around the cloth (like a canning ring or a rubber band) to keep the cloth in place. This will help to prevent flies and dust from getting in your pickles.
- Place the prepared cucumbers in an out-of-the-way place, out of direct light.
- After a few days the brine will get a little cloudy and you’ll see a few bubbles starting to form on or around things in the jar. This is a great sign that the cucumbers are turning into pickles.
- Taste your pickles after 5-10 days. If you’d like them more sour continue letting them sit for up to 4 weeks, tasting as you go along, until desired sourness is achieved. Once the pickles taste to your liking place them covered in your fridge or in cold storage for long term storage. They can stay in your fridge for up to a year.
Notes
- The brine is full of healthy bacteria as well as the pickles. I like to use it in salad dressings, marinate pork and chicken in it, or splash a little in potato or tuna salad.
- The leaves that are listed contain tannins which help to keep the pickles crisp! The top leaf is also being used as a fermentation “cap” meaning it keeps what you are eating under the brine. If you are going to make pickles when grape leaves are not in season, you can pick the grape leaves and let them dry to have on hand for winter fermenting. Be sure to use leaves that have not been treated or sprayed with anything. You can skip the leaves all together if you don’t have them, though I do like the crisp pickles better.
- The salt brine is great at keeping things from molding. That being said, if you see mold on or in your pickles you’ll need to throw them out.
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Cook Time: 0 min
- Category: side
- Method: fermenting
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: fermented pickles, how to pickle cucumbers, fermented pickle recipe, how to ferment pickles, lacto-fermented pickles, fermenting pickles, dill pickle recipe
Robert Peevey
Can I slice the cucumbers before starting the fermentation process? This will allow me to get more cucumbers in the fermenting jar and have sliced pickles when finished.
★★★★★
Melissa
They tend to not stay as crunchy but you can!
CGK
Does it matter what type of oak tree leaves? I have live oaks and the leaves are much smaller than like a burr oak. How many should I use?
Melissa
My leave was about 5 inches tall and 3 across, so maybe about that same size? You can do a little googling to see if your scrub oak have the same tannins, I assume they do.
Paul
Question: After a few weeks when you choose to end the fermenting process, if you store the pickles in the brine (in the refrigerator), won't the fermenting process continue? How do you prevent the fermenting process from continuing? Thanks
Melissa
It slows very significantly when it's cold.
Marv
Can you add hot peppers along with the cucumbers?
Melissa
Yes and it's delicous
Tris10
Botulism risk?! You’re really saying people should leave an open container at room temp???
Melissa
It's a method of preservation that dates back thousands of years, if it's not for you, you can not make them but it's a time tested practice I think is very healthy and should be brought back into practice. Do some research, know your molds and bacteria, and ferment away!
Cassey
Yes. It's wonderfully good for you. I have taken a few college courses on fermentation and can tell you that fermenting at room temperature is normal and safe. I wouldn't worry about it any more than the other foods I prepare. There will always be some amount of risk with any food. Just keep things clean and have a clear understanding of what you are doing.
Rity
Im making some pickles now
Third day. On kitchen counter. There bubbling a lot. Should I Refrigerate them ?
Melissa
You can taste them too to see if they are tart enough, the bubbles are normal!